20ft-wide sinkhole that killed a man and swallowed his home in 2013 has reopened in Florida

A sinkhole that took the life and home of a Florida man while he slept has returned for a third time.

Since the death of 37-year-old Seffner, Florida-resident in 2013, the sinkhole has been surrounded by a chain-link fence in an effort to protect residents of the Tampa suburb from further harm. 

An effort in 2015 saw officials fill the hole with a mixture of gravel and water after it opened for a second time.

However, the sinkhole has grown to 19 feet (6 meters) wide at its largest — and state records show that Florida sinkholes can grow to as large as 400 feet (121 meters), swallowing cars, businesses and in one 2006 instance draining nearby Scott Lake.

‘None of the homes surrounding this appear to be in any danger,’ according to Jon-Paul Lavandeira, director of the surrounding Hillsborough County code enforcement department. 

Demolition experts watch as the home destroyed March 3, 2013, after a sinkhole opened up underneath it 

Dunedin Deputy Fire Chief Trip Barrs said the hole appeared to be about 12-feet wide when officials arrived on the scene at the time in 2013

The earth opened up on the night of February 28, 2013, when 37-year-old Jeff Bush was consumed by the sinkhole while asleep in his bedroom in Seffner — a suburb of 8,000 people 15 miles east of downtown Tampa.

Five others escaped the home unharmed as it was partially absorbed by the maw of the sinkhole, including Jeff’s brother, Jeremy, who returned in an effort to save him.

Jeremy Bush, then 36-years old, recalled how he desperately tried to pull his brother from the rubble as he heard Jeff’s screams for help.

‘I ran in there and heard somebody screaming, my brother screaming, and I ran in there,’ he told My Fox Tampa Bay .

‘And all I see is this big hole. All I see is the top of his bed. I didn’t see anything else, so I jumped in the hole and tried getting him out.

Jeff Bush’s body has never been recovered from the sinkhole and his final resting place underground — where Florida’s porous limestone moved the groundwater that took out the foundations of his home — is still unknown. 

Without a grave site to mourn his brother, the fenced-off property has served as a grim memorial of the 2013 tragedy for Jeremy and his family. 

‘This is the only place I’ve got to visit him,’ Jeremy Bush told St. Petersburg, Florida’s CSB affiliate WTSP-TV. ‘There’s not a day goes by I don’t think about my brother.’ 

The sinkhole (pictured) has grown to 19 feet (6 meters) wide, but the  director of the surrounding Hillsborough County code enforcement department, Jon-Paul Lavandeira, has assured the public that none of the surrounding homes ‘appear to be in any danger’ 

The earth opened up on the night of February 28, 2013, when Seffner, Florida-native Jeff Bush was consumed by a sinkhole while asleep in his bedroom. Demolition crews remove items from Bush’s home on Monday, March 4, 2013 (left). Bush (right) was 37 year old

Paul Lavandeira, director of county code enforcement, told the Associated Press that another attempt will be made to fill-in the sinkhole with water and gravel. 

‘This is not uncommon, what we’re seeing here,’ Lavandeira said. ‘We received a call yesterday evening regarding the reopening of the depression, so we responded in conjunction with Fire Rescue and the Sheriff’s Office.’ 

‘We ascertained that the neighboring properties were safe,’ according to Lavandeira. ‘If there’s a reoccurrence, it’s in a controlled area. It’s going to stay right there.’

Sinkholes cost Florida insurers $1.4 billion between 2006 and 2010 alone, according to the state’s Office of Insurance Regulation.

The phenomena stems from the interaction between the porous limestone and other carbonate rocks that absorb the high marshy coastal water table and top-heavy pressure on these volatile underground sediments.

‘There’s hardly a place in Florida that’s immune to sinkholes,’ said geology consultant Sandy Nettles, ‘There’s no way of ever predicting where a sinkhole is going to occur.’

While many sinkholes are quite small and deaths are rare, some of the state’s sinkhole events have consumed areas as big as a block. 

One infamous 1981 sinkhole in Winter Park near Orlando, grew to 400 feet in diameter, swallowing-up five cars, two businesses, a three-bedroom house, nearby streets and the deep end of an Olympic-size swimming pool.

Although there is no indication yet that the Seffner sinkhole could reach that level of damage, Lavandeira expressed his view that the hole will very likely reopen again one day in the future.

‘This is Mother Nature,’ he noted. ‘This is not a man-made occurrence.’