Recent rain has led to an expansion of a sinkhole in Selma’s Bienville Park, and it  hasn’t gone unnoticed by local government leaders.

Selma Mayor George Evans said he personally visited the Water Avenue site and started the process to get repairs made to an underground storm drain and the hole filled in a timely manner.

“It’s a bad situation, and it’s been getting worse and with the rain we’ve been getting hasn’t helped at all,” Evans said. “It’s not going unnoticed.”

Evans said he met with Ray Hogg, owner of Hogg Engineering who also serves as an engineering consultant for the city of Selma, and he knows the opinions of engineering professionals is the best place to begin when considering plans of action.

“We have to bring people in to figure our way to handle this problem,” Evans said. “It’s over my head, personally, on how we do that. But, he had some ideas that we are going to look at this week and in the future. “

Selma City Councilman Greg Bjelke said he consulted with multiple engineers who agreed with each other on the cause of the sinkhole.

“We’ve talked to a couple engineers who both confirmed that it was a metal drainage pipe that has a hole in it causing the washout we are seeing that caused the sinkhole,” Bjelke said.

One of the engineers told Bjelke the best way to confirm there was a hole in the metal storm drain would be to either stick a camera into the drain line or look for mud pouring from the end of the line into the Alabama River.

“I think the city has one of those cameras, which we could use,” Bjelke said. “I’ve been tempted to climb down the hill and see if there is dirt down in the pipe.”

Now that the cause of the sinkhole has been widely agreed upon, Bjelke said it’s time for action.

“I, myself, need to put a fire under everybody to get the plan together and get something done right away,” Bjelke said.