Water Utility: Homes along sinkhole-ridden La Placita Avenue are safe

The West El Paso neighborhood street where a massive sinkhole developed over the weekend, swallowing up an SUV, has now developed two additional sinkholes, leading to a complete shutdown of the street.

All three sinkholes can be found on La Placita Avenue near Villa Hermosa Drive. La Placita remains completely closed and Villa Hermosa is closed to through traffic.

Residents in the neighborhood are worried about their homes, although El Paso Water officials believe this problem, caused by the collapse of two four-foot storm drains, remains confined to the street and sidewalk.

“I am, worried, yes,” said Elia Valles, whose driveway is blocked by the largest sinkhole. “I want to know what the city is doing to check to make sure the ground is safe and my children are safe here.”

A spokesperson for El Paso Water assured homes are safe, at this point.

“We know that the homes and apartment complexes are fine,” said Christina Montoya, spokesperson for EPWU. “We are making arrangements to repair that section of that storm drain as soon as possible. We have contractors here right now, they’re already making plans about how they are going to completely remove the collapsed storm drain and put in a new storm drain.”

Montoya admits that could take some time.

“I’m concerned about that,” said Katelynn Grice, who lives on Villa Hermosa. “I’m not quite where we are going to park, how I’m going to get groceries into the house.”

Montoya would not offer an estimate of how long it will take or how expensive the fix will be.

“We are going to have to redirect the funds that are needed for this emergency project from something else,” she said.

A neighbor who did not want to appear on camera told ABC-7 that at the corner of La Placita and Westwind two years ago they had a similar sinkhole. He thinks they should have looked at the whole system at that time.

“That was a long project,” Valles said. “They took quite a bit of time to fix that. But yes I remember that. I don’t know if they knew how bad this was, but it would have been a good idea to have looked at all this.”

ABC-7 asked Montoya about that previous sinkhole.

“I would have to look into it,” Montoya said. “I don’t have an answer for you at this point.”

El Paso Water is asking people who do not live or have business in this area to avoid it out of concern of further collapse.

There is no estimate at this point on how long this fix will take or how much it will cost.