Laurel Canyon Boulevard remained closed Sunday between Moorpark Street and Valley Spring Lane after a 20-foot sinkhole swallowed two vehicles Friday in Studio City and left a woman injured, according to Los Angeles officials.
Crews have been working around the clock since the Friday night incident and were making “good progress” on repairs involving an underground sewer pipe, said Gary Lee Moore, a Los Angeles city engineer, Sunday.
Moore could not say Sunday morning when that stretch of Laurel Canyon Boulevard would reopen to traffic. Woodbridge Street east of Laurel Canyon Boulevard also remained closed — and was expected to be for weeks — as crews worked on debris cleanup and repairs, he said.
“Safety is the number one concern,” Moore said. “The last thing we want is to have that area collapse and then sewage…could then back up and come out on the street.“
The giant hole on Westbridge Street east of Laurel Canyon was likely caused by the heavy rain and the failure of a sewer pipe that is more than 80 years old, according to city engineers. The top of the 48-inch semi-eliptical pipe eroded away and the soil between the top of the pipe and the street had gotten into the sewer pipe, causing the asphalt above to collapse.
Los Angeles firefighters rescued a 48-year-old woman who managed to escape her car inside the hole but was found screaming for help atop her overturned vehicle. After she was rescued, a second vehicle, which had been vacated, fell into the sinkhole.
Crews have been installing large steel shoring boxes that straddle the underground sewage pipe and doing other work so that there is no further collapse of the street and the soil surrounding the pipe, Moore said. Once shoring is complete, they will put personnel down into the hole to remove the debris in the sewer and to start repairs on the reinforced concrete pipe.
The sewage that came out of the pipe remained inside the hole below the street and flowed back into the downstream portion of the pipe that’s still there, Moore said.
“They’ll be in live sewage,” he said of the contractors. “It’s tough work.”
Meanwhile, a GoFundMe page, which identified the injured woman as makeup artist Stephanie Scott, had raised more than $15,000 for Scott’s medical bills and other expenses related to the incident.
“Stephanie will have to replace her car and will also have unforeseen medical bills,” according to a post by the creator of the page, who identified himself as a friend and co-worker. “Her car had all of her work equipment inside and needs to be replaced as well.”
Scott sustained some damage to her hand and will be out of work for some time but “is home and doing Ok,” said a post by the page’s creator, Garry Allyn.
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