Cause of Wolseley sinkhole under investigation

A Wolseley resident woke up Saturday to learn his car had slumped into a sinkhole that formed underneath it overnight.

“It’s pretty dangerous,” said Newman Street resident Michael Burkholder of the roughly two-metre wide hole.

“We have a lot of kids on our street, and kids like to check stuff out — even adults, people were going right up to the edge and looking.”

A neighbour had texted him a photo of his vehicle on Saturday at about 7:30 a.m. to advise him of the situation and to say he had put up pylons around Burkholder’s vehicle — one of its wheels had fallen into the hole — to keep others away.

“It could have gotten worse, it could have eaten up more,” he said, noting the short street between Wolseley and Portage avenues had another, even larger sinkhole a bit less than a decade ago.

City workers arrived later in the morning and called a tow truck to pull the vehicle onto the street, before putting boards atop the roughly two-metre-wide sinkhole and barricades around it. There’s no word yet on when the hole will be fully repaired, said City of Winnipeg spokeswoman Julie Dooley.

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Although Dooley said workers are still investigating the cause of the sinkhole, Burkholder said the word on Newman Street is it may be related to a sewage pipe, damaged in last week’s heavy rainstorms, that connects to a neighbour’s home.

“There’s a lot of water in the ground, wreaking havoc on an old system, old pipes,” said Burkholder.

“I know the city was dealing with a lot (after the storm) but even just to get out there quickly and cover it up or barricade it, until they can figure what else to do, I think, would be more helpful.”

There have been several sinkholes in Winnipeg recently, including one on a Wolseley neighbourhood boulevard in late April that a woman fell into unexpectedly, and another much larger sinkhole that opened up on Washington Avenue in East Kildonan following a water main break earlier in April.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca

Erik Pindera
Reporter

Erik Pindera is a reporter for the Free Press, mostly focusing on crime and justice. The born-and-bred Winnipegger attended Red River College Polytechnic, wrote for the community newspaper in Kenora, Ont. and reported on television and radio in Winnipeg before joining the Free Press in 2020.  Read more about Erik.

Every piece of reporting Erik produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.