8 Vehicles Swallowed by Sinkhole at National Corvette MuseumQuoteBOWLING GREEN, Ky. (WBKO) --
Few people have been allowed inside the sky dome at the National Corvette Museum since a sinkhole emerged early Wednesday morning, and one of them was the museum director Wendell Strode, who arrived at work to the devastating scene.
"Where we had Corvettes, there's now a big hole," said Strode.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QhFP9_Au0A
Live Sky Cam Of Sinkhole
http://www.corvettemuseum.org/webcam/camera6.shtml
http://www.wbko.com/news/headlines/BREAKING-Floor-Collapse-at-National-Corvette-Museum-245173671.html?device=phone
i saw this earlier bts.. and went yikes....
insurance will be going up
but i have a bunch of corvette books to sale.. so this might be good for that.. ::)
That is no way to treat a corvette. >:(
Do you get that "Sinking Feeling" ? :(
Guess it is not the first time in KY...
http://webecoist.momtastic.com/2008/08/26/incredible-strange-amazing-sinkholes/
They are mapping it :
http://wuky.org/post/kentucky-geological-survey-mapping-sinkholes-across-state
those cars dropping into the sinkhole really upset poor hubby even though he sold his years ago..i find it's always interesting what will bring a grown man to tears... ;) :P
Last Corvette Recovered From Kentucky Sinkhole
| by BRUCE SCHREINER
Posted: 04/09/2014 4:50 pm EDT Updated: 04/09/2014 8:59 pm EDT
vid at link
The mangled remains of a powerful Corvette — barely recognizable to its former owner — were pulled from the depths of a sinkhole at a Kentucky museum Wednesday, completing weeks of painstaking work to retrieve eight classic cars that were gobbled up by the gaping hole.
The 2001 Mallett Hammer Z06 Corvette was buried in dirt and rocks, deep beneath the surface of the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green. The mood was somber as the crumpled car, which boasted 700 horsepower thanks to performance enhancements, was pulled to the surface.
"It looks like a piece of tin foil," said Kevin Helmintoller, of Land O' Lakes, Fla., who donated the car to the museum last December. "I'm still glad I'm here, because I would have never believed it was this bad. I'm not positive I would have recognized it."
At around the time it was donated, the car was appraised at $125,000 because of the performance modifications, said museum spokeswoman Katie Frassinelli.
The cars looked like toys piled in a heap amid dirt and concrete fragments after the 40-foot-wide-by-60-foot-deep sinkhole opened beneath a museum display area in mid-February. It happened when the museum was closed, and no one was injured.
The other cars that took the plunge were a 1962 black Corvette, a 1993 ZR-1 Spyder, a 1984 PPG Pace Car, a 1992 White 1 Millionth Corvette, a 2009 white 1.5 Millionth Corvette, a 2009 ZR1 Blue Devil and a 1993 Ruby Red 40th Anniversary Corvette. The eight cars are widely believed to have a total value exceeding $1 million, the museum said.
The museum owned six of the cars, and the other two — the ZR-1 Spyder and ZR1 Blue Devil — were on loan from General Motors.
Sinkholes are common in the Bowling Green area, which is located amid a large region of bedrock known as karst where many of Kentucky's largest and deepest caves run underground.
With the retrieval now complete, the next task is to assess which cars are repairable.
"They seem to run the gamut — from very minor or superficial damage to catastrophic damage," said Monte Doran, a spokesman for Chevrolet, which will oversee restoration of the cars in Michigan.
The first car hoisted out in early March — the ZR1 Blue Devil — suffered only minor damage that included cracks on lower door panels, a busted window and a ruptured oil line. Workers got that car running, and cheers went up as the engine revved.
The mood turned more dour as the damage became progressively worse as each car was pulled out.
The white 1.5 Millionth Corvette recovered recently was flattened by the weight of debris. The ZR-1 Spyder and the PPG Pace Car, also among the final cars retrieved, sustained considerable damage as well, Frassinelli said.
All eight cars will be on display at the museum through August.
The decisions about which ones to repair and which are too damaged to fix will be heart-wrenching.
"That's going to be a fairly difficult discussion," Doran said.
Whether repair crews can retain the authenticity of each classic car will be a big factor, officials said.
"It would be fairly easy to go find another white 2009 Corvette and take as many parts off that car and put them onto a new structure with the VIN number of this (original) car," Doran said. "You start splitting the line of — did we restore the 1.5
millionth car or did we build an all-new car."
Cars considered too badly damaged won't go on the scrap heap.
"I'm sure that we'll continue to display them as is. It's now a part of museum and Corvette history," Frassinelli said. "It's interesting to people. They aren't going into storage somewhere."
The museum has remained open, except for the area where the sinkhole occurred, and the publicity has led to an attendance boost. Attendance in March was up 56 percent from the same month a year ago, Frassinelli said.
Publicity surrounding the massive sinkhole has led to an attendance boost at the museum, .
Repairs to the museum, which is near the factory where the iconic Corvettes are made, are expected to be completed by early August, ahead of the museum's late summer Corvette Caravan — a celebration marking the museum's 20th anniversary. Thousands of Corvette enthusiasts are expected to converge in their models of the classic American sports car.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/09/corvette-recovered-from-sinkhole_n_5120894.html?utm_hp_ref=weird-news&ir=Weird+News
found it on youie..shoulda figured they would have it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pYdFz6FyD4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pYdFz6FyD4
sorry bout that.. better view
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Buerthls0Bw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Buerthls0Bw
lol and like all good collectors they are going to keep the sink hole..hahahahahah
Corvette Museum Decides to Keep Popular Sinkhole
By Hasani Gittens
Ever get a dent in your car and decide for sentimental reasons decide to keep it?
No? Well, that's what the members of the Board of Directors of the National Corvette Museum voted to do on Wednesday in regards to a giant sinkhole that nearly destroyed the place and swallowed eight cars in February.
The board was presented with three options for the future of the "Skydome" building in Bowling Green, Kentucky: 1) Fill the sinkhole and replace the floor so that the building is much like it was previously; 2) Keep the entire sinkhole as is; 3) Keep a smaller portion of the hole open.
Option three won out, so a portion of the sinkhole will remain open, "pending review of further information," the group said in a statement.
Of course, it's not just sentimentality: Since the headline-making incident, museum visitations have been up 59 percent, and revenue is up 65 percent, according to Christy Thomas, CFO for the museum.
"If the interest in the exhibit wanes, or if down the road we decided that we don't want the hole any longer there is always an option to put the room back how it was," said Thomas.
The cars affected at the time were:
•1993 ZR-1 Spyder on loan from General Motors
•2009 ZR1 "Blue Devil" on loan from General Motors
•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
vid here at link
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/corvette-museum-decides-keep-popular-sinkhole-n141071