The Napoleonville Sink Hole Is Expanding

A Houston-based brine company says a sinkhole formed in Assumption Parish that may be connected to one of the company’s salt caverns.

Assumption Parish officials ordered an evacuation Aug. 3, the day the sinkhole was found.

The experts predicted it correctly when they assumed that the sinkhole would continue to expand, and new findings prove it.

Kim Torres, Assumption Parish Police Jury spokeswoman, says that the sinkhole grew by 50 feet yesterday as the nearest things surrounding it were pulled into the hole.

Two cleanup workers in a boat near the site almost fell in and had be rescued by airboat. Their boat was pulled into the muck, even though it was tied to a tree.

No injuries have been reported, but cleanup has been stopped due to the expansion.

Officials are now saying that the sinkhole might be related to a brine cavern drilled into the Napoleonville salt dome. Houston-based Texas Brine Co., owners of the dome, began shipping equipment for a relief well Wednesday.