30-yard wide sinkhole opens up in retention pond

LADY LAKE, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35) - Authorities have marked the ground around what appears to be a massive sinkhole near the intersection of State Road 466 and Rolling Acres Road. 

The hole—which is approximately 30 yards wide—opened up in a retention pond over the weekend.

The pond is next to St. Albans Anglican Church and an American Legion post.

“On Friday [the pond] was still full and when I came yesterday, the hole was open and all the water was gone,”  said Father Gregory Koon of St. Albans. 

Gene Swords attends a church that holds services in the American Legion.

He said he noticed the hole Saturday afternoon. 

“I said ‘Oh, my goodness’… I immediately thought about the safety of the people coming to church because we have three or four hundred that will be here this morning,” Swords said on Sunday.

He said when he first arrived the hole “looked to be like twenty feet or something like that across it.”

Swords said a firefighter who was on the scene at the time told him “it had doubled in size in 40 minutes.”

Swords said the hole did appear to have grown from Saturday to Sunday.