Residents fed up with sinkhole in North Philadelphia

Torn up streets are a fact of life in Philadelphia especially when utility work's involved. Neighbors say the city has a responsibility to make sure the street's safe even during that work.

No, we are not spelunking in an underground cave. It's the hole growing in the middle of the 2400 block of W. Norris St. in Philadelphia and neighbors are sick of it.

"The hole that was there started getting deeper and deeper-- it was sinking down lower and lower," neighbor Frances Fields said.

Fields says the sinkhole dates all the way back to 2013, but believes it was made worse by a utility project back in January and February. She called the city's 311 hotline to report the problem last week.

"When I got off the phone my neighbor rang the doorbell and set a big truck came through and (now) it's a hole. Every day it's getting deeper. Now, the ends are sticking up on the patch job," she said.

Francis has a handicapped parking spot in front of her home-- not that she can actually use it.

"I can't park in my space because I'm scared my car will end up being in the sinkhole when I wake up in the morning."

The growing hole means regular-sized vehicles squeeze past parked cars. Oversized vehicles? Some give up and back out of the block.

Arnetta Ryan says lots of neighbors have reached out to the city for help.

"They're always talking about 'We ain't got the money' or 'We've got another project we're doing-- y'all better wait.' People going to come, people going to come, people going to come and nobody comes," Ryan said.

Dennis Forney is the neighborhood handyman and put cones around the hole.

FOX 29's Bruce Gordon snapped some photos and sent them to the streets department for answers. They came out and marked off the area. They describe this as a cave-in and contacted the water department who will be out to look at it.