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A Chicago woman’s Mercedes is nearly swallowed by a seven-foot-deep SINKHOLE after construction workers pour asphalt over basement roof, turning it into a $165-a-month parking lot
- Danielle, who didn’t give her name, found that her white Mercedes narrowly missed a sinkhole developing under her rear tires.
- Her parking lot—which she pays $165 a month—was built on an abandoned basement that hadn’t been backfilled
- Her insurance claims the sinkhole is an ‘act of God’ and may not help her pay for the damage to her car
- However, civil engineer Mae Whiteside Williams said it was a case of someone ‘royally screwing up’
- Building owner Mike Fifield said he wasn’t aware of the basement and would see if there were others
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A Chicago woman nearly lost her Mercedes in a sinkhole after blundering construction workers poured asphalt over the roof of a basement and turned it into a parking lot.
The woman, who only wanted to be known as Danielle, was shocked to find the back of her Mercedes SUV on the edge of the huge sinkhole under her car on Wednesday. She pays $165 a month to use the space.
The rear tires of the immaculate white car can be seen with open sky below, with the car’s rear bumper seemingly the only thing stopping it from falling into the six-foot crater.
‘Uh yeah, it was in the hole,’ Danielle laughed as she spoke to him CBS 2. ‘Thank God I wasn’t there.
“I’m concerned about this whole block, but not just this block, others in the area, because that parking situation is pretty typical here.”
On Wednesday, a seven-foot sinkhole opened under the white Mercedes of a Chicago woman
The $165-a-month parking lot was built on an abandoned basement that wasn’t backfilled
Danielle, who did not give her last name, said her insurance company is calling the incident an “act of God” and may not help pay for the damage
Now her insurance company claims the sinkhole is an “act of God” and may not help her pay for the damage to her car.
However, Mae Whiteside Williams, who works for a civil engineering firm, told CBS 2 that it was not divine intervention, but “someone ruining it royally.”
“I mean, you’re talking about safety,” she said. “They probably said, ‘Okay, that’s good enough,’ but it’s not. It is clearly a huge void. It’s about six or seven feet deep there.”
Williams said someone just poured asphalt over the garage roof instead of filling it to provide support.
“Essentially, this section acts as a bridge,” Williams told the outlet.
However, the building’s owner, Steve Fifield, claimed he was unaware that there was a basement under the parking lot.
According to CBS 2, there are no building permits showing that the pavement has been registered.
Fifield told the outlet he would investigate his other properties in the area to see if similar situations arise.
“Once you’ve been warned, you have to be proactive and that’s what we do,” he said.
Building owner Mike Fifield (pictured) said he wasn’t aware the site was built over an abandoned basement and would look into it to see if there was more.
Mae Whiteside Williams, who works for a civil engineering firm, doesn’t believe the insurance company’s claim it was divine intervention, but rather “one who ruined it royally”