Golf cart-sized sinkhole knocks out stretch of busy Lambton road

Lambton County officials say they hope a Lakeshore Road sinkhole can be repaired by week’s end, seven days after it opened on the busy road next to Indian Hills Golf Course just east of Highway 21.

Until then, that stretch of the county road in Lambton Shores will be closed to through traffic.

The sinkhole appeared in the westbound lane of the paved road after 4:30 pm Friday, said Jason Cole, the county’s infrastructure and development services general manager.

Cole said the hole was over a culvert, “which is typically the case.”

“That area had heavy rains last week and those types of flows probably started to wash out that material and created that void underneath the roadway.”

Cole said emergency responders secured the site after the hole was reported.

“We’re very glad that it was called in early and the scene was . . . secured before anything serious happened,” he said.

“When we assessed it, the void was large enough that we certainly couldn’t allow traffic to continue on the roadway,” Cole said. “We’ll need to replace the culvert that is the underlying issue there.”

Signs went up Friday to detour traffic around the closed section.

The golf course stayed open through the weekend, said pro shop employee Rick Evans.

“It didn’t affect our business too much,” he said. “We had to give a lot of people directions to get here, but other than tha,t we’re good.”

Evans said the sinkhole started as “a little bump on the road, but then later on it turned into a great big hole, about the size of a golf cart.”

Cole said county staff were organizing materials and labor for the repair Monday.

“It’s a fairly large culvert,” he said. “It’s quite long and the size is a little bit larger than we would normally carry for our own stock, so we have to secure that from a supplier.”

Cole said they’ve been speaking with a contractor on another county job about helping with the Lakeshore Road repairs.

“We know this is a big inconvenience for everyone,” he said. “Lakeshore, especially during the summer, is one of our busier roads and it is a big impact for us and for the public.”

If drivers can follow the detour signs, “that would really assist us in managing the traffic through the area,” Cole said.

“We’re hoping that we’ll be able to complete the work within the week” but that will depend on securing needed supplies and the weather, he said.

“If we get another thunderstorm with intense rains, we’ll just have to wait until that subsides.”

Lakeshore Road has been closed to through traffic between Townsend Line and Highway 21.

Local traffic is still allowed on Lakeshore to reach homes, cottages and businesses, Cole said.

“This is certainly an unusual situation for us, to have something develop in the middle of the road like that,” Cole said.

Usually, staff see signs of trouble during road inspections, but not this time, he said.

“We weren’t expecting something like this.”

[email protected]