Les Jones

A TDOT engineer is quoted as saying "this could happen anytime, anywhere." Yes, of course it could. There is just no predicting where a sinkhole might open up! It's not like someone marginally competent at reading a topographic map can pick out where sinkholes might be, and certainly a geologist with charts of rock types and cross sections of subsurface conditions is completely helpless at guessing where the earth might open up.

No, the problem is not that TDOT cut costs when building that interchange over a blue-line stream, nor is it illegal for them to fill this hole with rock and soil, as they are probably doing as I type this. The problem is that God is Arbitrary and Capricious.

The next sinkhole to open up will probably swallow LeConte Lodge.

Rather ironic that Knox County Commission is having Storm Water workshops at this time isn't it?

On a thread over on KTB Rikki and I debate whether RCP (reinforced concrete pipe) is superior to metal and plastic. To hear County Commissioner Lumpy Lambert talk RCP costs to much and if installed correctly metal is just as good. Well it isn't. Every time you see one of this "Instant sinkhole-just add water" events you have to remember that if you build it right the first time you don't have these problems.

From the previous thread:

http://knoxvilletennesseeblog.com/index.php/politics/two-important-columns-on-knox-county-stormwater/62/#comments

persimmon said,
on April 28th, 2007 at 10:56 am
Lumpy is right that other materials can achieve the same strength and durability as RCP, but the critical characteristic in this context is reliability. Installation of RCP is routine. The pipes are precast and just need to be positioned. With other kinds of pipes, more skill is needed. Concrete might need to be poured or segments might need to be welded or glued. If a metal pipe gets dented during installation, it will corrode more rapidly. There are more points of failure, so reliability is diminished.

Developers have pretty much made their bed on this issue. For decades, they have consistently cut corners or just ignored stormwater management, but now they want to be trusted to do more complex installations of cheaper materials.

My bet's on Thompson Boling Arena.

You'll probably win that bet, Barry. Once upon a long time ago, we went on a tourists' tour of Knoxville. We learned that the Butcher Bank buildings (aka BBT now?), indeed most of downtown Knoxville, to include most of the UT campus, are built on an enormous maze of limestone caverns. Before the bank buildings were started, they poured 3 cubic miles of cement into the ground to try to give the building a stable base for their foundations. They never saw the top of all that cement. It just poured in and disappeared.

You know how Gay Street dips down like that? Yep. Sink hole. All those buildings along through there have no basement. What was once their basement became the ground floor.

People talk about how California is gonna slide off into the Pacific one day. I bet downtown Knoxville will end up in the Tennessee River first.

Oh, and you know how Parkside Drive is like a roller coaster? They build all of that on an old landfill. It's not quite old enough and is still settling.