Five other people were in the house but managed to escape unharmed. It was confined to the home, not visible from the outside. Even the media was moved from a lawn across the street to a safer area a few hundred feet away. "Until we know where it's safe to bring our equipment," Chief Rogers said, "we're really handicapped." Florida is highly prone to sinkholes because there are caverns below ground of limestone, a porous rock that easily dissolves in water. The sinkhole, estimated at 20 feet across and 20 feet deep, caused the home's concrete floor to cave in around 11 p.m. Thursday as everyone in the Tampa-area house was turning in for the night. It gave way with a loud crash that sounded like a car hitting the house and brought Bush's brother running. I wanted to save my brother," Jeremy Bush said through tears Friday in a neighbor's yard. Some didn't talk, just clinging to stuffed animals and staring across the street. He added: "I could swear I heard him hollering my name to help him." Hillsborough County sheriff's Deputy Douglas Duvall was not sure exactly what that meant until he got to the one-story house at 240 Faithway Drive just after 11 p.m. Thursday and found Jeremy Bush trying in vain to dig into a hole threatening to claim him. Duvall said he didn't see anyone else in the hole. The tip of Jeffrey's mattress was the only thing left, and it was sinking into a churning sinkhole. Engineers said they may have to demolish the small house, even though from the outside there appeared to be nothing wrong with the four-bedroom, concrete-wall structure, built in 1974. Jeremy Bush said someone came out to the home a couple of months ago to check for sinkholes and other things, apparently for insurance purposes. Someone in the house called 911: "The bedroom floor collapsed and my brother-in-law is underneath the house." No officials declared Bush dead, but rescue efforts were hampered by the volatile nature of sinkholes.
– Engineers are still gingerly trying to find a 37-year-old Florida man who disappeared into a sinkhole that opened up in his bedroom yesterday. Jeffrey Bush is presumed dead, and authorities say the sinkhole is so dangerous they can't risk simply sending searchers into it, reports AP. It's about 30 feet wide and 20 feet deep, but it's growing slowly and expected to collapse even more. "This is not your typical sinkhole," says one Tampa-area official. "This is a chasm. For that reason, we're being very deliberate." Bush's family is livid, especially his brother, Jeremy, who tried in vain to pull his brother out when the sinkhole suddenly appeared Thursday night. He had to be rescued himself by a firefighter. "I could swear I heard him hollering my name to help him," Jeremy tells the Tampa Bay Times. The newspaper says this is a "cover collapse sinkhole," the rarest and most dangerous kind because there's no warning. "You can almost envision a piece of Swiss cheese," explains one geologist, referring to the region's porous limestone.