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Sinkholes — like the one that closed a southbound lane of U.S. 321 just past the Blount County line in Loudon County over the weekend — aren't a common threat to local roads, according to highway officials.

The sinkhole was first reported about 11 p.m. Friday night. Tennessee Department of Transportation crews worked through the weekend, seeking to repair the road, according to Travis Brickey, TDOT spokesman.

The lane will be closed again today so crews can deal with the root cause of the problem, Brickey said.

"We're going to come back in (today) and have to close it down to fix the source of the sinkhole," he said. "There is a new water source under the road. We've got to put in a drain.

"The plan will be to widen the inside shoulder, put traffic on that shoulder, cut across the flow lane and put a drain in. I'm not sure how long that will take."

Whether the source of the water is an underground spring is unknown.

"We don't know," Brickey said. "We have a water source that wasn't here before. We're going to have to provide it a place to go. If not, we'll continue to have problem."

Blount County Highway Superintendent Bill Dunlap said sinkholes aren't all that common in local roads.

"After the last flood we had in 1994, we had three or four (sinkholes) fall in down in the Trigonia area toward Monroe County."

Some years ago, a broken water line had cause a sinkhole on Louisville Road, too, Dunlap said.

"That caused a pretty bad sinkhole," he said. "It was a nightmare for a while, but, no,  I don't think it is a common thing around our area."