Troy

For the second time in six weeks, a problem has torn a hole into a city street.

And this time, it's a sinkhole on Campbell Avenue — the same thoroughfare shut down four years ago in the wake of damage from Tropical Storm Irene.

The ravaged asphalt lay at the top of a hill on the 100 block of Campbell Avenue in front of the Franklin Terrace Ballroom. Officials in the fiscally strapped city believed the sinkhole was the result of a sewer line that collapsed early Sunday in the eastbound lane of Campbell between Sherman and Donegal avenues.

The size of the sinkhole clearly expanded by early Sunday afternoon, but with the exception of orange construction fencing and temporary roadblocks around the crater there was nothing to prevent local residents — such as curious children — from potentially wandering around the sinkhole. No police, fire or other officials were in sight.

Detour signs told motorists to avoid the impacted section of the Campbell Avenue, yet some cars went through anyway. John Salka, a spokesman for the city, said workers would do a camera inspection of the line Monday morning to determine what fixes need to be done.

Troy City Council President Carmella Mantello, who drove to the site early Sunday afternoon, preferred the work to have started Sunday.

"Obviously, I'm not an engineer but it does seem to be more of an immediate emergency than I think is happening at present time," she told the Times Union.

The city is still dealing with the fallout of the Jan. 17 rupture to its 33-inch water main in Lansingburgh, which flooded parts of the city and endangered water service in Halfmoon and Waterford. On Wednesday, the City Council voted unanimously to grant preliminary approval to issue up to $3 million in bonds to pay for the installation of 36-inch main to avoid another massive main break. Final approval could come at the council's March 3 meeting.

In 2012, a section of Campbell Avenue was closed down because of damages caused by soil changes due to the lingering impacts of Tropical Storm Irene. At a City Council meeting in 2015, Public Utilities Superintendent Chris Wheland noted the past problems and its fiscal impact.

"If we have a catastrophic event like, for example, the Campbell Avenue collapse, we do not have the funds available," he said at the time.

On Sunday, Mantello said her understanding is that if the problem is simply the sewer pipe she hopes the problem can be quickly addressed within a few days.

"They'll fix the pipe, pave it over and it will reopen," she said. "But if it is something more dramatic than that then my immediate question is, what has transpired over a four-year-period? You can't say it's aging infrastructure because all of that was replaced four years ago."

Mantello said she planned to call city utility officials and first-year Mayor Patrick Madden to make sure the city was at least monitoring the sinkhole at the scene.

"I was surprised not to see at least a police car nearby the site," she said.

Madden did not return a Times Union call for comment. Wheland, reached by phone, said he could not comment and referred all questions to Salka, the city spokesman.

Reached just after 5 p.m.., Salka said city officials were checking on the site "back and forth" periodically.

Asked who was doing the checking, Salka said: "I don't know. I haven't talked to (the Department of Public Utilities) in a few hours. As far as I know that site was secure."

Inside the sinkhole lay a cone, which had been at the scene as a barrier. Initially, when asked how it could have gotten there, the spokesman said: "It could have been blown by the wind. It could have been bumped in by a reporter. I don't know. There's a lot of people that went down — reporters mainly — around that site."

Asked why no apparent effort was being made to ensure that no one, such as a child, could walk into the area and get hurt, the spokesman said he would check the status of the site and call back. A short time later he called back, saying that Troy police were periodically monitoring the site and the streets around the detoured road. The city was following standard operating procedure for work sites, he said.

As for the cone inside the sinkhole, Salka said: "That cone fell in the hole last night or very early this morning before the most recent securing of the site with the barrels and the netting and the tape."

Salka said he understood the city had to wait until Monday before doing the camera inspection of the site because the inspection company that would be used does not work on weekends. Asked if the inspection company could come in for an emergency, Salka said, "They're closed on Saturdays and Sundays. That's what I was told."

The spokesman said the sinkhole was not an emergency.

"Nothing was affected, no sewer services have been affected. No residents or businesses have lost sewer services," he said.

rgavin@timesunion.com • 518-434-2403 • @RobertGavinTU