UCLA Water Main Breaks, Spilling Nearly 10 Million Gallons on Campus
Los Angeles utility crews have started cleanup efforts after a water main ruptured Tuesday and flooded the University of California at Los Angeles campus and Sunset Boulevard, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Officials have yet to determine the cause of the break or how much piping will need to be replaced, and must still drain the pipe before the repair process can begin.
The 90-year-old main burst around 3:30 p.m.on Tuesday and shot a geyser of water 30 feet in the air, spilling between 8 million and 10 million gallons onto Sunset Boulevard and the UCLA campus. It took three hours for the water to shut off.
"Unfortunately UCLA was the sink for this water source," UCLA Chancellor Gene Block said on Tuesday.
Water flooded the portion of the campus that is home to the school's athletic facilities and may have ruined Pauley Pavilion, a college basketball mecca that in 2012 underwent a $138 million renovation, People reported.
"It's painful. It's painful," Block said. "We just refurbished Pauley just a few years ago. And it's a beautiful structure. It's of course, a symbolic structure for this entire campus."
It's also painful for Los Angeles to see a man-made flood in a time of unprecedented drought. Residents of the City of Angels face fines up to $500 for overuse of water.
"We lost a lot of water, around 35,000 gallons a minute, which is not ideal in the worst drought in the city's history," City Councilman Paul Koretz said.
No injuries were reported on Tuesday, though firefighters manning boats had to rescue five people on the campus who were stranded in a parking deck.
The rupture created a 15-foot wide sinkhole that the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power would also have to repair after they repair the main. No DWP customers reported being without water after the break.
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