ST. LOUIS — At least two sinkholes opened across the city over the past few days, unsettling neighbors and drawing spectators.

City officials blocked off nearly an entire block at 17th Street and Cass Avenue in the St. Louis Place neighborhood after a sinkhole — estimated to be at least 20 feet deep — opened when a 100-year-old brick sewer collapsed, the sewer district said. Running water could be heard inside the hole.

On Sunday morning, a handful of spectators came out to see the sinkhole themselves. Videos on social media over the weekend garnered tens of thousands of views.

“I’m very concerned,” said resident Shelitha Womack, who lives in front of the sinkhole. “Nobody has come out to talk to us.”

A large sinkhole, pictured April 19, 2025, developed near 17th Street and Cass Avenue in the city’s St. Louis Place neighborhood. The Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer Department said it is investigating the cause.

A few miles away at 14th Street and Park Avenue, just south of Downtown, yellow caution tape and orange traffic cones cordoned off a roughly 30-foot long sinkhole that swallowed part of the median.

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Bess McCoy, a spokeswoman for the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District, said the agency was still investigating the cause of that sinkhole.

The new sinkholes drew attention to two other craters in south city, including one nearly 2 feet wide on Tholozan Avenue and another that has spread to the foundation of a home at Potomac Street and Minnesota Avenue. McCoy said MSD determined those were caused by private lateral lines; she had no further information.

Sinkholes aren’t uncommon in St. Louis: The region sits on more than two dozen caves, some of which the city’s brewers used to store and transport beer. The porous bedrock also makes the area susceptible to natural sinkholes, according to the Missouri Department of Natural Resources.

And the city’s century-old infrastructure can be prone to collapse, McCoy said. That can lead to even more craters.

On Cass Avenue, officials erected chain-link fencing and concrete barriers to keep people out. Womack, the resident, said one of the barriers had been hit several times by inattentive drivers.

Neighbors said Sunday there had been a “dip” in the road on Cass for a few months that felt like a roller coaster when they drove over it. Then, sometime Thursday night, it collapsed.

“My daughter came in Thursday and said, ‘Mom you know there’s a sinkhole?’” said Womack, who lives with her family at the Murphy Park Apartments in front of the sinkhole.

She and her family are worried that the sinkhole could widen due to a cave that is believed to be underneath that was used by the former Lafayette Brewery a few blocks away. They had heard about the other sinkholes across town and worried it was part of worsening conditions.

McCoy said MSD is hoping to get a contractor to the site within a few days; the Easter holiday slowed progress. But the agency is not concerned the sinkhole will worsen and endanger lives, she said.

On Park Avenue, neighbor Leslie Hargrove said the St. Louis Fire Department came out twice to check on the sinkhole in front of her home. The crater started out small last week, then seemingly overnight it swallowed part of the road and median.

“I’m scared,” Hargrove said. “I hope it don’t get bigger.”

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