ANDERSON TOWNSHIP, Ohio — In a horrible episode of déjà vu for an Anderson Township plant shop, a massive sinkhole opened Wednesday after heavy rains deluged the Tri-State.
Plants by Wolfangel owner Barb Henry reported on Facebook Thursday that the hole was quickly fenced off.
“The unknown of an event like this is scary,” Henry told WCPO Thursday. “Just standing there yesterday watching the earth crumble in, the sounds of it, the smell of it, it’s all familiar and it doesn’t bring back good memories.”
Plants by Wolfangel was shut down for nearly two years after sinkholes in April and June 2011 swallowed the parking lot and threatened to cut the property in half. The store reportedly lost merchandise into the hole that was never found.
A sinkhole formed feet from an Anderson Twsp business & it's not the first time! A closer look on #TheNow at 4 @WCPO pic.twitter.com/DY3UkIXKWn
— T.J. Parker (@TJParkerWCPO) February 4, 2016
Henry said she started noticing another sinkhole beginning to form early last month. She said it was 8 feet across, with a small recession in the ground — a far cry from what she came to find at work Wednesday.
“The minute I pulled up close enough to see a wall of brown dirt crumbling, I just honestly started crying,” she said.
Henry told WCPO in 2013 that her plant business stayed open as the holes grew larger and until the neighboring Taco Bell approached her in August 2011 to buy the front half of her property. Henry retained and maintained the back end of the property and reopened the grounds in May 2013.
She said the repairs after the sinkhole 2 years ago cost her roughly $500,000.
