Homeowner suing county for giant sinkhole

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    KENNESAW, GA (WGCL ) — A Kennesaw homeowner is suing Cobb County over fixing a giant sink hole forming in front of her home.

Engineers told the homeowner the county’s broken storm drainpipe is to blame.

The homeowner, Shari Stuart, says Cobb County should pay the more than $50,000 it would cost to fix it.

“The driveway just kind of caved in,” said Stuart about when she first noticed something was off in March of 2019, “I noticed there was a hole underneath the concrete of the driveway…I kind of freaked out.”

She called her insurance company after worrying about her home, the kids, and pets in her neighborhood.

“It would be easy for somebody just to fall in,” Stuart added.

She knows how dangerous it is, because a rideshare driver who wasn’t paying attention actually did fall in.

“Didn’t notice the caution tape and went to pull in the driveway and basically fell in,” Stuart said.

Her insurance sent out an engineer to figure out what was causing this sinkhole.

“Found a broken storm drainpipe, said it was leaking underneath the driveway,” added Stuart.

Her insurance told her they don’t cover driveways, only dwellings, and it hasn’t impacted her house…yet.

“This is what I put up, the caution tape,” Stuart said about the orange cones and caution tape in front of her driveway.

The storm drain and pipes belong to Cobb County, so she contacted them.

Cobb County sent out representatives and she was told it’s on her property, therefore her problem.

“There’s legal action pending, but of course, Cobb County says you need to drop the lawsuit, and if you don’t, we may charge you nuisance fee for having this on your property,” said Stuart.

But she’s not dropping it.

“I didn’t put the storm drainpipe there, I didn’t break it, this has nothing to do with me,” added Stuart.

Once she hired an attorney last summer, she said Cobb County came back out.

“Even though they said it wasn’t their problem, they replaced the pipe…so it was definitely broken, or I’m sure they wouldn’t replace an unbroken pipe,” Stuart said.

Cobb County’s attorney said the sunken area resulted from a trash pit buried by the property’s developers several decades ago. He added that the damage to her property was not caused by the county and, therefore, cannot assume responsibility. Due to threatened litigation, the county wouldn’t respond further.

Stuart said this past year has been an absolute nightmare.

“Hell is it the best word I can think of,” said Stuart.

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