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4B Daily News – Tuesday, August 13, 2013 Sinkhole swallows part of Florida resort villa CLERMONT, Fla. (AP) — It sounded like a thunderstorm as windows broke and the ground shook, but vacationers who were awakened from their rooms at a villa near Orlando, Fla., soon realized that the building was starting to collapse — parts of it swallowed by a 100-foot sinkhole that also endangered two neighboring resort buildings. By early Monday, nearly a third of the structure at Summer Bay Resort had collapsed. All 105 guests staying in the villa were evacuated, as were those in the neighboring buildings. No injuries were reported. The villa, with 24 three-story units, was reported as a total loss. Inspectors remained on the scene Monday afternoon to determine whether the other two buildings near the sinkhole — a common occurrence in Florida — would be safe to re-enter. The first sign of trouble came about 10:30 p.m. Sunday. Security guard Richard Shanley had just started his shift, and he heard what sounded like shouting from a building. A guest flagged him down to report that a window had blown out. Shanley reported it to management, and another window popped. The resort's staff decided to evacuate the villa. Shanley said the building seemed to sink by 10 to 20 inches and bannisters began to fall off the building as he ran up and down three floors trying to wake up guests. One couple with a baby on the third floor couldn't get their door open and had to break a window to get out, he said. ''It's a scary situation,'' Shanley said, and guests credited him with saving lives by knocking on doors to awaken them. Inside, they heard what sounded like thunder and then the storm of water, as if it were a storm. Evac- AP photo A portion of a building rests in a sinkhole Monday in Clermont, Fla. The sinkhole, 40 to 50 feet in diameter, opened up overnight and damaged three buildings at the Summer Bay Resort. uation took about 10 to 15 minutes, according to staff and witnesses. Amy Jedele heard screams coming from one of the adjacent buildings around 10:30 p.m., and several minutes later, the sounds of sirens. She and her fiance, Darren Gade, went outside. ''That's when you could hear the pops and the metal, the concrete and the glass breaking,'' she said. The first portions of the building to sink were the walkways and the elevator shaft, Gade said. ''You could see the ground falling away from the building where the building started leaning,'' Gade said. ''People were in shock to see a structure of that size just sink into the ground slowly. ... You could see the stress fractures up the side of the structure getting wider.'' Then, as a part of the leaning building crumbled quickly into the ground, dust shot up around the site, amateur video of the collapse shows (http://bit.ly/1cuOc1u ). In one of the adjacent buildings, firefighters and police officers knocking on doors woke up Maggie Moreno of San Antonio. She couldn't fully open the door to her unit. ''It sounded like popcorn,'' said Moreno, who was visiting with her husband, daughter and two grandchildren. ''The building was just snapping.'' Luis Perez also was staying at a nearby building. He said he was in his room when the lights went off around 11:30 p.m. He said he was on his way to the front desk to report it when he saw firefighters and police outside. ''I started walking toward where they were at, and you could see the building leaning, and you could see a big crack at the base of the building,'' said Perez, 54, of New Jersey. Over the next five hours, sections of the building sank into the ground. Paul Caldwell, the development's president, said the resort gave all affected guests other rooms. Some visitors — many of whom had to leave their wallets, purses and other belongings behind in the quick evacuation — were given cash advances by Summer Bay. The Red Cross also distributed food, clothing and medicines to vacationers who had lost their belongings in their resort rooms. There were no signs before Sunday that a sinkhole was developing, Caldwell said. He said the resort underwent geological testing when it was built about 15 years ago, showing the ground to be stable. Caldwell said he was awaiting further inspections to determine any damage to the second and third buildings. The resort — with condominiums, two-bedroom villas and vacation houses in addition to standard rooms — has about 900 units spread over a large area about 10 miles west of Walt Disney World. It is set on a secluded 64-acre lake. Problems with sinkholes are ongoing in Florida. They cause millions of dollars in damage in the state annually. On March 1, a sinkhole underneath a house in Seffner, about 60 miles southwest of the Summer Bay Resort, swallowed a man who was in his bed. His body was never recovered. But such fatalities and injuries are rare, and most sinkholes are small. They are caused by Florida's geology — the state sits on limestone, a porous rock that easily dissolves in water, with a layer of clay on top. The clay is thicker in some locations, making them even more prone to sinkholes. Last week, Florida received a $1.08 million federal grant to study the state's vulnerability to sinkholes. Other states sit atop limestone in a similar way, but Florida has additional factors like extreme weather, development, aquifer pumping and construction. Elon Musk unveils 'Hyperloop' transport concept LOS ANGELES (AP) — Imagine strapping into a car-sized capsule and hurtling through a tube at more than 700 mph — not for the thrill of it, but to get where you need to go. On Monday, billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk unveiled a transportation concept that he said could whisk passengers the nearly 400 miles between Los Angeles and San Francisco in 30 minutes — half the time it takes an airplane. If it's ever built. His ''Hyperloop'' system for travel between major cities is akin to the pneumatic tubes that transport capsules stuffed with paperwork in older buildings. In this case, the cargo would be people, reclining for the ride. The system would feature a large, nearly air-free tube. Inside, capsules would be pulled down the line by magnetic attraction. Capsules would float on a cushion of air they create — like an air hockey table in which the puck produces the air instead of the surface. To minimize friction from what air is in the tube, a powerful fan at the front of each capsule would suck air from the front to the rear. ''Short of figuring out real teleportation, which would of course be awesome (someone please do this), the only option for super fast travel is to build HELP WANTED AUTO ROUTES DRIVERS WANTED RED BLUFF & CORNING AREAS Must be 21 or older & bondable. Call or apply in person Circulation Dept. Red Bluff Daily News (530) 527-2151 ext 128 DAILY NEWS RED BLUFF TEHAMA COUNTY a tube over or under the ground that contains a special environment,'' Musk wrote in his proposal, posted online. On a conference call Monday, Musk said that if all goes right, it could take seven to 10 years for the first passengers to make the journey between California's two biggest metro areas. He put the price tag at around $6 billion — pointedly mentioning that would be about one-tenth the projected cost of a high-speed rail system that California has been planning to build. Like that bullet train, the Hyperloop didn't take long to attract skepticism. Citing barriers such as LAS VEGAS (AP) — Las Vegas police are investigating whether employees went too far after reportedly helping the guitarist of Guns N' Roses with an elaborate proposal. Daren Jay ''DJ'' Ashba posted a photo on Instagram Saturday of himself and girlfriend Nathalia Henao wearing helicopter headgear. He thanked the Las Vegas police department for a private helicopter tour, saying it ended in a field at police headquarters, where he proposed amid roses and ''a bottle Online: Publishes 24/7 $ 112 Per Month No early cancellation, non-refundable anyone else, the hyperbole would be hard to take seriously. But Musk has a track record of success. He co-founded online payment service PayPal, electric luxury carmaker Tesla Motors Inc. and the rocket-building company SpaceX. Musk has said he is too focused on other projects to consider actually building the Hyperloop, and instead would publish an open-source design that anyone can use or modify. That's still the case, he said Monday, but added that if no one else steps forward he might build a working prototype. That would take three or four years, he said. Guns N Roses proposal prompts probe HOME SERVICES DIRECTORY Print and Online mountains and cost, one transportation expert said that while Musk's idea is novel, it is not a breakthrough. ''I don't think it will provide the alternative that he's looking for,'' said James E. Moore II, director of the transportation engineering program at the University of Southern California. Monday's unveiling lived up to the hype part of its name. Musk has been dropping hints about his system for more than a year during public events, mentioning that it could never crash and would be immune to weather. Coming from almost www.redbluffdailynews.com Three additional online locations at no extra cost! In Print Every Tues. - Thurs.- Sat. of the bubble stuff.'' Las Vegas police issued a statement Saturday acknowledging two civilians were granted a ride-along in a helicopter. They didn't mention names. Spokesman Bill Cassell says an internal investigation is underway to determine whether the ride violated policy. The cash-strapped department has been seeking to raise the sales tax to hire new officers. Building Construction Clock Repair R. G. 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