The failure of a 48-inch-diameter concrete pipe, buried 15 feet in the ground, has been identified as the cause of a ground collapse earlier this month that knocked down a wall and swallowed an ice machine at a Baxter Street car wash.
Technically, because it is the result of an infrastructure failure rather than any natural dissolving of subsurface rock or dirt by groundwater, the collapse can’t properly be referred to as a sinkhole, according to Kevin Gentry, streets and drainage superintendent with the Athens-Clarke County Transportation & Public Works Department.
The collapse, which opened up a 15-foot-wide, 8-foot-deep hole at Baxter Car Wash, 1064 Baxter St., occurred in the late hours of Aug. 17, in the wake of a series of heavy rains in the area. Gentry said Wednesday the failed section of concrete pipe was discovered by a county crew probing pipes in the area with cameras and other equipment in the days after the collapse. The county was on the scene to determine whether the collapse was a result of any failure in the county-installed stormwater infrastructure along Baxter Street, according to Gentry.
Gentry said the damaged pipe is located well outside of the Baxter Street right of way, which extends 10 feet along both sides of the street, meaning that it was not a county-installed pipe that failed. Using the date on a plat of the property on which the damaged pipe was found, the county was able to determine that, whoever had installed the pipe, the work was done sometime in 1971, or possibly earlier, according to Gentry. The county does not know what cause the concrete pipe to fail, Gentry said.
In an interview immediately following the ground collapse, Gentry said that, if it turned out the damaged pipe was outside the county’s right of way, county personnel would nonetheless be available to informally advise the property owner with regard to repairing the pipe.
The car wash is owned by Lamain. Inc., a company operated by local brothers Rob and Rex Coffeen, who also own a car wash in Lexington. Gentry said county officials met with the property owners earlier this week, but he would not comment on the substance of the meeting. A telephone call to Lamain, Inc., was not immediately returned Wednesday.
The end of the car wash where the wall collapsed is supported by a steel beam resting atop two pillars of stacked wood, the ice machine has been removed from the hole, and access to half of the car wash’s bays is blocked by strands of yellow and red tape.
As of late last week, according to Sheila Coffeen, Rob Coffeen’s wife, Lamain Inc. was waiting to hear from its insurance adjusters regarding repair of the damaged car wash, which she said represented a significant portion of the owning families’ incomes.