In Carlsbad New Mexico, townspeople are afraid that any moment their fair town just might slip into a hole in the earth. Over the course of three decades, a huge cavern has formed under the town, the unfortunate byproduct of having fresh water pumped into a salt layer more than 400-feet below the surface and then eventually extracted as several million barrels of brine to aid in oil drilling. The whole scenario has made local officials so nervous that they have set up a monitoring system that will take readings through pressure sensors every few seconds. In the event of a possible cave-in or any rapid change in the monitored readings, the alarms will trigger, giving residents several hours notice to begin evacuation before disaster strikes. Based on the current size of the cavern, if a cave-in did occur, it could span up to 500 feet.
