CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. – A Clarksville family is concerned that their house will fall into a sinkhole that formed in their backyard after the Farmington Basin overflowed last week.
Roy Nelson and his wife went to bed last Sunday night, concerned about the rising water in the basin behind their home.
“We’re on this hill, so we never really worried about the flood,” said Nelson. “We were just worried about the neighbors.”
However, when they awoke on Monday morning, they discovered a massive sinkhole in their backyard that ended just feet from the fence.
“The ground had been falling and deteriorating the whole night,” Nelson informed the audience. “The whole night while we were sleeping, we thought we were safe, but we were actually living on the edge the entire time.
If that sinkhole had expanded by about five feet, my entire family, our home, and everything, including the kids, would have been in it by Monday morning. It was by God’s grace that it did not happen.”
The sinkhole formed after the Montgomery County Highway Department pumped millions of gallons of stormwater into the Farmington Basin.
The Nelsons claim they only found out after county officials told them they needed to contact their homeowner’s association because the sinkhole was on private property.
The Montgomery County Highway Department later admitted to inadvertently overflowing the basin in a press release.
Before the April rain event, the ground was already saturated from rainfall in February. The injection wells were almost full (70-80% capacity) before the rain event began, and the Dunlop Basin was holding water from earlier storms, indicating it wasn’t draining well.
Due to saturation levels and basin conditions, ahead of the storm, we took steps to lower water levels and reduce flood risk. Highway crews placed a small pump to move water from Dunlop to Farmington, with the capacity to flow at a maximum throughput of 1500 gallons per minute and utilized a larger pump with a capacity of 3600 gallons per minute to speed up water flow from Farmington’s main basin to the one with an injection well.
However, despite those efforts, several factors led to the system becoming overwhelmed. The injection well in Farmington suddenly stopped draining, likely due to a blockage or the aquifer being too full to absorb more water. At the same time, a large basin north of International Blvd. crested and overflowed into the Dunlop basin, leading to the addition of an excessive volume of water flowing into the Farmington Basin, with no surface outlet directly connecting to the Red River, overwhelming an already taxed system.
Our early calculations estimate that this flow contributed more than 250,000 gallons per minute (equivalent to filling an Olympic-sized swimming pool every two to three minutes) to the Farmington basin over Dunlop Road. We are continuing to gather more data and will publish a full report on the rain flow and volume.Joshua Peltz, Montgomery County Highway Department
Joshua Peltz, Montgomery County Highway Department
WSMV asked Montgomery County if their actions could have contributed to the sinkhole in Nelson’s backyard, but we have yet to receive a response.
The Nelsons say they’re now waiting for guidance from the county.
“It’s supposed to rain again this weekend for three days. What will happen then? Should we go get a room? Will we get an Airbnb? Do we return to find our house in a hole?” Nelson said. “What do we do?” My house’s foundation is crumbling, just like the ground, and we still have no answers.”
He claims that his top priority is accountability.
“I would like for the people who are responsible for this to come out, come to my door, tell us we are responsible for this and we’re going to take care of it,” Nelson told the crowd. “That would relieve pressure on my family and my wife, as well as provide us with a starting point for the time being because we are unsure which direction to take. “We still have to pay our mortgage.”
On Monday, the Montgomery County Commission approved $500,000 in emergency funding for home repairs in the Farmington subdivision.
