Monday night crews were working through the night in Charles Village and they had their hands full.
A massive sinkhole started collapsing in on 26th street between Calvert and Guilford street.
RELATED: Structural concerns close E. 26th Street in Charles Village
The heavy machinery is ripping up the sidewalk and uprooting entire trees.
In just a few hours the sidewalk went from lopsided and cracked to a crater several feet in the ground.
The retaining wall between the train track and the sidewalk collapsing in on itself.
“My son's favorite activity is to go look at the trains and now there’s a hole where he stands by the fence," said Jean Zachariasiewicz. "The fence that I tell him to hold onto because that’s safer."
Zachariasiewicz knew what happened when she moved onto Calvert Street in 2014.
A massive sinkhole a block away cost the city over $18 million in repairs, swallowing up several peoples cars and forcing many people out of their homes for weeks.
She’s disappointed that history is repeating itself.
“They’ve been going door to door telling people if it collapses we’ll be evacuated,” Zachariasiewicz said.
“We have a 2-year-old and I’m 36 weeks pregnant. I’m trying to figure out like where we would go and what we would take. It’s just a lot for a spur of the moment.”
8-year-old Tavi Hoffman's school Margaret Brent Elementary is right between where the 2014 hole opened and today's.
Standing with his dad and little brother watching the crews work he said it’s as scary now as it was when he was 4.
“It looks like it is dangerous, but it’s hard to see what’s happening but I see a lot of machines,” Hoffman said.
Once the rubble is removed The City of Baltimore will plan, and put in a new wall.
While officials work out how to fix the problem, people like Yonathan Abebe were left to wonder if this is the last time they'll see sights like this in their community.
“Saturation I guess, all the vibration from the train and stuff I mean I expect it was a rainy year,” Abebe said.
A big hole again opened up in the Charles Village community, not knowing when it will be filled and if more will surface in the future.
“Were you not monitoring this? You knew what happened before and how much money it cost,” Zachariasiewicz said. “It is so much cheaper to be on top of things.”
Inspectors will be on sight 24/7 and they say the train route won't be opened until they stabilize the area.
Mayor Catherine Pugh was on scene and said the repairs will take a number of days because they want to take the time to do it right.
This portion of E. 26th Street will remain closed to through traffic between Guilford Avenue and N. Calvert Street.
In addition, N. Calvert Street is closed between E. 25th and E. 27th Streets for equipment staging.
Drivers are asked to use alternate routes away from this area for the next several days to avoid congestion and delays.
