Sinkhole Hits Businesses, Home Values in Rural Louisiana

Dennis Landry’s bed and breakfast was in the middle of a record business year before a sinkhole prompted authorities to tell 150 households in the towns of Bayou Corne and Grand Bayou in Louisiana to evacuate. Soon after, wary customers began cancelling their reservations as the sinkhole expanded, swallowing up hundreds of feet of swamp and his profits with it. “It was like we were clipping along at 65 miles per hour and all of a sudden, it was like all four wheels came off. All of a sudden, bam. Hit a brick wall,” he said of the sinkhole that emerged in early August.