Cape Coral has put a drilling rig into Northwest 16th Terrace to find out why the road and a driveway on it are sinking, and until it reports back the city has told the homeowners not to drive on their own concrete

The City of Cape Coral has hired a geotechnical consultant to drill into Northwest 16th Terrace after a stretch of the roadway and a driveway on it sank far enough that the homeowners have been told not to drive on their own concrete.

The city's position, quoted by WINK News, is that its preliminary observations confirm the roadway has experienced noticeable settlement in front of the property, and that the amount of settlement varies across the lot. It also says that at this time it does not know the cause of the roadway settlement, so it cannot confirm any connection to nearby construction. The consultant is conducting subsurface borings in the roadway to establish what the ground underneath is doing.

Jack and Denise Johnson, who live at the property, took the case to the station's WINK Listens strand. Denise Johnson said the first sign of trouble was water pooling at the bottom of the driveway when it rained. A year later, she said, the street, the yard and the driveway just keep sinking. Jack Johnson said the driveway looked perfect up to about a year ago and that the concrete has now shifted enough that he cannot get into it. They say they fear the garage could follow.

The Johnsons attribute the damage to construction that started about a year ago at a new 7-Eleven at Chiquita and Diplomat. That is their belief as reported by the station. The city has neither confirmed nor denied a link, and the borings are being drilled because the cause has not been established.

WINK News reports that the city manager and the public works director came to see the site firsthand before the consultant was engaged. No repair schedule, cost or engineering finding has been reported.

There is no primary document behind this brief. The city's position exists so far as statements given to a newsroom, and the geotechnical work that would produce a readable record has not been completed, so no report, permit finding or engineering result was available for this desk to read. The account here rests on one outlet's reporting, credited below, and the cause of the settlement remains undetermined by the authority investigating it.

Reporting: Corey Lazar, WINK News.