Return timeframe in question for those near sinkhole

Given the recent appearance of a massive sinkhole near his new Assumption Parish home, Greg Denton picked the wrong time to move. As The Times-Picayune reports, just weeks after Denton and his wife, Carmen, bought their new place on Sauce Piquante Lane, in late May, many of their neighbors started reporting feeling tremors and seeing gas bubbles rising up in nearby bayous. “I didn’t know nothing about it at all when we first came down here. I didn’t have a clue,” says Denton, 56, about two months after he relocated from Missouri. “Every day is a new experience, I’m telling you.” The same has been true for state and local officials, who have spent months investigating the puzzling activity toward the back swamps along the west bank of Bayou Lafourche. The tremors became more frequent, from a dozen a day to hundreds by mid-July, with some residents reporting minor property damage. Then, one day in early August, the shaking just stopped. It was soon followed the sinkhole, which has nearly doubled in size over the past two weeks. Local officials ordered a mandatory evacuation June 19 for a section of homes closest to the center of the sinkhole, about a half-mile away. As of last week, Assumption Parish Police Jury President Martin Triche estimated about half of the 150 households, or about 350 residents, had left. It’s unclear how long they’ll have to stay away. Read the full story here.