Crews continued to work around the clock Sunday after a 20-foot sinkhole swallowed two vehicles amid a massive storm Friday in Studio City, leaving a rescued woman injured, according to Los Angeles city officials.
Workers were making “good progress” on repairs that involved an underground sewer pipe in the area of Laurel Canyon Boulevard and Woodbridge Street, said Gary Lee Moore, the city engineer for the city of Los Angeles.
The goal is to open one lane of Laurel Canyon Boulevard between Moorpark Street and Valley Spring Lane in each direction sometime today, Moore said. Workers were “waiting for more parts to come in,” he added.
Woodbridge Street east of Laurel Canyon Boulevard, where the sinkhole was located, also remained closed — and was expected to be for weeks — as crews worked on the repairs, he said.
“Safety is the No. 1 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 Woodbridge Street east of Laurel Canyon Boulevard was likely caused by the heavy rain and the failure of a sewer pipe that is more than 80 years old, according to city officials. The top of the 48-inch semieliptical pipe had 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 said they rescued a 48-year-old woman who managed to escape from her car after the asphalt had collapsed around 8:15 p.m. Friday 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.
The storm that slammed into the region on Friday killed four residents as it flooded freeways, caused mudslides and blew down trees and power lines, leaving tens of thousands in the dark.
On Sunday, crews were installing large steel shoring boxes that straddle the underground sewage pipe and doing other shoring work to avoid further collapse of the street and the soil surrounding the pipe, Moore said. They also plan to build a bypass line to divert the flow of sewage, which has been confined to the sinkhole and is flowing down into an unbroken portion of the pipe, in the hole and lower its flow.
Personnel will then be placed in the hole to remove the debris in the sewer and to start repairs on the reinforced concrete pipe, he said.
“They’ll be in live sewage,” he said of the contractors. “It’s tough work.”
A GoFundMe page that identified the rescued woman as makeup artist Stephanie Scott had raised more than $15,000 for Scott’s medical bills and other expenses related to the incident as of Sunday afternoon.
“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 the post by Garry Allyn.
Meanwhile, more than 10,800 electric customers in the city of Los Angeles were still without power as of 2 p.m. Sunday, down from some 85,600 customers at the height of the storm on Friday afternoon, according to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.
“We’re working on those that have been without power the longest, and those with circuits and such that we can get the most (customers up) as quickly as possible,” LADWP spokeswoman Kim Hughes said.
Several San Fernando Valley communities were among those still without power Sunday afternoon, including more than 1,200 in Sherman Oaks, 755 in Sun Valley, more than 739 in Lake Balboa and 209 in Studio City, officials said in a written statement.
Many of the power outages were caused by strong winds that toppled drought-impacted trees and palm fronds on Friday, Hughes said. In such cases, crews remove debris from wires, take out old wires and get new wires strung in, Hughes said. They then have to test it and energize the line, she said.
While LADWP estimates that most remaining customers will have their power restored on Sunday, it may take longer for some “due to the complexity of repair work required to restore service,” the utility said.
More rain is expected this week, with one-tenth to a third-of-an-inch in most areas in L.A. County through Tuesday and possibly up to an inch in certain mountain areas, said Bonnie Bartling, a weather specialist for the National Weather Service’s Oxnard office. There’s also a potential for snow at higher elevations.
Lows are expected to be around 50 degrees in the county during the storm, Bartling said. From Wednesday night through Saturday, highs are expected to be in the low 60s and lows in the 40s with a chance of rain on Wednesday.
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