Austin construction crews discover five caves

Workers with the Austin Public Works Department have found five caves near McNeil High School while they finish construction projects in the area. Workers with the Austin Public Works Department have found five caves near McNeil High School while they finish construction projects in the area. Photo: Courtesy Of The City Of Austin Photo: Courtesy Of The City Of Austin Image 1 of / 24 Caption Close Austin construction crews discover five caves 1 / 24 Back to Gallery

AUSTIN — Construction crews working on a project in front of an Austin high school keep hitting literal pitfalls as they near their November deadline — caves.

Workers have found five caves near McNeil High School since the start of the project, but they're not the kind that inspire spelunking: the latest and largest measures 20 feet long and five feet deep.

"Sometimes, you don't actually know exactly what you're going to find until you're actually digging," said Courtney Black, a spokeswoman for the Austin Public Works Department. She said city officials spoke with McNeil High School administrators, who said they encountered the same problem when building the school.

Finding caves during construction is relatively common for public works crews in the Austin area: KXAN reports construction crews in Williamson County had to pause after finding a 100-foot-long, 60-foot-wide and 20-foot deep cave.

Black said finding these pockets and navigating dense rock are part of the construction process, but said the discoveries have slowed the project from its initial September completion date to November.

jfechter@express-news.net

Twitter: @JFreports