Jeremy Bush places flowers and a stuffed animal at a makeshift memorial in front of a home where a sinkhole opened up underneath a bedroom late Thursday evening and swallowed his brother Jeffrey in Seffner, Fla. on Saturday, March 2, 2013. Jeffrey Bush, 37, was in his bedroom Thursday night when the earth opened and took him and everything else in his room. Five other people were in the house but managed to escape unharmed. Bush's brother jumped into the hole to try to help, but he had to be rescued himself by a sheriff's deputy. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)
Jeremy Bush places flowers and a stuffed animal at a makeshift memorial in front of a home where a sinkhole opened up underneath a bedroom late Thursday evening and swallowed his brother Jeffrey in Seffner, Fla. on Saturday, March 2, 2013. Jeffrey Bush, 37, was in his bedroom Thursday night when the earth opened and took him and everything else in his room. Five other people were in the house but managed to escape unharmed. Bush's brother jumped into the hole to try to help, but he had to be rescued himself by a sheriff's deputy. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)
In this undated photo released by Jeremy Bush, shows his brother Jeff Bush. Jeremy Bush heard a loud crash and screaming coming from his brother's room early Thursday, March 1, 2013 in Seffner, Fla. A large sinkhole opened under Jeff's bedroom and he disappeared together with most of the bedroom furniture. Jeremy jumped into the hole and was quickly up to his neck in dirt. Jeff is presumed dead. (AP Photo/Jeremy Bush, HO)
Brenda Bush is escorted by a Hillsborough County Sheriff's deputy as she places flowers, Saturday, March 2, 2013, at a makeshift memorial in front of a home where a sinkhole opened up underneath a bedroom late Thursday evening and swallowed her son Jeffrey in Seffner, Fla. Jeffrey Bush, 37, was in his bedroom Thursday night when the earth opened and took him and everything else in his room. Five other people were in the house but managed to escape unharmed. Bush's brother jumped into the hole to try to help, but he had to be rescued himself by a sheriff's deputy. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)
An engineer, tethered with a safety line, walks in front of a home where a sinkhole opened up underneath a bedroom late Thursday evening and swallowed a man in Seffner, Fla. on Saturday, March 2, 2013. Jeffrey Bush, 37, was in his bedroom Thursday night when the earth opened and took him and everything else in his room. Five other people were in the house but managed to escape unharmed. Bush's brother jumped into the hole to try to help, but he had to be rescued himself by a sheriff's deputy. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)
Engineers talk in front of a home, where a sinkhole opened up underneath a bedroom late Thursday evening and swallowed a man, in Seffner, Fla. on Saturday, March 2, 2013. Jeffrey Bush, 37, was in his bedroom Thursday night when the earth opened and took him and everything else in his room. Five other people were in the house but managed to escape unharmed. Bush's brother jumped into the hole to try to help, but he had to be rescued himself by a sheriff's deputy. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)
SEFFNER, Fla. (AP) ? Crews planned to begin demolishing a Florida home Sunday that is perched over a huge sinkhole, deeming it too dangerous to keep searching for the man swallowed into the earth from his bedroom.
The search for Jeff Bush, 37, was called off Saturday. The 20-foot-wide opening of the sinkhole is almost completely covered by the house and rescuers feared it would collapse on them. Two neighboring homes were evacuated as a precaution.
Hillsborough County Administrator Mike Merrill said heavy equipment would be brought in to begin razing the home Sunday morning.
"At this point it's really not possible to recover the body," Merrill said, later adding "we're dealing with a very unusual sinkhole."
Jessica Damico, spokeswoman for Hillsborough County Fire Rescue, said the demolition equipment would be placed on what they believe is solid ground and reach onto the property to pull apart the house. The crew will try pulling part of the house away from the sinkhole intact so some of the residents' keepsakes can be retrieved.
Bush was in his bedroom Thursday night in Seffner ? a suburb of 8,000 people 15 miles east of downtown Tampa ? when the ground opened and took him and everything else in his room. Five others in the house escape unharmed as the earth crumbled.
On Saturday, the normally quiet neighborhood of concrete block homes painted in Florida pastels was jammed with cars. Engineers, reporters, and curious onlookers came to the scene.
At the home next door to the Bushes, a family cried and organized boxes. Testing determined that their house and another had been compromised by the sinkhole. The families were allowed to go inside for about a half-hour to gather belongings.
Sisters Soliris and Elbairis Gonzalez, who live on the same street as the Bushes, said neighbors were worried for their safety.
"I've had nightmares," Soliris Gonzalez, 31, said. "In my dreams, I keep checking for cracks in the house."
They said the family has discussed where to go if forced to evacuate, and they've taken their important documents to a storage unit.
"The rest of it, this is material stuff, as long as our family is fine," Soliris Gonzalez said.
"You never know underneath the ground what's happening," added Elbairis Gonzalez, 30.
Experts say thousands of sinkholes form yearly in Florida because of the state's unique geography, though most are small and deaths rarely occur.
"There's hardly a place in Florida that's immune to sinkholes," said Sandy Nettles, who owns a geology consulting company in the Tampa area. "There's no way of ever predicting where a sinkhole is going to occur."
Most sinkholes are small, like one found Saturday morning in Largo, 35 miles away from Seffner. The Largo sinkhole, about 10 feet long and several feet wide, is in a mall parking lot.
The state sits on limestone, a porous rock that easily dissolves in water, with a layer of clay on top. The clay is thicker in some locations ? including the area where Bush became a victim ? making them even more prone to sinkholes.
Jonathan Arthur, the state geologist and director of the Florida Geological Survey, said other states sit atop limestone in a similar way, but Florida has added factors such as extreme weather, development, aquifer pumping and construction.
"The conditions under which a sinkhole will form can be very rapid, or they can form slowly over time," he said.
But it remained unclear Saturday what, if anything, had caused the Seffner sinkhole.
"The condition that caused that sinkhole could have started a million years ago," Nettles said.
Jeremy Bush, who tried to rescue his brother, lay flowers near the house Saturday morning and wept.
He said someone came to his home a couple of months ago to check for sinkholes and other issues, apparently for insurance purposes, but found nothing wrong. State law requires home insurers to provide coverage against sinkholes.
"And a couple of months later, my brother dies. In a sinkhole," Bush said Friday.
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Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-03-03-Sinkhole%20Swallows%20Man/id-7beed10e6f5f4a3c9b1e9e7e8935599e
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