Yesterday, eight Corvettes were swallowed by a 40 ft. sinkhole that collapsed in the National Corvette Museum.

The sinkhole opened in the museum’s Skydome, a structure that housed roughly 70-80 Corvettes.

Wendell Strode, executive director of the museum, said the cars and structure  by the natural disaster are insured for repair.

“They (the insurance company) have been just great,” Strode said. “We are fully insured, they’re great to work with and we’re moving on from that standpoint.”

Jeff Lamarche, the new plant manager for the Corvette Assembly Plant, announced Chevrolet will oversee the repair to the damaged vehicles. 

Lamarche was representing Chevrolet and General Motors as a spokesperson.

“It pretty quickly became apparent to us that the best way we could help would be to lend our technical resources, our expertise and our vast experience with these vehicles,” he said. 

Mike Murphy, division manager for Scott, Murphy and Daniel, LLC, was hired, along with his firm, to assist in the repairs for the building, and in the removal of the fallen automobiles.

“We live in a Karst area where we live with underground cave systems… we run across this on a monthly basis,” Murphy said. “This situation is really not any different… the only difference is this one swallowed eight corvettes.”

Murphy and his team had been at the museum since 7 a.m. Thursday to secure the building and determine how to remove the cars.

Murphy estimated it would take four to six days to pull the cars from the sinkhole.

“We’ve got a good plan, we’re in the early stages,” he said.