Florida authorities hold a news conference to discuss the latest in the sinkhole that appeared under a house near Tampa.
By Elizabeth Chuck and Ian Johnston, NBC News
Officials and engineers are searching an unstable area of land after a sinkhole enveloped a Florida man?s bedroom in the middle of the night, sucking him down into the earth.
Local media, including?WFLA.com, NBC's station in Tampa, identified the victim as Jeffrey Bush, 36. He has not been heard from since the 20-foot-deep by 20-foot-wide hole opened underneath the Bush family?s Hillsborough County home late Thursday night, sending part of the house plummeting but leaving the exterior remarkably intact.
?They heard a sound they described as a car crash?emanating?from the bedroom,? Hillsborough County Fire Chief Ron Rogers said at a Friday morning news conference outside the Seffner, Fla., house. ?They rushed in. All they could see was part of a mattress sticking out of the hole. Essentially, the floor of?the room had opened.?
At that point, able to hear Jeffrey Bush but not able to see him, Bush's brother, identified by WFLA.com as Jeremy, jumped into the hole to try to rescue him, Rogers said.
AP Photo/Chris O'Meara
Jeremy Bush, brother of Jeff Bush, breaks down as he speaks to the media about attempting to rescue Jeff as he disappeared in a sinkhole.
Rescue personnel arrived on the scene and were able to free Jeremy, but not his Jeffrey. They were forced to abandon the house as the ground continued shifting overnight. Once they came back with an engineering team and better equipment, they were able to resume their efforts.
On Friday morning, Rogers refused to discuss the possibility Jeffrey Bush was not alive. ?The sooner we can locate the victim and determine his status, the better.?
However, he added, "We have to make sure we don't endanger other personnel or other people in the process. It doesn't help to compound the situation."
According to The Tampa Bay Times, there were five adults, one child, and two dogs inside the house when the sinkhole tore through it; all the other members of the household escaped safely and returned on Friday, dazed, as rescue workers attempted to get to Jeffrey Bush, The Tampa Bay Times reported.
"I just wanted to get my brother back," Jeremy Bush told the newspaper of his efforts last night to rescue his brother. "That's all I wanted."
Standing with his aunt, Janell Wheeler, in front of his house where his brother remained buried Friday, he added,?"I couldn't do anything. Everything in the room was gone."
Wheeler, clad in her pajamas, reported The Tampa Bay Times, said, "It's a dream, right?"?
Flanking the county's fire chief at Friday's news conference in front of the Bush home was Bill Bracken, president of Bracken Engineering, a Florida-based firm called in to assist with the rescue. Bracken told reporters that while the sinkhole itself was 20 feet wide, its ?safety zone? ? the land around it that was considered unstable ? extended out 100 feet. ?
?It started in the bedroom and has been expanding, taking the house with it,? he said.
Engineers are capturing three-dimensional photos of the soil and receiving other data of the area to figure out the best way to stop the spread of the sinkhole, Bracken said.
Despite the home's instability, photos of the neighborhood showed little destruction.
AP Photo/Chris O'Meara
Engineers work in front of a home where sinkhole opened up underneath a bedroom and swallowed a man on Friday, March 1 in Seffner, Hillsborough County, Fla.
"Ultimately, it looks just like a normal neighborhood,"?Hillsborough County spokesman?Willie Puz said. "The sinkhole is still under the footprint of the home itself. You can?t see anything from the exterior. There?s been a lot of helicopters that have been flying overhead, but if you look down, it just looks like a normal house and neighborhood.?
The Bush family and neighbors on both sides have been evacuated and are receiving assistance from The Red Cross. Officials did not know if the neighborhood, located near Tampa, has had problems with sinkholes in the past.
Sinkholes are relatively common in Florida, but do not always cause injury or major disruption.
"Florida is made out of limestone. There's a lot of groundwater that goes through the limestone and can erode the limestone away. As the water table rises and falls, sometimes those voids in the limestone can't support the weight that is on top of them, and they cave in," Puz said, adding that there are numerous other scenarios that can cause sinkholes.
Some sinkholes form depressions in the ground first; some collapse immediately. In this family's case, Puz said, "it happened very quickly," but officials don't know what processes were happening underground, and for how long, before the sinkhole ripped open their home.
Rescue efforts are underway in Florida to find a missing man who may be in a sinkhole that swallowed at least two bedrooms of the house. NBCNews.com's Dara Brown reports.
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This story was originally published on Fri Mar 1, 2013 6:58 AM EST
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