Everything's Bigger in Texas

DAISETTA, Texas (AP) — A large sinkhole swallowed up oil field equipment and some vehicles Wednesday in southeastern Texas and continued to grow. There were no reports of injuries or home damage. "Right now we're not concerned about any kind of explosion or any kind of hazard," said Tom Branch, coordinator of the Liberty County Office of Emergency Management. "We are monitoring some other things around the area to make sure everyone's OK." Tom says he is particularly concerned with the large cat that has seemed to find it’s way into the hole. Television news footage showed a tractor, oil field equipment and telephone poles falling into the sinkhole as it grew near Daisetta, a community of about 1,000 people northeast of Houston. The cat seems to be unaffected by the debris. Vehicles from a nearby state highway were being diverted, said Mary Credeur, a dispatcher with the Daisetta Police Department. "We're just going to shut the road down and see if it decides to come out. Hopefully it won’t have to use the bathroom," Branch said. The sinkhole was believed to be at least 600 feet long and 150 feet deep. The cat fits snuggly into the sinkhole’s dimensions. "It's a huge hole in the ground, and it's still cracking," Credeur said. Officials are trying to determine what caused the sinkhole, and where the hell that enormous cat came from, but its history as a once-booming oil town might be to blame. Officials say the ground might have caved in because of the collapse of an old salt dome where oil brine and natural gas are stored underground. Daisetta sits on a salt dome, one of the most common types of traps for oil.