A sinking feeling that can't be ignored

It could’ve been much worse.

The sinkhole that swallowed a car on the westbound Long Island Expressway near Exit 49N earlier this month developed quickly — and it was a stroke of luck for all involved that no one was badly injured. Repairs were made, and less than 24 hours after the incident, cars were zooming down the highway as though nothing had happened.

Still, we cannot dismiss or ignore what transpired, and must do whatever we can to prevent such infrastructure calamities from reoccurring.

The LIE sinkhole was one of three in the region to open up in less than two weeks. A sinkhole at LaGuardia Airport closed one runway for three days during the busy lead-up to Memorial Day weekend. And in the Bronx, a school bus carrying 30 children fell into a sinkhole.

There’ve been more dangerous situations in the past, too. Recall how a portion of Interstate 80 in New Jersey was closed for months last year after massive sinkholes opened up within a few months of one another. Or how an enormous sinkhole opened in Baldwin after a sewer main cracked underneath the roadway, with repairs blocking critical downtown traffic for weeks.

Sinkholes are tricky, as they can develop quietly and without much warning. It’s often hard to know how soil and other material underground may shift, or where voids and open areas may develop beneath the asphalt. Extreme weather, aging pipes that could crack or leak, and other decaying infrastructure underground, can contribute to conditions leading to a sinkhole. So can work being done underground, which can disrupt the soil, cause a void and lead to a road collapse.

That may be what happened on the LIE. ALAC Contracting was doing sewer work that stretched under the highway, related to a Suffolk County Department of Public Works project. It’s still under investigation, and it’s unclear whether that work directly caused the sinkhole, or whether it might have happened anyway. But such intensive underground work certainly can play a role.

State and county officials should assess additional ways to expand the use of ground-penetrating radar technology, subsurface sensors or other predictive tools to assess where the ground isn’t as packed as it should be, or where potential openings could cause trouble. When a large-scale project begins, contractors who are working underground should determine whether spaces need to be more tightly filled with stronger material before closing up the space. And massive construction under well-traveled roads requires broad government oversight to make sure nothing is missed. New York’s Department of Transportation says it already requires applications and assesses soil conditions before significant work starts. But officials there should seek best practices from other states to improve their efforts further.

None of those efforts will prevent sinkholes. But if local and state officials, and the contractors themselves, are prepared for and attentive to the issue, our roads will become safer, and less likely to swallow us up.