West Hollywood streets flooded, cars submerged after water main break

All right. If you are just joining us, we are continuing to follow this major water main break out of West Hollywood. It happened just after three o'clock this morning around 3 15 major water main broke at a very busy intersection. We've been following this with team coverage all morning long. We're awaiting perhaps a joint news conference by L. A. Mayor Karen Bass as well as West Hollywood's mayor. We also have Mario Ramirez, who's been out there at the scene all morning long. This caused a extensive flooding all morning. This is pictures that you were looking at from earlier today. The water has since been shut off a 36 inch water main underneath Holloway and Sunset, a main thoroughfare there in West Hollywood. It broke carrying hundreds of thousands of gallons of water. We saw a number of condos, apartments, businesses impacted by this. The water significant enough and forceful enough to push cars down the road to buckle and cause a giant sink hole in the middle of the road, but also wash out some parts of the sidewalk. And Mario was telling us this earlier that several people were walking on top of that sidewalk, and it actually collapsed underneath their feet. Not sure what the injuries are there. They were able to climb out. In fact, let's get right to Mario. He's there at the scene, and we're still awaiting that that press conference from city officials for Mayor Bass Mario. Yeah, that's right, Bob. And we could see Mayor Bass. She's being briefed by L. A county fire officials, the public information officer here on the scene as well. And she arrived maybe about 15 minutes ago from what we could tell. And you see that massive sinkhole here at the intersection of Sunset and Holloway Drive. That's where we arrived this morning. It was around 3 15. It was reported the road there started buckling in multiple places and water started gushing out. It then made its way down to Holloway Drive and down Palm Avenue, where several garages have been flooded. Residents waking up to some damage near the front of their homes. And I want to bring in Bill Adams, right? Yes, Bill. What street do you live on? And tell me I live on Shoreham, just a block up this hill here. And do you have water where you are? Yeah, it's about, you know, have half as much pressure as I usually have. And I I woke up to the sound of all of these helicopters and just came down to investigate. We've also been hearing these alarms. I'm sure the viewers can hear them as well. They've been going on since we've got here. They haven't stopped. What's your reaction to see that massive single? That's that's awful. But I mean, there's that's a big problem in L. A. Already, because so many of the pipes are so old, they go back to 20 to 30. So I think there's this, you know, we have a lot of work to do in L. A. Anyway, so you've experienced water main breaks yourself. Yeah, I've I've heard about them. I've never experienced one this close to me before. Yeah. So this is I would say this is the worst, the biggest. It's huge. It's huge. Yes. Enormous. What would you say to the mayor? She's here now. She's being assessed. She's assessing the damage being briefed. What would you say to the man? I don't know. I think that the mayor probably already knows what the situation is, and we have just a long term, you know, infrastructure problem in L. A. Anyway, so that's all I could say. All right. Thanks for talking to us, Bill. So, yeah, we've been hearing from residents all morning, some saying that they're not going to work today. They're not sure how they can even make their way around this. We heard from one lady earlier this morning saying she's walking to work because she just lives a few blocks down from her workplace. So it definitely still a concern. A lot of the businesses here are not opening. There's a cafe here just behind me. Dialogue Cafe that should be open. The alarm is going off here at this law firm building. You have the Supreme clothing store, which is right next to the parking lot. We're standing in. So you have to imagine this is a very busy area, especially throughout the morning, throughout the day as traffic starts picking up, and it doesn't look like this is gonna be opened up anytime soon because the damage here is just incredible to see the amount of, you know, the concrete that has collapsed because of all that gushing water that we saw for hours and hours before even an agency, the L. A. D. W. P. Came forward and said, It's our pipe. We're working on it. We've shut it off and we'll be handling this. So quite good morning here for so many people. So what do you know about this press conference, Mario? You said Mayor Bass is there, and I think residents in that area of businesses are really want to get are gonna want to get more information about what causes and also just the repairs, how long this is gonna last and the like. This is not, of course, the Mayor Bass is the mayor of the city of Los Angeles, not the city of, uh, West Hollywood, although because it is L. A. D. W. P. They oversee those those pipes there with their board of commissioners. So So what do we expect to hear from Mayor Bass? Yeah, exactly. And those are some of the questions that we have. Let's see if we can actually show you. Um, yeah, she's she's still being briefed right next to that sinkhole. She's talking to L. A. D. W. P. Crews. We know, as you mentioned, she is not over the jurisdiction here in West Hollywood, but she does oversee L. A. D. W. P. And that's the big issue here, because L. A. D. W. P. Is responsible for the pipeline here that ruptured. And we've been talking about this failing infrastructure all across the city. We've covered so many of these water main breaks and usually, fortunately, they're shut off within, you know, a shorter time span. But we were out here at, you know, close to 3 30. And we saw that water gushing for over three hours before it stops. And some of the issues that the mayor is going to have to address what kind of help would these residents get if they are at all, you know, being handled by L. A. D. W. P. Possibly. What does the cleanup here look like? How long will it take L. A. D. W. P. To make these repairs? So we don't know those answers just yet, but the mayor is here. It looks like the mayor of West Hollywood might be nearby as well. So we're gonna hear from officials as well as the public information officer who we've been getting information from throughout the morning, running back and forth on his phone. I'm sure he's getting some important updates here as well. So L. A. Mayor Karen Bass deals overseas D. W. P. And she has had a lot to say in the past about the aging infrastructure. You know that underneath that neighborhood in West Hollywood, as as is common with other areas to in Southern California, these pipes are between 80 and 100 years old. So water main breaks happen. Yes, they do. But not like this. That's according to the L. A. County Fire P. I. O. Captain Aaron Caton when he was interviewing with you earlier this morning. Um, it looks like Mario does have to go. So we're gonna watch and wait for the mayor to get to the podium here. It almost seems like it was like a perfect storm. So, so to speak. I mean, first of all happening at a major thoroughfare like Sunset Boulevard and Holloway so early in the morning, so early at 3 15. Um, and uh, also that it was on sunset. So it's on the top of the hills is the Hollywood Hills goes up into. So basically water flows down and all that water was going down Palm Avenue right toward the bus depot, which is, I mean, you can see right there. It was enough to push cars down the street. Yeah. And you're looking at the bus depot there. The water has been receding slowly but surely. But a number of services have been have been delayed or suspended altogether. You can see where the water is almost going down that drain. But it doesn't look like there's enough to get all the water out. And then also, as I said, the perfect storm, the fact that it happened in the city of West Hollywood when you talked about this like spider web of water mains underneath the infrastructure in the street there that are under so many different jurisdictions, patchwork, right? So you have a number of different pipes that crisscross each other and they're all different jurisdictions. So Beverly Hills water, for example, also contracted under Metropolitan Water District and then L. A. D. W. P. Which we later found out. But again, through this game of like hot potato right there were playing for about three hours trying to figure out who is the lead on this finally narrowed it down to an L. A. D. W. P. Pipe that broke a 36 inch water pipe that carried hundreds of thousands of gallons of water. Luckily, though, you know, Mario was saying this earlier that the water had turned brown. At one point, there was no threat of any of that being potentially sewage or contaminated water. I mean, the water is gonna be shut down for a considerable period of time, and perhaps the mayor, once we hear from her, we can figure out how long these residents, even on a hot day like today, are gonna be without water. How long it's gonna take to make these repairs. Do we have the statement from Metro? Because we we saw that some of the water went down into the Metro Depot. This is close to Santa Monica Boulevard and San Vicente, where they have a big Metro Depot. And we saw that the buses there were underwater. The drainage systems not not quite enough for the water to subside there. So there probably was significant damage to many of the buses there. And then because Sunset Boulevard and Santa Monica Boulevard will be shut down for a considerable period of time, certainly for this morning commute, some of those buses will be routed. If we have it, we do. We do know that these lines are gonna be affected. Lines 2, 4, 10, 14, 16, 20 and 134, 602 to 627. So a number of them going right there along Santa Monica Boulevard are gonna be impacted and are gonna have to take some sort of a detour as they try to figure out whether Santa Monica Boulevard also is going to be impacted for a long period of time as that water subsides. Let's get out to our Brooke Thomas because she just arrived there at the scene. She has a picture of what looks like from the ground there. Brooke. Hey there. I'm having a little bit of trouble hearing you as you can imagine. But yeah, I just got here actually. I mean, it was interesting as I started driving here was coming up. I believe San Vicente and you could start to see the trickle of water just to give you an idea of how far back this went. But look, this is the big story right here. So I'm right here at Sunset and Holloway and this massive sinkhole. This is just again. We've been talking this morning since it started really about the residual effects of just the water flowing everywhere. What could happen? This is one of the things that you imagine emergency crews were worried about, hoping didn't happen. But there is a massive sinkhole right there in the middle of the intersection right at Sunset and Holloway. Mayor Bass is over here to my right kind of L. A. Mayor Bass checking things out. She's getting ready for a press conference. We'll have that for you as soon as possible. But I wanted to just hop on here as quick as I could. I gotta tell you, I had to run here because the road blockages, I mean, it's just they go farther back. Even when my photographer got here before I was off the desk this morning, right before the five a.m. Show ended, Brian Shaw got here and now what things looked like when he got here, the roadblocks are even further out now. So that's something to keep in mind. They're not even letting people walk here. I just saw a person. Uh, she came up and she said, Hey, I work on Holloway. How can I get there? And she's struggling to try and figure that out. So you want to make sure that you contact your workplace. Maybe they're not even open. They definitely don't have water, but it might be hard to get where you're going if you're anywhere around this. And you know, we were talking about Dialogue Cafe. It was interesting as I'm coming up. You just see crowds of people with Dialogue Cafe T shirts on. They are out of work this morning and trying to figure out, you know what to do, where to go. It's just it's interesting how far back this goes. But that is just absolutely mind blowing. This massive sinkhole right there in the middle of the intersection. I'll send things back to you all in the studio again. I'll have that press conference as soon as possible. I'm not sure if we're looking at tape right here, Mario. Okay, yeah. Can you just as you catch your breath book, if you could go to the pan into that, um, those officials there speaking so we could see who's over there. I think you said L. A. Mirror. Karen Bass is over there. Oh, yes, there is. There is. There is the city of West Hollywood mayor, the current mayor right now, John Heilman there with the coat on. So there's Danny Hang. He is also a WeHo council member. So this is going to be a joint press conference that we're gonna we're gonna get here shortly with DWP officials there as well. It's about a minute away from that press conference. We've just been told here, Bob, just about a minute away. Okay, so this is going to be a multi agency and multi city situation here with DWP having jurisdiction over those lines. Uh, the city of West Hollywood, incorporated in 1987, does contract out to several different agencies. And now we know that is L. A. L. A. D. W. P. That that, uh, is the one that owns, uh, so to speak, these, uh, these water mains that are underneath that that that are to blame for this water main break. And, um, we also know that this is going to impact all of these residents and businesses in the area for probably a very long period of time. So some of the questions here, how will how will the city of West Hollywood? How will the city of L. A. Support all of the businesses and the residents that are impacted here?