Social media is poking fun at the sinkhole that opened up on the White House lawn.
This week, the ground gave way at 1600 Avenue in Washington D.C., leaving a gaping hole in the White House’s North Lawn that has since grown to be more than a foot long.
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This week I’ve been observing a sinkhole on the @WhiteHouse North Lawn, just outside the press briefing room, growing larger by the day. pic.twitter.com/BsFUtxFqpB
— Steve Herman (@W7VOA) May 22, 2018
Although it is likely a result of irrigation problems and the fact that the White House sits on “poorly consolidated sediments” and not bedrock, social media users were quick to poke fun at the minor lawn care disaster, with some suggesting that the sinkhole was actually First Lady Melania Trump’s escape tunnel.
Melania, you have to dig your escape tunnel deeper than that. Watch Shawshank again, lady. https://t.co/F2jKuBApjQ
— Lucy Hallowell is finishing this rewrite dammit (@lucyhallowell) May 22, 2018
The theory may hold some truth, given that the President once joked that his wife may be the next to leave the White House.
“So many people have been leaving the White House — it’s actually been really exciting and invigorating because you want new thought. I like turnover. I like chaos,” he said at an annual Gridiron Club press dinner in March. “Now the question everyone keeps asking is, ‘Who is going to be the next to leave? Steve Miller or Melania?’”
Security footage of @FLOTUS Melania Trump, proving that the whitehouse sinkhole is actually her escape tunnel. pic.twitter.com/LdW7T3j0YU
— Luke McGarry (@lukeymcgarry) May 22, 2018
Other social media users were curious whether the gaping hole was a sinkhole or a portal to hell, with some wondering if demons would begin climbing out.
Whether people fall in or demons come crawling out, I like where this is going. https://t.co/KG3m1muqMG
— Corey Pein 😃🤑😐😩💀 (@coreypein) May 22, 2018
One person even quipped that the sinkhole seemed to be a “perfect metaphor” for the Trump administration.
Sinkhole portal to hell opening up on the White House lawn is the perfect metaphor for the Trump White House
— Red (@Redpainter1) May 22, 2018
Despite the jokes, Jenny Anzelmo-Sarles, a spokeswoman for the National Park Service, cleared the air, dispelling rumors that it was sinkhole or a portal to the underworld.
“Sinkholes, like this one, are common occurrences in Washington following heavy rain like the D.C. metro area has experienced in the last week,” she said on Twitter . “We do not believe it poses any risk to the White House or is representative of a larger problem.”
This is not the first sinkhole that Trump has faced. Exactly one year ago on Tuesday, a sinkhole formed on the lawn of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Estate in Palm Beach, Florida. The Mar-a-Lago sinkhole was much larger than the White House sinkhole, measuring four feet by four feet, and was blamed on widening ditch on a newly installed water main.