DAISETTA, Texas -- Some things never change in Daisetta. Like the conversations from the Collins’ front porch, the neighbors that go by and the excitement that lays across the street just a couple hundred yards from their feet.

“Over here on Friday nights is football,” said Robert Collins. “We fill up the stands on Friday night rain or shine.”

There was no rival to Hull-Daisetta Bobcat football until Wednesday.

“I said, ‘Oh boy, we got something more exciting here now,’” said Collins.

On Wednesday, the earth gave way.

“Now we got a big old hole in there that we can go swimming in,” joked Collins. “Shoot I'm not going down there.”

A sinkhole formed. A sinkhole that is now three football fields wide and growing. Cracks around the edges are being watched closely, especially near FM 770.

As they grow, so do the fears in this small town.

“If it comes this way, I'm going to load up all my dogs up, my wife up and my daughter up and I'm leaving,” insisted Collins. “I ain't staying.”

Kids worry for their school close by and at the diner there are other concerns.

“I'm worried for our church over here,” said Daisetta resident Todd Fregia. “We just built a new sanctuary.”

With this sinkhole, the landscape has changed suddenly. Putting a new face on a town where everyone knows everyone.

Standing at the edge of the still crumbling sinkhole in Daisetta Thursday, the stench of sludge and sulfur filled the air.

Fear is also in the air.

"It... it scares me," Tabitha King said.

She and her family plan to pack up and move away from Daisetta and the threatening sinkhole.

"All of it's unstable to me, knowing what I know now," King said. "We live on a big salt dome where I live so my husband's not going to take the chance."

She's not alone.

Neighbors in the Liberty County town of Daisetta are also keeping nervous eyes on the monster sinkhole now the size of a few football fields.

Officials said Thursday night that water levels in the sinkhole appear to have stabalized, which is good news. But new cracks nearby promptd new fears.

By Thursday, the giant bowl was about 900 feet in diameter and about 250 feet deep.

“It has grown in size,” said Hugh Bishop with the Liberty County Sheriff's Office. "We're just mainly watching as the hole grows in size, which direction it will be headed. If it does start to come towards the road or towards houses, then we will evacuate those people."

Bishop said none of the 100 homes in the immediate vicinity had been evacuated and local schools and business remain open.

Debra Fragia is building her dream house across the road from the crater. The house was only a nerve-wracking 100 yards away Thursday.

Fragia's heart was sinking along with the sinkhole.

"My heart fell in my stomach cause it was already over this side of the road," said Fragia. "When I got there, it was pretty, it was pretty terrible for me right at that time. You kinda look at your dreams as fixin' to fall off in a big hole."

11 News photo

The dreams of at least a dozen workers have already fallen into this hole. It's the site of a Deloach injection well, where companies dispose of the salt water by-product of oil pumped from Texas soil.

"Yes, it's gonna affect us, you know, because these people depended on this for their living," said Daisetta Mayor Lynn Wells. "The 18 wheelers were in and out of here 24 hours a day, seven days a week."

But even the Mayor now has saltwater rising ankle deep at his own house, just 200 yards away.

No one knows where Daisetta's newest problem is headed.

Authorities had been worried about a nearby road but -- so far -- the hole has not grown in that direction.

Right now, geologists and Texas Railroad Commission experts are examining the area.

AIR 11

This tank rolled into the sinkhole when the ground beneath it collapsed.

They believe the collapse was caused by the removal of oil from the salt dome over time.

For the first time, 11 News photographer Michelle Scarantino was allowed to get close enough to the sinkhole Thursday to get some amazing ground video.

Officials are being cautious because of the continuing danger of the ground caving in.

The sinkhole began with some long cracks in the ground Wednesday morning and grew to a huge hole by the afternoon.

It's now several stories deep and is partially filled with a black liquid made up of mud water, and oil sludge. They're hoping to send a rowboat down into the hole soon to determine how deep the liquid is.

As the ground surrounding the sinkhole continued to collapse Wednesday, it gobbled up an 18-wheeler, a tractor, a drilling platform and other oil field equipment.

"Right now we're not concerned about any kind of explosion or any kind of hazard," Tom Branch with Liberty County Emergency Management said Wednesday. "We are monitoring some other things around the area to make sure everyone's OK."

FM 770, Daisetta's main drag, is shut down until further notice because the sinkhole is too close for comfort. School buses and other vehicles are being diverted around the area.

Meantime, Fragia and other residents watch and wait.

"I'm still lookin forward to my home because I'm trusting in the good lord that he's gonna keep it there for us to be able to have," she said.