Beacon Hill homeowners make unsettling find

Beacon Hill homeowners make unsettling find

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Story Published: May 5, 2009 at 5:32 PM PDT

Story Updated: May 5, 2009 at 5:32 PM PDT

By Travis Mayfield

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SEATTLE -- You can understand why neighbors living above the light rail tunnel through Beacon Hill are feeling their peace of mind slip away.

In early April, a woman digging in her garden above the tunnel felt the dirt fall away under her trowel. She probed and probed, but couldn't find the bottom of the unusual pocket.

"The homeowner discovered an 18-inch opening in the ground that led down to essentially a 20-foot deep hole underneath," explains Sound Transit's Bruce Gray. Still, he reassures, "we don't think people should be worried."

To date, Sound Transit crews have now discovered seven similar voids between the surface of Beacon Hill and the top of the light rail tunnel.

If you look at a cross section of Beacon Hill, there are dozens of different layers in the ground.

"Flowing through these different kinds of materials is this very wet, sandy layers," says Gray. While drilling through the hill for tunnel construction, crews came across several of these veins of sand. Once the drills cut through the veins they emptied much like sands running through an hourglass, leaving behind the narrow, but deep voids.

"We had just moved into the neighborhood after the whole light rail came up," says one neighbor living above the tunnel who didn't want to be identified. "A good handful of neighbors in the area had declined to accept a payout for any future lawsuits. We moved in right at that time and the previous owners just took that $3,000 and left."

So that neighbor says she's watching her basement and yard very closely, hoping she doesn't find any suspicious shifting.

"We're just hoping it will all work out in the end," she said.

Gray insists they've seen no significant settling from above. Still, Sound Transit has decided to look for more possible voids and to spend this week filling each of the voids they've discovered with a concrete-like material. Grays says on top of the seven they've found so far, crews believe there are at least two more voids.

Filling these voids could cost Sound Transit as much as $1 million. Gray says insurance should pick up the tab.

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