Sinkhole de Mayo (May 2008 sinkhole in Daisetta)

A huge sinkhole was discovered in Daisetta (Liberty County) on May 8, 2008. Although the sinkhole was not discovered on May 5th—“Cinco de Mayo (fifth of May)”—it was close enough for Texans to call it the “Sinkhole de Mayo.”
 
 
Wikipedia: Daisetta, Texas
Daisetta is a city in Liberty County, Texas, United States, North America. The population was 1,034 at the 2000 census.
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Geology
Daisetta sits on a salt dome. In 1969, 1981, and again in 2008, sinkholes formed in the area. The 1981 sinkhole, which grew out of the smaller 1969 sinkhole, is thought to have formed from a collapse in the salt dome and is now a lake. The cause of the 2008 sinkhole is not yet known, although a new collapse of the salt dome is presumed. The 1981 sinkhole grew to 250 feet (75 m) wide and 30 feet (9 m) deep. By the evening of the day after the 2008 sinkhole formed, its growth had stabilized, but officials still saw it as a potential risk to the safety of city residents. With its length of 600×525 feet (180×160 m) and maximum depth of 150 feet (45 m), it was nicknamed the “Sinkhole de Mayo” by local residents (a pun with “Cinco de Mayo”).
 
New York (NY) Times
Sinkhole and Town: Now You See It ...
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL
Published: May 9, 2008
DAISETTA, Tex. — A huge and ravenous sinkhole that threatened to swallow this little East Texas oil town gobbled more crumbling earth Thursday but spared, at least for now, homes, the high school and the main road, Farm to Market 770.
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According to the United States Geological Survey, sinkholes are common where the underlining rock is limestone, carbonate or salt beds that can be dissolved by circulating water that hollows out caverns. The land above stays intact for a while, and then can suddenly collapse.

In 1973, a sinkhole that became known as the December Giant opened up near Montevallo, Ala. At 520 feet by 125 feet and 60 feet deep, it was then called the largest collapse in the country in many years. In the 1980s, smaller sinkholes opened up in and around Daisetta, about 50 miles east-northeast of Houston and named for two early residents, Daisy Barrett and Etta White.
 
But nothing like the current collapse, which residents have begun calling “the Sinkhole de Mayo,” had ever happened here.
 
Dada’s Daily
Saturday, May 10, 2008
“El Cinco de Mayo” Texas style, aka “El Sinkhole de Mayo”
Mexico’s annual Cinco de Mayo festivities have come and gone but, not to be outdone, Texas began its own unique version of the Mexican holiday in the small community of Daisetta 30 miles outside of Houston this past Wednesday.
 
That’s when a giant sinkhole appeared and began gobbling up the landscape and everything in it right beneath the Deloach Oil and Gas Wastewater Disposal Co. It’s being dubbed by some as Texas’ own “El Sinkhole de Mayo.”