3rd Street sinkhole opens to Bullhook

A sinkhole opened up on 3rd Street, close to the 5th Avenue intersection, early this morning.

Bullhook could be seen running perpendicular to 3rd Street through the approximately four-foot long hole in the middle of the road.

Kachina Detonancour, an employee at Taco Treat, was one of the first to discover the hole in the street when she arrived at work around 7:45 a.m.

“I was worried about all the school buses that come down this street, so I blocked the hole with trash cans,” Detonancour said.

Mayor Tim Solomon arrived to the new construction zone a little after 10 a.m., shortly after construction crews arrived.

“Right now, we’re waiting for an engineer to come down and inspect the area,” Solomon said.

Solomon did not have a guess as to how long it would take for construction crews to finish their work. The engineer will decide what needs to be done to the road after he inspects it, and then construction crews will know what they are up against.

“Bullhook is a huge issue in Havre, and we need to take care of it,” said Ward 1 Councilmember Bonnie Parenteau.

“This has been quite a year for the Bullhook,” Ward 4 Council Member Andrew Brekke said. “This has been the wettest year; the record in 50-some years. If you have water running under the ground, you’re going to have problems.”

Solomon said another sinkhole on 6th Avenue also lies above the Bullhook but hasn’t broken through. It has yet to be determined if the sinkholes are related.