25-foot-wide sinkhole opens up in Apopka, still growing

ORLANDO, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35) - Dramatic home video shows a the back side of an Apopka family’s home being swallowed by a sinkhole Tuesday morning. 

“The sound was hard to believe. It was very very loud. The windows cracked breaking. It was hard to watch,” said Ellen Miller, describing herself as numb.  “Fifty years, both of my girls came home from the hospital there.”

Miller says it all started with a small crack in her back sidewalk 24 hours earlier. 

“I mowed the lawn yesterday, and right there at the hous,e it looked like it was sinking a little bit. And I saw what I thought was a blue line on the bottom of the house and it was actually the stucco separating,” said Miller. 

That crack kept growing and growing. 

“We watched it all through the night and heard all kinds of creaking and cracking and got up at 4 o’clock looked in the bathroom and the bathroom wall had opened up and the tub was sinking.” 

What was going through her mind at that point? 

“I said I think it’s time to get out of dodge.  I walked around like someone with no good sense not knowing what to do,” said Miller.  “It’s hard you know we’ve lived there for 49 years. How do you try to pack everything up how do you figure out what’s important and what’s not?”

Miller grabbed the things that meant the most to her.  Computers that store years worth of pictures, family antiques and an old fashioned typewriter. 

“That has been in my family forever and it’s one of those things my mother passed down to me and I didn’t want to lose it,” Miller explained.        

With her kitchen ripped in half, her bathtub several feet below ground, she’s counting her blessings no one got hurt while trying to stay positive. 

“Crying is not going to do any good. It’s not going to bring anything back,” said Miller.

At last check the sinkhole was 25 feet across, 15 feet deep and growing.