A large sinkhole caused officials to close Whiteland Road near Whiteland Community High School on Tuesday.
Photo provided by Whiteland Police
UPDATE: 2:40 p.m. Tuesday
Crews are working to fix a small section of Whiteland Road that collapsed from a sinkhole Tuesday, but officials do not know when the road will reopen.
Before the sinkhole formed, the town had been planning to work on the road. A small section had been patched “as a band-aid” over the winter with gravel and asphalt patching as a temporary fix, but town officials planned a more permanent fix once winter had passed, said Carmen Young, the town’s director of administration.
“They’d been patching it over the winter to get it fixed,” Young said. “It was a temporary patch for a bigger project that needed to be done.”
The heavy rainfall overnight ultimately led to the temporary fix collapsing, she said.
So far, work crews have cut out a 10-foot section of one lane of Whiteland Road to rebuild the road, Young said. Cost estimates are not yet available.
It is also not known when the road will reopen, as the work to fix it is weather-dependent, she said.
Original story
A sinkhole has closed Whiteland Road to traffic in the heart of the town Tuesday morning.
Whiteland Road is closed to all traffic from U.S. 31 to the railroad tracks just east of the Whiteland Town Hall due to the sinkhole, which formed along the road near Brewer Ditch and Whiteland Community High School. The sinkhole, which measured 3 feet wide and 5 feet deep as of 8:55 a.m. Tuesday, formed due to significant rain and flooding, Whiteland officials said in various social media posts.
Officials have put a detour in place that follows U.S. 31 to Tracy Road to Front Street and vice versa, according to the town.
This story will be updated.
