More than twenty-four hours after sinkhole swallows car, pavement continues to crumble

More than 24 hours after a massive sinkhole swallowed a car in west El Paso, the pavement surrounding the pit continues to crumble. “This was not on our radar,” said Alan Schubert, vice president of operations for El Paso Water’s technical services. “It was overwhelmed with the rain, and it’s an old system. it’s old and in bad shape, all corroded and needs some work.” The sinkhole opened up immediately before Brisa Castor’s quinceañera. “I don’t want to drive down the street anymore,” Castor said. Onlookers traveled from across the city to get a glimpse. “To be honest with you, I was out, you know, cruising with my wife and my baby girl, and my wife was looking at the news on Facebook,” said Quenton Malone, who lives in El Paso. Sure enough, she put it in the GPS and I had to come take a look for myself.” Malone has lived in El Paso for three years. He said this sinkhole is more extreme than weather he’s seen in other parts of the country. “I’ve been in a tornado and an earthquake in the same week, but this is something special,” Malone said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” Schubert said the city has extremely limited funds to fix aging water infrastructure. “We’re about a hundred million dollars in to a billion dollar problem,” Schubert said. It’s not clear when the road will get fixed. “It’s scary!” Malone said. “You could just be driving on any road, and it just – can just open up on you and you could be stuck in there. Very, very chilling.”