Sunset Boulevard to Remain Closed into the Weekend

Department of Water and Power crews made steady progress today in repairing a water main that ruptured north of UCLA, sending 20 million gallons of water cascading onto streets and the campus, but Sunset Boulevard will remain closed into the weekend.

Keith Session, assistant director of the DWP’s water distribution division, said welders were working in various locations to fabricate fittings and pipes that will be used to repair the ruptured main that sent a geyser of water through Sunset Boulevard.

“It is in our schedule to have the repairs in the water main completed on late Friday evening or early Saturday morning and then we will start right at that time with the reconstruction of the street and the backfill of the trench,” Session said.

Once the pipe repair is completed, it would take about a “day or so” to fully fix the street.

While Sunset remains blocked between roughly Veteran and Hilgard avenues, authorities suggested using Wilshire, Santa Monica and Olympic boulevards as alternate routes, and encouraged motorists to carpool or telecommute.

The 93-year-old water main, which carries water to the area from the Upper Stone Canyon Reservoir, ruptured on Sunset near Marymount Place just north of the campus shortly before 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, turning streets into rivers and portions of the UCLA campus into oceans of water and mud.

The rupture occurred at a Y-shaped juncture of the 30-inch main with a 36-inch main. Leaking valves just east of the break caused further complications and extended the repair time, since crews couldn’t begin work on the pipe until the flow of water was stopped.

The water flow was finally stopped last night. DWP crews excavated a roughly 56-foot-by-41-foot hole around the pipes, and then shored up trenches to ensure workers would be safe while carrying out the repair work.

On Wednesday, two workers were hospitalized after being exposed to carbon monoxide fumes from a generator being used to pump water from UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion.

A total of six workers were examined at the scene, but only two were taken to hospitals, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department.

Meanwhile, as many as 900 vehicles remained stranded in two flooded parking structures at UCLA. They were likely to remain in the garages until at least Friday.

No water service was interrupted to customers, and the water is safe to drink, according to the DWP.

Despite fire crews and university workers piling sandbags in front of entrances to Pauley Pavilion, its floor and locker rooms “sustained significant flooding,” Athletic Director Dan Guerrero said.

About 8 to 10 inches of water had covered the basketball court, which was being used for volleyball practice when the flooding began.

While a decision was still pending on whether the floor should be repaired or replaced, Guerrero said in a message sent to UCLA fans that the arena would be “ready for our men’s and women’s basketball teams this upcoming season.”

The UCLA campus remained open and summer classes were being held. However, UCLA summer camps and the Fernald and Krieger childcare centers were closed, as were parking structures four and seven, which suffered severe flooding.

--City News Service

PHOTO: Tuesday night’s water main break on Sunset Boulevard. Photo credit: Jessica Zhou, UCLA Daily Bruin.