Williamson Co. releases 3D images of Cambria Cave

AUSTIN, Texas - On February 8, the roof of a cave collapsed on Cambria Drive. In the middle of a neighborhood no less. But the hustle and bustle of working crews is nearly over.

“Right now at the cave they’re working on filling the bottom of the cave. We are one week into our 100-day schedule for remediation of the cave,” said Williamson County spokesperson Connie Odom.

Odom says by October the cave should be filled and covered. And the road re-opened. This week as crews work to seal it, we have a brand new look at what the cave looked like.  2 of its 4 chambers photographed in 360 degrees with a Trimble SX-10 scanner.

“Well we had an offer from an engineering company to come in and be able to use a 3D mapping system. It had not been used underground in this type of scenario before and so really at very limited expense to the county they really came in and almost voluntarily did this for us,” Odom said.

It’s an impressive look under the neighborhood for Brushy Creek residents like Tim Kelley, one of the homeowners directly affected by the cave. But he’s just hoping to be able to use his driveway again.

“I guess parallel parking is kind of inconvenient for delivering things especially groceries back and forth. The other thing is my wife’s car is starting to get some damage because it’s in the sun all the time,” Kelley said.

Kelley is afraid there’s a “cave effect” when it comes to property value.  

“We were wanting to sell earlier but we’re not doing it now because nobody would probably want to look at our house. Real estate agents have given me the same advice they tell me there’s no way we could sell the house right now,” he said.

“Everybody has been really, really patient regarding this whole process and we have tried to provide them with all the information that we’ve been receiving from our experts,” Odom said.

Williamson County says last Friday they did some core sampling around the entrance of the cave and discovered another void but they say it is not connected to this cave and likely a much smaller pocket of air...which is a naturally-occurring-phenomenon in the Brushy Creek area.