revo1059

At least they were able to get the 83 out. Hate to lose the only one made.

Z0Sick6

That hurts to watch. Quite sad... is the museum shut down???? Oh boy that's dangerous... surprised they don't have the whole place closed off

esemes

working in the industry, it's very fortunate for them that no one was around for that catastrophic collapse. trying to retrieve cars could be very risky.

Blackdevil77

OUCH! That's nauseating. As long as nobody was hurt.

bub

Do you have information that the other cars have been removed? Pics seem to indicate them still there around the perimeter and on the other side of the spire. I would imiagine emergency personnel have blocked off the entire skydome area to everybody pending structural analysis. Frankly, I'm surprised the rest of the museum is even open today.

Does anyone in the insurance industry know if sink-hole damage is covered?

Me must rebuild.

Supersonic 427

What a shame!

JoesC5

I believe GM made more than one '83, but only saved one. Reported that 44 were assembled with a 1983 VIN.

bub

Found this on another site:

I just received this from the National Corvette Museum:
NCM Website Here: http://www.corvettemuseum.org/



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SPECIAL EDITION

Sinkhole Collapses in Skydome
We received a call at 5:44am from our security company alerting us of our motion detectors going off in our Skydome area of the Museum. Upon arrival it was discovered that a sinkhole had collapsed within the Museum. No one was in or around the Museum at the time. The Bowling Green Fire Department arrived on the scene and secured the area. The Fire Department has estimated the size of the hole is 40 feet across and 25-30 feet deep.
It is with heavy hearts that we report that eight Corvettes were affected by this incident.
Those cars include:


•1993 ZR-1 Spyder on loan from General Motors

•2009 ZR1 “Blue Devil” on loan from General Motors


The other six vehicles were owned by the National Corvette Museum including:


•1962 Black Corvette

•1984 PPG Pace Car

•1992 White 1 Millionth Corvette

•1993 Ruby Red 40th Anniversary Corvette

•2001 Mallett Hammer Z06 Corvette

•2009 White 1.5 Millionth Corvette


None of the cars affected were on loan from individuals. The Skydome exhibit area of the Museum is a separate structure connected to the main Museum. A structural engineer is now on-site to assess the existing damage and stability of the surrounding areas. The Museum is closed to the public for the day to allow us to carefully assess the situation. We will keep everyone informed as we know more.
With the 20th Anniversary celebration, Grand Opening of the NCM Motorsports Park, and the National Corvette Caravan coming August 27-30, we’ve got a lot to be excited about in 2014, and look forward to getting the Skydome repaired and reopened very soon.
Thanks to all of our Corvette friends and family for you words of prayer and support.




© Copyright National Corvette Museum 2014
350 Corvette Drive
Bowling Green, KY 42101
1 800 53 VETTE (83883)

Last edited by VoodooVettes; Today at 11:45 AM. Reason: Added NCM website link.

Old buckeye

Imagine if the sink hole occurred on the production line. That would really be a costly disaster.

bub

I was just talking to one of my senior structural engineers here at work and he relayed the following; "just be glad you got to see the place when it was open...you don't build on top of sinkholes...expect a lawsuit on the geotech."

Sinkholes are formed when subsurface aquifers eat away at the limestone.

450hp mike9

Wow my 67 Vette was on loan to the NCM for a whole year several years ago. You would ever think in a million years this could happen to your car.

BigJoe

The plant is basically across the street from NCM. I wonder how sound the ground is under that whole area?

Spectre-13

I hate to say it and not trying to be negative but those cars might not be recoverable. It may just be too dangerous to try and pull those cars out with the ground being so unstable. I'm sure the engineers are first trying to determine if the sinkhole will continue to grow. Eventually, they'll have to assess the risk vs reward of trying to recover those cars, not to mention if it will be worth the cost.

Sinkholes happen too often here in Central Florida and when homes or a room gets swallowed they usually bulldoze what's left of the house into the hole and add fill dirt as needed. I'm not saying they'll do that in this case but I would be surprised if they can recover those cars. This particular case will have it's own particular challenges since it's inside a building which could limit the size of equipment they can use. The good news is that is no one was hurt.

dchich

I wonder what happens if you have a museum delivery scheduled. Especially if its in the next few days.

0Apex Chase

They only shut down the one wing. The rest of the facility is still open.

green2000

We tested several.

dchich

That was the original report... it was amended later to say that the whole museum was closed to "assess the situation".

http://www.autoblog.com/2014/02/12/n...ole/#continued

FOOTR 1

They are a 501 c non profit and will need increased donations as insurance certainly wont cover the costs.
Just tragic. I was there less than two weeks ago walking over that soon to be hole. OMG.

FOOTR 1

Yes only one 83 survived.

150kWh

To folks who know the floor plan, can you get a crane in there through the roof to grab the sinking models? Surely it's worth $20-30k to try--anyone know how much a crane would cost? ... And you don't even have to repair a recovered car--this is now part of the Corvette story!

.. and am I right in thinking that the foundation under a plant is much (much) stronger than what's required for a museum? They should have a more graduate warning, right?

Wow what a nightmare! A relief no one got hurt.

(PS On the plus side, those of us with C6-C2, our cars just got a bit more valuable..)