The Daily Times

A series of loud, mysterious booms heard and felt by residents in the Lashbrooke neighborhood in Louisville over the last week remains a mystery.

It’s not coming from a nearby quarry, according to a representative from the Vulcan Materials Company. Carl VanHoozier, manager of process improvement, community relations and governmental affairs and land and geology for Vulcan, said that while the company has two other quarries located off U.S. Highway 321 in the Friendsville area, the only quarry currently in operation is located on Duncan Road in Maryville.

VanHoozier said the Duncan Road operation is far enough away from Louisville that it shouldn’t affect residents in Lashbrook, where these strange sounds have been heard as early as 5:30 a.m.

Jim Millsaps, father of one of the co-owners of a new quarry on U.S. Highway 411 South, 411 Crushed Stone, said there are several state restrictions as far as blasting times. He said the earliest a quarry would begin blasting would be around 10 a.m. VanHoozier agreed.

“I can certainly assure you this: we would never, ever blast that early in the morning (5 a.m.),” he said. “We usually try to do it around lunch time like everyone else.”

An owner of the new quarry could not be reached for comment.

Shane Asbury said he and his wife Laura were first awakened last Tuesday morning at around 5:30 a.m. by the sounds.

‘Ginormous boom’

“We woke up at the same time to this ginormous boom,” Asbury said. “And our house was shaking.”

He explained that Laura originally thought someone had crashed a vehicle into the house. When Shane went outside, he found several concerned neighbors also walking around and looking at the sky and the roofs of their houses in an attempt to identify what had happened.

The sounds continued throughout the week at different times of the day and at varying degrees of strength, Asbury said. Last Thursday some 30 or 40 booms were felt — the most the neighborhood has yet experienced in one day.

“You can hear it and the pictures on the walls are shaking, the blinds are shaking,” he said. “I mean it shakes the house. We don’t have any cracks in the foundation.”

No military operations

The Blount County Sheriff’s Office came out to investigate in the middle of last week and reportedly contacted the military to find out if they had been conducting any flights where the sound of a sonic boom might be the causing the problems. Asbury said deputies were told no operations were currently being carried out that would make such a disturbance.

Asbury even emailed the U.S. Geological Survey and received a reply that no earthquakes had been recorded in the area.

At times the booms were spread out over several hours, sometimes several minutes. They even drove off at least one resident for one night last week, though she returned later the next day. Asbury said several others in the neighborhood also talked about taking shelter elsewhere until the booms blow over.

‘Kind of baffled’

And, at least for now, the sounds do appear to be coming less frequently and with less intensity, Asbury said. This week the booms have been heard only once or twice a day and without the tremors which last week caused several homes to rattle. While the Asburys have lived in the neighborhood for about a year and a half, some of the other residents have been there much longer.

And this is the first time anyone’s heard of or experienced anything like this.

“We’re all kinds of baffled,” Asbury said. “We don’t know what’s going on.”

You must be logged in to Facebook to comment. If you're not logged in to Facebook, a login window will open when you click "comment". Or you can log in now. You may need to refresh your page after logging in via that link.