A backed-up ravine created a giant hole in a road in Mullica Hill with a ‘torrent of water’
The Harrison Township mayor said an estimated 50,000 gallons were released into the stream system.
What can best be described as a giant crater was discovered Friday on a road in Mullica Hill.
Fire officials said no one was injured but several nearby homes in the semi-wooded area remained without power and water.
Residents reported a “torrent of water” started washing through parts of their properties around 7:30 a.m., according to Harrison Township Mayor Louis Manzo.
The source of the water was a nearby ravine, he said.
The road where the hole was discovered is elevated with embankments and has the ravine going through it on either side. The bottom of the embankment has pipes, said Manzo, but over time they became clogged, as they require manual clearing, creating a buildup of water. In the past, the mayor said, the Public Works Department has made erosion repairs on that stretch of road in response to residents’ concerns.
Manzo said because the area was originally farmland that’s been surrounded with new development over time, it’s not unusual to see pipe setups similar to the one near Chatham Lane and Swamp Road.
Still, Manzo said the clogging became more of an issue on one side of the ravine with “the unprecedented amount of precipitation” the township has seen in recent months.
This has been an exceptionally wet period. Since Dec. 1, officially nearly 19 inches of rain was measured at Philadelphia International Airport, about 20 miles from Mullica Hill. That’s 7.4 inches above normal, or roughly two extra months’ worth of rain.
The pressure became too much, said the mayor, causing the blowout of the embankment and section of the road Friday.
Early estimates suggest some 50,000 gallons of water flooded from the ravine into the natural stream system, according to Manzo, who added preliminary inspections showed the nearby homes remained structurally sound.
“However, their continuity of life is a focus of ours right now,” he said of those residents. “No injuries whatsoever but power is out, water service is out. So we are focusing on restoring them as we speak.”
Outside those homes, the impact appeared to be minimal.
The hole is a short walk from Mullica Hill’s Main Street. Businesses there said their utilities remained without interruption Friday morning and employees had no trouble getting in.
For the time being, assessments of the road’s structural integrity continue. Manzo said officials’ immediate priority was restoring utilities to the homes affected and figuring out if families needed to be temporarily relocated.
Manzo said engineers would be considering whether the road should be rebuilt or if it is better to create an alternate route, though there was no timeline available for how long that assessment would take.