A sinkhole near a construction site in Ventura took down a shed and two vehicles Tuesday morning, as the ground collapsed several feet — rupturing pavement, cracking a fence and sending people fleeing for safety.
The sinkhole formed next to the site of a future apartment building on East Front Street near South Laurel Street, but it primarily damaged an adjacent lot where several vehicles had been parked. The sinkhole is located less than a mile from the Ventura Pier and even closer to the ocean.
No one was injured in the collapse. Ventura city officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the sinkhole. A representative for the company building the apartment complex also could not be reached for comment.
Tron Elliott, who owns a nearby auto repair shop, said a neighbor grabbed him early Tuesday after noticing the ground was moving. Elliott and the neighbor both store vehicles in the lot where the sinkhole eventually formed.
“We could see it was starting to sink and drop,” Elliott said in an interview with The Times. “It just happened to be where my trucks were.”
The two men worked together to try to move the at-risk vehicles away from the area, and were able to move two before the movement accelerated. As Elliott worked to pull out a third vehicle to safety, he said the ground shifted again, and his son yelled at him to get out.
“I was trying to tow another truck out,” said Elliott, the owner of Elliott’s Performance, an auto repair shop about 100 yards away from the sinkhole. “I floored it up and over as it collapsed.”
Just after he moved the vehicle out, he looked back and watched a customer’s blue pickup truck descend with the sinking earth, collapsing into his personal black truck. When the ground shifted a bit more, the movement pushed a covered Porche onto the edge of the sinkhole, left precariously dangling.
“It’s stuck pretty good,” Elliott said.
City officials later came and red-tagged the area, declaring it too dangerous for anyone to enter, Elliott said.
He didn’t know what might have caused the sinkhole, but said there hasn’t been any more movement since early Tuesday. He wasn’t particularly worried about future sinkholes, as much as he was concerned about how another large apartment building could affect the area.
“Too many apartment complexes, they’re trying to push us out,” Elliott said of the small businesses in the area. “We expect some growth but this is out of control.”
