Woman crashed her car after hitting this hole downtown. Neighbors say it’s been an issue for years

ATLANTA — This week’s heavy rains opened up a hole in a downtown Atlanta street. A car crashed into it, sending the driver to the hospital early Monday morning.

Channel 2′s Steve Gehlbach spoke with the victim and neighbors who say it was a problem leading up to the accident.

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A metal plate now covers this spot on Currier Street, just off Courtland Ave in downtown Atlanta.

“But it wasn’t there before. I had my lights on, I would have seen it,” Jamela Franklin told Gehlbach.

Franklin first thought she hit something as she left work a little after 6 a.m. Monday.

“Then I felt my car sink.”

Later in the morning, the hole looked a couple of feet deep and four to five feet width.

Franklin says the impact was so hard her airbag deployed and she went to the hospital to get checked out. She’s still working through her insurance, but the car appears to be totaled.

“Everyone goes up and down this area all the time,” Janiece Allen said.

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Neighbors in nearby condos say they’ve repeatedly called and complained about the spot where they saw the City of Atlanta start working on two years ago, then patched it up until it started sinking last year.

“It was OK, but then it started getting less and less, had to put cones around it…but we’ve been calling for probably about 8 months to the city about it,” Allen said.

Neighbors are now hoping it becomes a priority to get a permanent fix. Franklin, who doesn’t have a car or way to get to work, wants the city to be accountable.

“Someone has to take responsibility,” Franklin said.

“That could have been a serious causality. Someone could have died, I could have died.”

Gehlbach reached out to the city and Atlanta Department of Transportation on Wednesday.

He asked what work the city has done here, a plan to repair it now or any steps the driver or her insurance can now take to get any reimbursement if the city did know about it and not take appropriate steps to fix it.

As of Thursday morning, Gehlbach has not heard back.

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