Going to be very interesting to hear the engineers reports. Post have said they built on a sinkhole. From drone photos a vast void can be seen of ? Depth. Filling in should interesting. When do rebuild the support foundation is going to something. Just a good bet the whole complex may need a complete review. The corvette trinket shop may be 40' under next

After looking at the 1993 sat image, it shows the road winding around where the museum was eventually built. Why was the road winding around like that when there was nothing to go around yet? Was the land that sloped into the karst sinkhole and they built it up to put the museum on?

Sure hope they get this remedied with minimal cost and demolition.

Why are some of the cars listed already condemned? From the pictures floating around the internet, it seams like many can still be fished out. Sure, they will be damage, but fixable.

I could see a donation thing going to help get them out.

The road was built based upon the original contour of the land, kind of like picking the best location to build a road through the mountains. Likewise, the museum was built on a "high spot", and there was no significant fill under the museum, only enough to level out the building footprint. As for the winding road, Corvette Drive was built to navigate around numerous low spots, as can be seen via satellite images.

:cheers:

That certainly looks like a man made feature, given the even grading of the side slopes and the rock lined spillway for the runoff to flow over and into the basin.

If that was an original sink hole that was modified to be a retention basin, it was an incredibly poor choice given that the runoff would then exacerbate any underground erosion.

My experience with retention basins is that they are intentionally designed and created with impermeable liners such as a barrier fabric or a clay seal layer so as to prevent any ground water intrusion. They then discharge out to surrounding water courses through a small pipe that is designed and sized so as to meter out the accumulated runoff slowly. This prevents any increased risk of down stream flooding from the increased volume of runoff generated from the newly paved impermeable surfaces, as compared to the before construction condition.

Yes I read all 150 posts and yes some are based in fact, but in this instance why speculate, why not wait for the reports based on professional analysis? :cheers:

Sink hole locator
 

www.plotscan.com

enter 300 Corvette drive, 42101

Agreed...and then to exacerbate the situation by collecting and funneling all the parking lot water into this sinkhole (as opposed to the grass field it used to be, that absorbed most runoffs over a larger area) the underground erosion was amplified.

One still has to wonder about the decision to build right next to a large sinkhole in the first place.

The museum is open for business, except for the dome area. You could see tourists walking around during today's press conference.

The museum is insured, as are the cars. They will be removed and restored by GM.

Sounds like they are pretty confident that the dome area will be repaired and back in use by the Fall.

Your post from last night, as I suspected was all wrong. You are the one that made mistakes when writing here, NOT me, as you seem to want to indict me.


What you wrote earlier was that; "the dome's foundation is sound."

Now you're writing; "appears to be stable."

Two totally different meanings...

I was pretty sure that what you were writing was something to question, so that was the original reason I was skeptical of it in the first place.

Now I see that my suspicion was validated.

I don't suppose you are going to apologize for this, but I was right last night it looks like now.

You were writing things that I clearly now realize were in your own words, you were NOT quoting another. That's fine, just wanted to point out the discrepancy and set the record straight.:thumbs:

I wholeheartedly agree - last night, many of the conjectures stated as facts as I was pointing out, that it was way too early to come to the conclusions that were being thrown about.

I still believe it's too early to make hard and fast conclusions about this disaster. Call me careful, but I'm just not enjoying the hunches and speculation when written as fact-based conclusions here.

OK,I'm board and just giving my common sense, 2 cents.Only been a operating engineer for over 30 yrs.Still learning thou...

Getting Museum delivery tomorrow (see Delivery 5) and stopped by today to make sure everything was on schedule. Press conference was starting as I got there.

Afterward, I spoke with some senior staff who told me:

— Deliveries are being handled as normal.

— The entire museum is open to the public except the dome. Structural engineers, soils engineers, geologists and other experts have concluded there is no evidence of danger to the remainder of the museum. They are weighing options for recovering the vehicles and stabilizing the dome, as well as the best way to deal with the sinkhole itself.

— All remaining vehicles were trolleyed and/or pushed out of the dome. They didn't want to start engines for fear the vibrations could cause further collapse of the undermined areas.

— GM has already committed to restore all eight vehicles. Once recovered, they will go to Detroit for assessment and full restoration before coming back to the Museum to be put on display once again.

As we were leaving, we saw a LOT of old sinkholes in the area. They are apparently pretty common here.

To me, common sense and my 30+ years in the architectural construction industry, also makes me wonder why the retention pond within feet of the now failed building's infrastructure.

Someone, or a team of ppl involved in all aspects of the designs are going to be called into question, in the enquiries going forth.

The wife and I had a nice talk yesterday about this. I have my paperwork in to transfer to the assembly plant and took a tour of the area in July.
The one house we almost bought ahead of time and were just going to rent out had about 50' sinkhole about 300' feet from the house. realtor said theyre very common and that one was probably 100 yrs old. Another house we looked at had a similar one and just talked to the owner a few weeks ago(hes from my area originally) and he had a fresh 5' one a few months back a couple hundred feet back and said its really no big deal.
Now with this happening were wondering if its God trying to tell us something.

We are not supposed to collect old Corvettes? ;)

:willy: If you recall (or not) my earlier post, I stated that the engineers statements were "prelimary". Since you obviously have no idea what this means, I will help you out.

pre•lim•i•nar•y
priˈliməˌnerē
adjective: preliminary

denoting an action or event preceding or done in preparation for something fuller or more important.
"preliminary talks"
synonyms: preparatory, introductory, initial, opening, prefatory, precursory;
early, exploratory
"the discussions are still at a preliminary stage"

Now that all of my initial statements are in the press, and repeated by many engineers in writing, your assertions are becoming weaker (and more foolish) by the hour.

.... of course you probably will find some inane reason to argue.

:cheers:

:willy:
Argue by quoting your writings? I don't think so.

Your writing of: "the dome's foundation is sound." was never stated in the press.

You wrote it as if someone else stated it. You decided to write it - not what any expert was quoted as saying.....

I questioned who wrote that 24 hours ago? Turns out NOBODY did......

It's OK, you're wrong - really, no big deal. It's ALL there.:yesnod:

sinkhole
 

Ok all of my fiberglass friends :D
Ever since the sinkhole incident at the museum many thoughts have been going through my head. First of all sadness and disbelief.
But also what they are going to do with the 8 cars that were affected.

My opinion is to pull the cars out as careful as possible and display them just as they are. It would be cool if they had there own display. "These were the 8 sinkhole victims"

Just wondering what everyone else's thoughts were.:rock: