There she blows.
An accidental oddity of geology and engineering has roared to life along the western shore of Lake Warren, and has residents in a tiny patch of south Orlando wondering if their neighborhood has its own version of Old Faithful.
Every few minutes for the past several days, a huge gush of water and mud rockets skyward from a marshy area of the Crescent Park neighborhood, spewing as high as 60 feet.
It has some people joking about setting up T-shirt shops and soda stands as Central Florida's latest tourist attraction.
But there is a man-made explanation for Orlando's "geyser," as some are calling it: It's an old, uncapped drainage well boring deep into the Floridan Aquifer.
During heavy rains, it sucks down so much water and trapped air that every few minutes -- between 7 and 30 minutes in recent days -- it all belches back up.
The roar can be heard throughout the neighborhood and into the nearby town of Belle Isle.
But that doesn't mean it's not cool -- even the experts can admit that.
"Maybe this should be the new tourist attraction for Belle Isle," said Richard Lott, a manager in the Florida Department of Environmental Protection's Orlando office. "You'd have to get some good name for it for people to come see it."
Remainder
-- Anonymous, December 28, 2002