Road collapses under City of Tulsa truck

The City of Tulsa says a road collapsed under a utility truck on Monday morning.

Officials say the truck was stopped at an intersection near 400 S. 47th W. Ave and when the driver tried to go forward the concrete collapsed.

They say there is a 10 x 20 hole in the road way. The driver was injured but refused EMSA and instead went to urgent care.

Crews on scene said at the bottom of the hole was a broken 18 inch sewer line. It appears, they said, that the broken sewer line had washed away all the dirt around it, leaving nothing to support the roadway above.

Merit Cantrell lives right next to the caved-in road, and couldn't believe his eyes when he stepped outside Monday morning to see a truck dangling in the hole.

"That sinkhole is big enough...my bedroom isn't that big," Cantrell said.

Over the next few hours he watched crews try to pull the truck out.

"One wrecker tried to pull it out from the front, but couldn't get it out because the back two axles were bottomed out," Cantrell said.

So, crews brought in a backhoe. But that didn't work either.

"The backhoe kept tilting forward," Cantrell said. "It didn't have enough umph."

Finally, it took two large tow trucks to get the sewer truck out.

Then the real work began, trying to repair the sewer line and get the hole filled back in.

"How long has that been eroding away under there," Cantrell asked. "It's amazing."

"I've drove on that corner a jillion times (sic)."

Crews on scene said there was no way to tell how long the dirt had been eroding away. But they did say the whole appeared to be isolated and they did not expect any others to develop in the area.

Ironically, the sewer truck was on its way to repair a different broken sewer line when it fell through the concrete.

Crews planned to be on site repairing the broken sewer line late into Monday evening, but said it would likely take another three to four days to get the hole filled back in and the road re-paved.