ST. LOUIS – St. Louis residents say their street is collapsing and the city is doing close to nothing about it.

A sinkhole about the size of a standard manhole has formed in recent weeks near the middle of the 4900 block of Plover Ave. in the Walnut Park neighborhood of north St. Louis.

Residents say the City Street Department placed a 42-inch orange pylon near the hole last week. The base of the pylon is now inside the hole, with about 2.5 feet of the pylon rising about the service.

Residents fear someone is going to get hurt and much more of the street will soon collapse. The reasons why were obvious when FOX 2 captured a view of what things looked like below the pavement.

Jo Anne East has lived in her home on the block for 40 years.

“There’s traffic down through here all day long,” she said as drivers navigated around the hole.

There’s little room for error with parking on both sides of the street and the growing sinkhole near the middle.

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The view inside the hole shows a foot or more of pavement with no ground supporting it. The cavern under the pavement expands down the street from the hole. Up on the surface, there’s a series of smaller holes leading up to the big one.

MaryAnn Jackson can be considered the neighborhood ‘watchdog’ who lives about a mile away.  She’s been fighting for better streets for years. She says a friend on Plover Avenue told her about the sinkhole and she reported it, thinking the City Street Department would at least cover the hole with a metal road construction plate.

“That’s what I told the Street Department when I called Thursday: ‘Look, you need to get somebody over there ASAP because that’s very dangerous,'” Jackson said. “I’m thinking they were going to put a plate out there. I get a call saying, ‘Hey, it’s a cone out there.’”

Alderwoman Pam Boyd (Ward 13) told FOX 2 that she has also reported the sinkhole to the department.

A city spokesman told us Monday evening that they are aware of the issue and working to remediate it.

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