One year ago today at 5:39 am, security cameras inside the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Kentucky captured a giant sinkhole open within a portion of the museum known as the Sky Dome. In the following few seconds of footage, we witnessed a total of eight beautiful Corvettes vanish from sight as they plummeted approximately 30-feet downward. In addition to other forms of media exposure, a total of 8.5 million people have witnessed the automotive tragedy on YouTube.

All of the cars were promptly removed from the sinkhole, six of which were owned by the museum and the remaining two were on loan from General Motors. Unfortunately, only three cars were selected for restoration as the others were deemed beyond a reasonable point of repair.

That being said, there is a silver lining to most every cloud. As a result of the disaster, the museum attendance increased by 67-percent for 2014. As a result of the increased interest, the NCM will have an exhibit covering the story of the sinkhole and the rebuilding process, and perhaps one of the cars not selected for restoration will adorn this display.

There is a ceremony planned for today which can be viewed via live stream at 3:00 pm CST on the NCM website. As part of the ceremony, the 2009 ZR1 named “Blue Devil” will be officially unveiled and returned to its proper home at the museum. Corvette Online was invited to a party with Chevrolet and Chevy Performance at SEMA 2014 for an early Monday night showing of the car which later was driven out onto the floor at the SEMA show. If today’s unveiling is anything like it was that evening, the air will be heavy with applause and rejoice.

Museum Communications Manager, Katie Frassinelli mentioned, “The construction team installed a manhole which leads into one side of our cave. The exhibit will incorporate a kiosk which connects to a camera and lights inside the cave, allowing visitors a live view of what lies beneath their feet. The exhibit should be educational and entertaining with plenty of hands-on and interactive features.”

In a recent update video released on February 2nd, one of the Project Managers, Zach Massey mentioned they had been working on finalizing the HVAC duct bank and have poured all the final slabs on top of these repairs after laying and settling the new foundation. While the video helps to illustrate these construction procedures, we had one ultimate takeaway from the video; the construction in nearing completion and we cannot wait.

Regarding today’s ceremony, Frassinelli mentioned, “Everyone has joked that the Museum ‘made lemonade’ out of this situation, so we thought it fitting to end our ceremony with a lemonade toast to continued good fortune for the Museum.” We hope the NCM ceremony goes as planned today, in addition to a safe and speedy completion of the museum’s construction project.

The museum really is an amazing place that helps bring together folks from all over the country and beyond for a common love of the Corvette. We are really looking forward to see what the new and improved National Corvette Museum will entail.

#sinkhole365