A sinkhole opened in central El Paso near El Paso High School on Wednesday, prompting authorities to block off the surrounding area as the Borderland remained under threat of flash flooding. The opening followed a stretch of heavy rain that has already torn up roads elsewhere in the region this month.
The area around Brown Street and Murchison Drive was blocked off, according to the El Paso Fire Department, as reported by KFOX. The station reported that the sinkhole opening followed heavy rains in El Paso and that the Borderland remained at risk of flash flooding on Wednesday. No details on the sinkhole's size, depth, or whether it caused any damage or injuries have been made public.
A Pattern of Sinkholes Across the Region
Wednesday's collapse is the latest in a string of sinkhole incidents that have hit the El Paso area amid recent wet weather. Just a week earlier, a large sinkhole opened near Horizon Boulevard and Nancy Drive in Socorro after days of heavy rainfall, with the opening formed in a dirt area and attributed to erosion triggered by the rain, per the same KFOX report and a similar account from CBS4 Local.
That Socorro sinkhole exposed underground gas pipelines, though Texas Gas Service said its crews inspected the lines and confirmed there was no damage, the station's report noted. Crews backfilled and encased the exposed pipeline to guard against further erosion, according to CBS4 Local, and natural gas service to customers was not impacted while crews continued monitoring the site.
Water Main Breaks Add to the Trouble
Two days after the Socorro sinkhole, El Paso Water crews responded to a 16-inch water-main break in far East El Paso on Sept. 18, according to KTSM. Crews isolated the waterline to stop the flow before beginning repairs, the outlet reported. During that same incident, a Socorro Independent School District police vehicle reportedly sank into what appeared to be a sinkhole on Tierra Este Road.
Central El Paso has seen this kind of infrastructure failure before. In August 2022, El Paso Water officials said an underground water-main break caused a sinkhole in central El Paso in which a vehicle submerged and a woman had to be rescued, according to KFOX. Officials said at the time that the line involved was nearly 70 years old and made of cast iron, with El Paso Water's chief operations officer noting the line had broken twice in the preceding decade.
Sinkholes Have Struck Other Parts of the City Too
Far East El Paso has also had recurring trouble. A sinkhole opened on Mission Ridge Boulevard on a Thursday, Jan. 30, at a location where another sinkhole had already been repaired months earlier, KTSM reported. And back in July 2017, a sinkhole in a west El Paso neighborhood swallowed a vehicle, with El Paso Water attributing that collapse to a failed storm drain, according to CBS4 Local.
Socorro residents have also described flooding as an ongoing neighborhood headache that can force drivers to take long detours just to reach the highway, KFOX reported, quoting residents. As of Wednesday, no cause, repair timeline, or reopening estimate had been released for the sinkhole near El Paso High School, and officials had not said whether the closure at Brown Street and Murchison Drive would extend into the following days.
