City fills illegal subterranean hole

Austin (KXAN) - The city of Austin filled in an illegally-dug tunnel beneath an East Austin home with concrete this morning.

Officials said they used a low-strength concrete, which will replace the soil that was removed under the home on Canterbury. It took six hours for crews to pump in 264 tons of concrete into the hole just below the house.

Neighbors said homeowner Joe Del Rio has been digging under his home from years.

“He went off and started tearing up the walls in the shelter and started digging wider and deeper and he just went completely crazy with the hole the last two years a lot of dirt has been leaving the property through the alley and people were concerned,” said Danny Perez with East Town Lake Neighborhood Association.

The city learned of the tunnel after serving a search warrant on Del Rio nearly a month ago. City officials said the home was in danger of collapsing, and they hired an outside company to stabilize the system of tunnels. Some of the tunnels were as deep as 35 feet under the home.

"You're just filling the hole back up as far as like when you have dirt compacted to stable so your just filling the it back up even with the dirt to make the dirt stable it's not being used to support the house,” said Johnny Leverett with Lone Stare Ready-Mix.

Del Rio will likely be facing multiple code compliance violations but has filed a lawsuit against the city and tried to file a restraining order to prevent the city from filling the holes. The project cost the city nearly $62,000 and will most likely be seeking reimbursement from Del Rio.