We used to see occasional news reports where entire Florida buildings and homes just simply sunk and disappeared into a huge cavernous hole in the ground, aka "sinkholes". We surmise that these new reports are now being suppressed by the Florida tourism and real estate industries to avoid scaring people away from "the porous state" (aka, the "poor us" state).
Evidence of this much to obvious fact would be that the rise in insurance claims due to sinkholes forming -- swallowing up surface structures, trees, and vehicles -- have "skyrocketed" in Florida in the past three years.
A recent state Office of Insurance Regulation report indicated that -- of the insurance companies responding to their requests -- 24,671 sinkhole claims have been filed in Florida since 2006. In 2006, there were 2,360 sinkhole claims, but by 2009 the number of yearly claims tripled, rising to 7,244 claims (I know, these figures do not appear to "add up" well, but hey they are from a state office).
It has been stated that this year’s (2010) sinkhole claims in Florida could exceed the entirety of the previous three years claims combined. Also realize that the state of Florida is now conducting expensive preemptive tests ($9,000 per test?) by drilling deep holes in areas suspected of potentially having more sinkholes form, for advance warnings was the implication... "Drilling deep holes"??? Um, wouldn't that...oh, never mind...
Scientists and engineers indicate that the increasing density of Florida development (adding weight to surfaces) along with the increasing consumption of water that causes water levels of the underground aquifers to drop, in turn cause limestone and other materials under the topsoil to simply collapse, forming large sinkholes which can swallow entire buildings...
Not only is the incidence of sinkhole formation "skyrocketing" statewide, with the majority of sinkholes having previously "surfaced" mostly in the central part of Florida, but now the number of sinkhole claims tripled over the same three year time frame, with the number in Broward County increasing eleven-fold from 10 to 112, and the number in Miami-Dade County increasing five-fold from 22 to 111, both being coastal counties where the aquifers are not only being drained at an increasingly alarming rate, and the same aquifers are suffering encroachment by ocean waters (loaded with salt, toxins, and bacteria), with sea water infiltration said to be flooding the aquifers as much as one mile inland at this point in time.
Footnote: the aforementioned figures are said to be suspected to be considerably lower than actual, due to the facts that it appears that not all insurance companies reported all of their claims, and many sinkholes magically open up on non-residential and public lands where buildings and vehicles are not swallowed up, therefore no insurance claim was filed.
Parting shot for the FloriDUH category. I personally recall seeing pictures of Florida underground mining operations (limestone and/or salt?) in which the area "cleared out" was immensely cavernous, depicting one of those huge industrial bulk hauling trucks that looked like a toy truck in a cave. But, ssshhhh, don't tell anyone living in or visiting Florida, as the thought of huge tracts of land above these empty mined-out areas caving in might not be conducive to them sleeping well, thinking about awakening at the bottom of a sinkhole chasm with with tons of earth entombing them...
Here is a link to one of many articles on the Florida sinkhole revelation via the understated insurance reports...
And, another one: "Sinkholes and Stacks; Florida's Phosphate Mines are a Hazard...
