California sinkhole made national news, wrecked two vehicles, and is growing

The Chatsworth sinkhole that made national news this week when it swallowed two vehicles and led to the harrowing rescue of a mother and her daughter, was created by pounding torrential rain in the San Fernando Valley on Jan. 9. Now city crews are investigating how it happened.

A mom and daughter in their Nissan, and a male driver and his passenger in a pickup truck, escaped from the dark, gaping, flooded hole on Monday night after their vehicles fell, without warning, into a cavernous gap in Iverson Road just yards from the 118 Freeway in northern Chatsworth.

Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Brian Humphrey said on Wednesday Jan. 11 that the second vehicle, carrying the two men, fell into the hole and landed atop the first car in which the women were trapped, and the men “got out on their own and scrambled out of the sinkhole prior to our arrival.”

RELATED: Pesky potholes: Bay Area storm brings rash of new roadway damage

The mother and daughter faced a more harrowing situation, trapped in the dark in their Nissan as the San Fernando Valley got hammered by an “atmospheric river” storm.

Iverson Road was so unstable that LAFD rescuers who arrived Monday night couldn’t work near the edge of the cavern, and the city’s helicopters were grounded due to the fierce winds and extreme downpour.

That gave rescuers only one option: A large crew of LAFD rescuers “used ladders and a harness system for a rope rescue with aerial and ground ladders,” Humphrey said. “The rescuer was in a harness” in order to reach the mother and daughter.

On Wednesday, he said, the “Department of Street Works and other city officials are there, with experts to assess the soil and investigate so this doesn’t happen again.” The city crews are “trying to understand what happened” he said.

On Tuesday, city crews salvaged the two wrecked vehicles and secured the site several blocks north of The Church at Rocky Peak. A huge excavator lifted the crushed vehicles out — even as a sewer pipeline that had been unburied by the sinkhole leaked sewage into the growing hole.

More rain is coming later this week.

Los Angeles City Councilmember John Lee, who represents District 12 including Chatsworth, told CBS LA, “With the rains coming we have to figure out a way to get all of the water out, that is our first priority, we can’t have this hole filling up and ruining more properties underneath the street.” His office did not respond to a request by this newspaper for further information.

Crews from the L.A. Department of Public Works are working to shore up the gaping section of Iverson Road several yards south of columns that hold up the nearby 118 Freeway. On Wednesday, the sinkhole was estimated to be roughly 40 feet deep.