TBA
UCLA Flood
Sometime in the afternoon of 29 July (sometime before 3:20pm), a 93-year-old Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) water main ruptured on Sunset Blvd. next to UCLA. Over the next few hours before the main was (mostly) closed, 75,000 gallons per minute-- a total of 20 million gallons-- of water leaked out into UCLA, flooding parking structures 4 and 7, the IM field, Drake Stadium, Pauley Pavilion, Ashe Center, Morgan Center, Bruin Plaza, and a few other minor areas.
Repairs took six days, finishing on Sunday 3 August.
Day 1 (29 July, pictures 1-29): a crapload of water can emerge from a busted 30" water main, particularly at the junction of two mains. 93 year old pipes and equally old valves that don't want to close fully are a bad combination, turning the lower levels of parking structures 4 and 7 into fish tanks and drowning cars on both levels (900 cars were parked in those two structures, a far cry from the ~3,500 max capacity). Water pours in through stairwells, entrances, into Pauley, it's clear this is bad. Fortunately for a lot of campus, the rupture didn't happen further east, where it might've spilled down Royce Dr. and into more vital structures had it been a few hundred feet further up.
Day 2 (30 July, no pictures): the ruptured pipe leaked most of the day, as existing valves had to be closed slowly to avoid causing pressure waves throughout the rest of the (equally old) pipes, and ultimately the leak could not be fully stopped-- 1,500 gallons/minute supposedly still flowed before they gave up and inserted a gigantic balloon into the pipe to finally seal the leak.
Day 3 (31 July, pictures 30-36): plenty of news vans still present, and by this time it was clear LADWP had greatly enlarged the hole that the burst mainline had made to properly replace the old Y-joint with a more simple T-joint. 66 feet of damaged 30" pipe were setup for replacement along with two new 36" valves.
Day 4 (1 August, pictures 37-51): tons of activity, mostly LADWP in force. Material to fill in the hole has been brought in, but the new T-junction and pipe are just being installed by the afternoon. Valves are still on the pavement as opposed to in the hole-- clearly this job is going to run into the weekend. t'was the second afternoon running along a very quiet Sunset Blvd-- very relaxing with almost no cars!
Day 5 (2 August, pictures 52-58): the newsvans have mostly left, leaving LADWP crews to their work. Both valves, the junction, and all the pipe are installed, the temporary trench shoring is still in place as they start to backfill the hole. The shoring will be removed once enough backfill is in the hole to keep Sunset Blvd. stable. Saw 'em moving some very large steel plates and whatnot around.
Day 6 (3 August, no pictues): looks like they patched things up and had Sunset Blvd. reopened by the afternoon. Not bad... now to fix all the damage to UCLA's campus!