OMAHA – City crews are still working to repair a sinkhole that occurred on 16th Street last week. As work continues above ground, reporter Molly Hudson got an exclusive look at a problem that neighbors have been dealing with for months in the building’s basement, right next to the sinkhole.
- For months mud has filled the sub-basement of the Regis building.
- It started back in April. Tom Dinaro, a resident of the building, says about 200,000 pounds of mud that had seeped in, had to be cleaned out of the basement of the historic building.
- When the sinkhole opened last week – it didn’t come as a surprise to neighbors.
- Public Works expects it to take about two weeks to fix this sinkhole.
And here’s where it gets disgusting; as you can see, this was storage in our sub-basement,” said Tom Dinaro, who has lived in the Regis building for eight years.
“It is completely inundated with mud, all, everyone’s belongings were destroyed,” Dinaro told reporters.
For months, residents of the Regis building, such as Tom Dinaro, have had to deal with mud.
“You will get another disgusting vantage point of it over here too,” Dinaro told Molly.
It began back in April. Dinaro claims that approximately 200,000 pounds of mud had seeped into the historic building’s basement and had to be cleaned out.
“They brought this out in bags, like they brought it out in contractor bags, up the stairs and into a dump truck,” according to Dinaro.
But soon after, more flooded in to replace it.
“This is the second iteration of this, so we are really struggling, our residents, because this is a condominium building, so we all own this and therefore we all have to pay for it,” says Dinaro.
When the sinkhole opened last week, it did not surprise neighbors like Dinaro.
“Four feet of mud in our basement, that was obviously from here, like we were told about this void, six months ago, and that is how they described it, and as you can see, it is a void,” Dinaro told KMTV last week when the sinkhole opened.
While it is unclear whether last week’s sinkhole is related to the muddy mess, residents such as Dinaro reported the problem in their sub-basement to the city long before the sinkhole appeared.
I called Omaha Public Works.
They have been aware of problems with the building since 2021, but they are still investigating where the mud is coming from.
“I am concerned about the mud intrusion in there again from whatever this was, happening somewhere else,” Dinaro said.
Residents of the building are hoping for a solution soon, as they have already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The repair of this sinkhole is expected to take about two weeks, according to Public Works.