JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A 1-mile section of westbound McCormick Road in Arlington was shut down Tuesday evening due to a sewer collapse, according to JEA.
The westbound lanes between Monument and Fort Caroline roads closed at 7 p.m. and reopened Wednesday around 4 a.m.
As traffic was diverted, crews worked to fix the problem. JEA told News4Jax that it's not yet known what caused the hole to open up.
Residents in the area said they first noticed the hole, which appears to be at least 2 feet in diameter and more than a foot deep, about 4 p.m. Tuesday.
“We live one block over, and there’s not too many routes to get to where I’m going, so I have to think about what I’m going to do tomorrow morning. Traffic is pretty bad right here so, hopefully, for tirelessly selfish reasons, they get this fixed pretty quickly," said Debbie Douget. "We’ve seen this corridor resurfaced. It’s full of potholes and it’s not very smooth. So it’s just unfortunate from a taxpayer standpoint."
She and her husband, Tom Douget, said they were not surprised that a sewer collapse happened on the road.
"I’ll be truthful, my concern with this road here has been the washouts and pothole problems they’ve had over time. We lived here since it was rebuilt, and it’s been one issue after another with this corridor,” Tom Douget said.
Other neighbors also told News4Jax that they were not shocked, saying the road has been plagued by years of infrastructure problems, including potholes, heavy traffic and repeated construction.
"Constantly, they're digging it up, rerouting the sewers and everything. This might be part of the same problem," said Mary Mork, who lives nearby.
The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office said that the closure was due to a "large sinkhole." However, JEA later clarified that the hole was actually a "sewer cave-in."