Digging crews were back at work Thursday, hoping for a miracle but also anticipating the recovery of the remains of a Pennsylvania lady who went missing three days ago while looking for her cat in the depths of a three-story sinkhole.
After authorities determined that 64-year-old Elizabeth Pollard is unlikely to have survived what could have been a 30-foot plummet into a wet, dark hole where coal mining ended seven decades ago, the effort’s scope was reduced. Work men were using a bulldozer and crane to move more dirt after overnight snowfall left a thin layer on the ground.
On Thursday, Pollard’s son, Axel Hayes, was at her home approximately half a mile from the sinkhole with his father, Kenny Pollard, anticipating the worst but holding out hope that the search would yield positive results.
In a phone conversation, Hayes stated, “We’re just trying to hold out hope.” Right now, we’re not entirely sure how to feel.
In Marguerite, a town in Westmoreland County about 40 miles east of Pittsburgh, the hole is near to Monday’s Union Restaurant.
Hayes said that Pollard, who had a strong affinity for animals, traveled to the restaurant at approximately 5 p.m. on Monday in an attempt to find her male cat, Pepper. Her 5-year-old granddaughter, whom Pollard frequently watched while the girl’s mother was at work, was in her black Chevy Equinox.
Pollard spent a large portion of her adult life in Unity Township, but she was raised in Jeanette, which is roughly 12 miles away. She worked at Walmart for over ten years and was regarded as a cheerful individual. In the two-story house on Dos Drive, she and her husband of almost forty years, Kenny, had adopted two baby boys and were raising them.
She bonded with almost every cat she came into contact with because she adored them. According to Hayes, she even had roughly ten of her own at one point. She drove from her house to the parking lot of Monday’s Union Restaurant, an Italian restaurant, after Pepper vanished. There, she asked a few hunters she met if they had seen Pepper.
The top of a sinkhole in the town of Marguerite, Pennsylvania, where rescuers were looking for a missing woman, is seen in this Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024, photo from the Pennsylvania State Police. (AP via Pennsylvania State Police)
Police have hypothesized that she might have inadvertently stepped directly onto a patch of grass that barely covered a huge sinkhole, a wide hole in the ground that was left behind by heavy coal mining that ceased in the early 1950s. What happened next is unknown.
If they are correct, the only evidence of Pollard that has been found thus far would be a shoe that teams searching for her have briefly seen at the bottom of the hole twice.
Monday night, when the temperature fell below freezing, was chilly. Pollard’s granddaughter waited for her to return inside the Equinox before falling asleep. The fact that the child did not exit the vehicle and walk the roughly 20 feet to the sinkhole is regarded by investigators as a lucky break.
According to Hayes, the young girl’s mother reported them both missing to 911 at around 1 a.m., around eight hours after Pollard was last seen. Two hours later, state police found the car and quickly discovered the sinkhole. Neither the hunters nor the staff that were in and out of the shuttered restaurant on Monday had spotted it. Authorities believe it is a new hole because of the entrance, which was the size of a sewer manhole cover at the time, and the patches of grass around the edge. It might have been difficult to see in the twilight, or it might have opened up directly beneath her due to her own weight.
Two troopers knocked on the car window to save the 5-year-old, startling her. According to police, she was uninjured.
In an unsuccessful attempt to gaze down and search for any indication of Pollard, a fire chief was roped in and fixed firmly with a ladder in case he needed to scramble to the surface. Access to the sinkhole’s rim was strictly restricted and intensively watched because the situation was deemed so perilous.
According to the U.S. Geologic Survey, the following states often experience the most damage from sinkholes. Deaths are uncommon.
The state of Alabama
The state of Florida
Kentucky
Missouri
Pennsylvania
The state of Texas
The state of Tennessee
Describe sinkholes.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, a sinkhole is a region of ground that lacks natural external surface drainage and can develop when the earth beneath the land surface is unable to sustain the land above.
Until the subterranean regions simply get too large, the land typically remains intact for a while. The land surface may abruptly and dramatically collapse if the land above the voids is not adequately supported.
WHY DO SINKHOLES OCCUR?
The most prevalent sinkholes are found in what geologists refer to as karst terrain, which is made up of subsurface rock types, such as limestone, that are naturally dissolved by groundwater flowing through them. Sinkholes may emerge as a result of different building and development techniques as well as groundwater pumping. They may also occur as a result of abandoned underground mines.
Because Florida is situated above limestone, thousands of sinkholes occur there each year.
SINKHOLES: HOW BIG ARE THEY?
Sinkholes can be as little as a few feet in width or as large as hundreds of acres. When it was found early Tuesday, the hole that might have eaten Pollard was just the size of a manhole cover.
Additionally, they can range in depth from a few inches to over 100 feet. While some have vertical walls, others resemble shallow bowls or saucers. Some create ponds by retaining water.
WHAT CAUSED PENNSYLVANIA’S SINKHOLE?
Search and rescue workers are looking for Pollard’s remains in the Unity Township village of Marguerite, where a sinkhole occurred above the location of the Marguerite Mine, which was last used by the H.C. Frick Coke Company in 1952.
There, the Pittsburgh coal seam is located around 20 feet below the surface.
29 of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties have experienced underground coal mining, and a large portion of the southwest part of the state is vulnerable to soil subsidence, a phenomenon in which subterranean materials move or collapse into voids left by mining and other mineral resource exploitation.
After the search is concluded, the state’s Bureau of Abandoned Mine Reclamation will inspect the area to determine whether mine subsidence caused the sinkhole, according to Neil Shader, a spokesman for the Department of Environmental Protection.
Pepper has not been found.
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