A 3-foot wide sinkhole has opened in the middle of the interstate in Truckee, California today, causing huge disruptions to traffic as workers hurry to repair it.

The hole opened early this morning in a construction zone and is about eight feet deep. Officials say a stream runs under that section of road, and water is often the cause of sinkholes. The area is down to one lane of moving traffic on both sides, but all lanes should be open again around six p.m.

Several sinkholes have opened up around the country this year, mostly in the southern states. Yesterday a video of trees being sucked into a giant underwater sinkhole in Louisiana went viral, and Florida has had a big problem in recent months with dangerous holes opening up in the middle of roads and near homes. Earlier this year a man was killed when a sinkhole opened under his home. The man’s brother said he tried to save him but was too late.

“It swallowed his whole bedroom, his dresser — everything in his room is gone,” Jeremy Bush said. “All I could see was the top of his bed. So I jumped in the hole and tried digging him out. I thought I could hear him screaming for me and hollering for me.”

Some of the scariest stories have been about sinkholes opening up in the middle of busy roads; in July, a woman’s car was sucked 20 feet underground on a Toledo roadway when a water main broke.

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