A 40-foot sinkhole developed inside the National Corvette Museum overnight in Bowling Green, KY, swallowing up eight vehicles, including two Corvette models on loan from General Motors. No one was in the museum at the time of the incident, which happened early this morning.
According to the NCM, motion sensors were set off at 5:44 AM, leading museum authorities to discover a 25 to 30-foot deep chasm, that Executive Director Wendell Strode called "pretty significant." The sinkhole developed in the museum's Skydome, although it can't be seen on any of the museum's webcams (the Enthusiast cam is the closest look we can get to what's going on).
The Louisville Courier-Journal reports emergency personnel remain on the scene, and have only allowed museum employees to remove a single vehicle – the only remaining 1983 Corvette, which was part of a mere 44-vehicle run.
The two cars on loan from GM were a 1993 ZR-1 Spyder and a 2009 ZR1 "Blue Devil," while the damanged museum-owned cars included a 1962 Corvette, the millionth Vette ever built (a 1992), a 2001 Mallett Hammer Z06 and the 1.5 millionth car produced. None of the damaged vehicles were on loan from private individuals. The extent of the damage to these vehicles remains unclear at this time.
Will all that fiberglass cause a drinking water problem (West Virginia)? In 1981 a sinkhole opened up in Winter Park FL and swallowed a few Porsches and a swimming pool. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVRZSvhsK3s
I heard an interview yesterday with a spokesperson from the museum. One of the suggestions was to leave them down there, cover the hole with a thick plexi plate and make the hole and cars part of the exhibits as is.
[This message has been edited by maryjane (edited 02-13-2014).]
[B]I heard an interview yesterday with a spokesperson from the museum. One of the suggestions was to leave them down there, cover the hole with a thick plexi plate and make the hole and cars part of the exhibits as is.
Next question.
Isn't DC riddled with underground caverns?
With luck, the whole thing could be added to a new Smithsonian exhibit.
I heard an interview yesterday with a spokesperson from the museum. One of the suggestions was to leave them down there, cover the hole with a thick plexi plate and make the hole and cars part of the exhibits as is.
wouldn't it be better to bring them back up and restore them? Not to mention the problem of an unstable sinkhole....
Considering that most were on loan, I don't think they will leave them down there very long. Ky is crisscrossed with limestone karst. Collapse is not uncommon there at all when water dissolves the limestone. According to the interview, there was at least one other car in the hole on loan from a private owner. A pristine black 62 Vette.
[This message has been edited by maryjane (edited 02-13-2014).]
Florida couple drives 13 hours to see their Corvette in museum sinkhole
It wasn't any easy thing for any Corvette enthusiast to see, but the sinkhole that appeared last week at the National Corvette Museum tore a hole of its own in the hearts of Kevin and Linda Helmintoller. That's because their car was one of the eight Vettes that was sucked into the pit in Bowling Green. So rather than sit at home in Tampa, they drove 13 hours from Florida to Kentucky to see what was going on first hand.
What they found was that their Chevrolet – a modified 2001 C5 model with a Mallett conversion and AntiVenom kit – was sitting the deepest in the sinkhole. The Helmintollers had recently loaned the car (leaving them without a Corvette for the first time since 1996) and had yet to see it on display when the curators took it out of storage and put it in the middle of the Skydome where the sinkhole emerged.
It's expected to take a couple of weeks for workers to recover the cars from the sinkhole, after which Chevrolet will oversee their restoration. But as you can see from the video below, the Helmintollers are understandably skeptical that their prized 700-horsepower C5 will ever be quite the same again.
So I guess "None of the damaged vehicles were on loan from private individuals." from the first article was incorrect???
"The Helmintollers had recently loaned the car (leaving them without a Corvette for the first time since 1996) and had yet to see it on display when the curators took it out of storage and put it in the middle of the Skydome where the sinkhole emerged."
That would really suck. Hope they make out in the end.
So I guess "None of the damaged vehicles were on loan from private individuals." from the first article was incorrect???
"The Helmintollers had recently loaned the car (leaving them without a Corvette for the first time since 1996) and had yet to see it on display when the curators took it out of storage and put it in the middle of the Skydome where the sinkhole emerged."
That would really suck. Hope they make out in the end.
Kevin
Yeah that confused me too, other articles seem to say many of them were on loan.
This week began the extraction of said Corvettes, including the first one out -- a ZR1 "Blue Devil" that was driven out of the showroom in good condition.
You would think since these are all prized possessions, they would just roll them away (if they roll) and give them a thorough check out before even trying to start one. That looks like almost all the crankcase oil is on the floor. They may have just ruined a perfectly good engine with just a hole in an oilpan.
Wake up, sheeple! You probably still believe that an alleged "Corvette Museum" had a "sinkhole" open under it and swallow up some "cars." And for that I pity you. Because, clearly, this whole sinkhole business is a huge hoax. Don't believe me? Well, it's on the internet.
This video is one of the only places you can find people going against the lame-stream media and telling the truth about what happened at this Corvette Museum, if it even exists. There was no sinkhole, people. Listen to the guy in the video! Some of the sizes of things don't exactly look quite right! It's all a huge fake. Just like how those two trained chimps in that rubber "Travis Okulski" suit faked being in that fake taxi with that pretend fake Jeff Gordon. Fake fake fake.
Also, this guy is the only one with the balls to call out Chevrolet's use of carbon fiber for Corvette bodies, and not that "fiberglass" bullshit they've been claiming since the 1950s. Oldest trick in the book — call your crazy expensive material something much, much cheeper, and rake in the money.
I mean, think about it — of course a Corvette museum is going to fake a giant sinkhole to swallow up a bunch of its cars. It makes total sense when you look at the big plan: first they get us to believe a sinkhole is swallowing Corvettes, which sets the public up to both sympathetically think of Government Motors and to be accepting of the soon-to be revealed Hollow Earth planetary structure.
That paves the way for Obama and his secret partners at the Dutch Lego Conglomoration to convince honest Americans, via the National Council of Churches (a front organization run by the Peat Moss lobby) to start ingesting large quantities of frozen yogurt which, when combined with subdermal interfaces found in all underwear elastic, create a population ready for drone-based mind control.
From there, it's easy to see how the Reptillian Zionists who run the Shadow Government and the Shakey's Pizza chain will be in a position to take over and get the world ready for the endgame: universal acceptance of the Neo-Metric system.
Also, Benghazi.
It's a chilling future, people, and it all starts with some fake Corvettes not falling into a fake sinkhole that doesn't even exist in Kentucky, which is really the public name of the secret state of Franklin.
You would think since these are all prized possessions, they would just roll them away (if they roll) and give them a thorough check out before even trying to start one. That looks like almost all the crankcase oil is on the floor. They may have just ruined a perfectly good engine with just a hole in an oilpan.
I'll agree with you on that, what a bunch of amateurs, doesn't say much for the Museum in charge of the cars.
I'll agree with you on that, what a bunch of amateurs, doesn't say much for the Museum in charge of the cars.
Is this oil from this Vette? Possibly it was from something else and was on the floor before hand? If it was from this Vette was it for sure from the engine? Check on the Corvette forum. I'm sure they have discussed it in depth.
Is this oil from this Vette? Possibly it was from something else and was on the floor before hand? If it was from this Vette was it for sure from the engine? Check on the Corvette forum. I'm sure they have discussed it in depth.
Rodney
Not really sure, but it sure looks like it, and he did kill the engine quick after someone noticed oil on the floor. As Roger stated, I'm very surprised the Museum didn't specify that all vehicle were not to be started, push only, until they could be examined for damage.
If it was engine oil I'm sure an oil light would come on. Not when they first started it. When it dumped enough oil that the oil pick up started scavenging air/oil and the oil pressure started dropping. Maybe when it was pulling out the driver noticed that and stopped. You can see it was still dropping oil as it drove out. I can see the driver stopped right away. Possibly the engine management system would even shut the engine down before the oil pressure got closer to zero. I doubt they did any damage to the engine unless they took it for a joy ride with no oil. Possibly this Vette even had an audible alarm saying engine oil pressure low. Many on the Vetter forum would probably know what happens when this year Vette drops the oil from the engine and the oil pressure drops.
I'm very surprised the Museum didn't specify that all vehicle were not to be started, push only, until they could be examined for damage.
I'm sure the key was in it. Someone decided to see if it would start. It did and he drove it out. After this I'm sure they made everyone aware that none would be started. These things happen. It is only a crime if they would do it a second time.
News I heard SAID it "...only had a hole in the oilpan which leaked out all the oil "
The guy in the fake story is a nutcase, lol. For one thing mentioning one is matt and one shiney....I would expect them to be all covered with lots of dust after a cave in. My shiney cars always looked like crap after driving on a dirt or gravel road.