Crews working to repair water main break in West Hollywood

still a long way to clean up here. You can see the crews starting to do some work just in the last few minutes. We saw these excavators start moving around here. That's the shot from the ground. I do hear Sky Fox overhead. Let's see if we could take that image live for you, giving you a bird's eye view over again. This is Sunset Boulevard at Holloway Drive where Holloway and Palm Avenue meet. We are standing just south of Sunset and you can see just where that that sinkhole is again. All of these roads remain closed and for an indefinite amount of time. There's no telling how long it's going to take. They still have to get in there, start digging some of that out and get an idea on what can be done to repair it. So all of this is a big question mark right now as to how long it's gonna take. What we know right now is that several streets in this area are closed as well as a lot of businesses around here are closed as well. Nobody really has a way to get to those. We'll take you to some video from earlier again. This is from Sky Fox earlier. You can just see from the live image we were just showing you to a little while ago. What the difference looks like doesn't look like a whole a whole lot of different and that's because they're just finally able to get their hands in there and get these machines in here to get an idea of what could have caused this. Again, all we know right now is that this was aging infrastructure, according to L. A. D. W. P. And Mayor Bass talking about this was a 36 inch main the pipe and it was installed in 1916. Okay, that's 110 years ago. Uh, it was covered in concrete in 1957. That's close to 70 years ago. So very, very old pipe that just eventually gave way. Let's take a listen to what the officials had to say earlier today. This is one of the challenges when our infrastructure is so old. It's my understanding that this these pipes are over 100 years old. Everybody should have water. Once again, the pipe that's feeding the customers is the eight inch water main. That eight inch water main has remained in service this entire time, pressurized and full of water. So the customers should have no concerns about the quality or the quantity of the water being provided. Luckily, at this time, we don't have services that are out. So everybody does have clean water that's safe to drink. It's mainly the impact to the transit. Yeah, back out here live. Gino behind the camera is just giving you a closer look at the work being done here. But like you heard there, one customer is being impacted, meaning that they don't have water. Latest update from D. W. P. Coming with the last hour is that that customer that could be a business that could be an apartment building affecting many people. We don't know the specifics on that, but they still do not have water. They're still working on getting them water. But for the most part, they say that water was barely interrupted in this area. But still, that debris, the water goes all the way down to Santa Monica Boulevard here. So it's gonna be a long, long clean up here. And like I said, Marla, there's really no telling yet just how long this will take. Is it gonna take, you know, the rest of the day? Will it be days? Will it be weeks longer? Yeah, all great questions that we really do need the answers to. I have talked to the mayor of West Hollywood. He's gonna be hopping on the stream here in just a bit. What questions do you want me to ask him, Nick? Well, Marla, you know one question I'm really trying to get an answer to. And I know DWP is focused on working on resolving all of this. But my question is how many water mains and pipes that is servicing the city on a daily basis are over a century old or close to a century. I'm not sure how many in West Hollywood may specifically be as old as this one here. But when we think about a growing city, a growing population, think of the population from 1916 to now and just how much this area has grown in not only businesses but in residents. We've got to wonder how much of our infrastructure is over a century old. Yeah. And really on the verge of bursting at any given moment. It's a scary thought really. And at this point, Nick, we don't know the damage toll, right? The toll on vehicles on local businesses, on apartments that may have been flooded, etcetera, at least on the on the ground unit anyway. Absolutely. From the images that we've been seeing all morning, you know, from our team on Good Day L. A. On through the rest of the day from Sky Fox and on the ground, it looks like some of those garages, you know, I don't know how far below the ground they go, but we're full of cars, you know, that people park there at the buildings that they live at. And so those could potentially all be completely damaged if they're completely submerged in water. So we don't know the extent of that. And just here, we don't know the extent of the damage underground here either. And they're really just getting an eye on how bad that is and what they can do to fix it. I mean, I would imagine they're going to have to completely replace that very, very old pipe. And I know that that was part of their their plan is to replace a lot of the aging pipes across L. A. D. W. P. S. Jurisdiction. But like you said, we really don't know just how much damage has been done. I know that we have a call each day when we talk with our reporters editorially of what we're going to cover. And we were on that call this morning. And Nick, you brought up the aging infrastructure. You then reminded me of back in 2014 along Sunset Boulevard, a little further west near U. C. L. A. There was a similar situation again. This is in 2014. So 12 years ago, I remember it well. It was big breaking news in the morning where an old pipe underneath Sunset Boulevard burst and it flooded parking garages. 1000 cars or so were stuck in these parking garages. We were dealing with this back then and similar sentiment of we have an aging infrastructure. What do we do about it? And how do we go about our daily lives and hope that this doesn't happen? You know, an aging infrastructure and that has been the case for decades. You pointed out that example. Geno's now giving you a look farther west. Not that you could see U. C. L. A. From here, but we are shooting down West Sunset there where we know that that happened again, like you said, 12 years ago. So that was an issue. Then it continues to be an issue now. And the question remains, though, you know what is gonna be done to fix this? It's gonna be a big overhaul of the system to replace again. We don't have a number or an idea of just how many pipes are that old or close to that old even. But what does it take to fix all of that? And before I let you go, is your focus more on the infrastructure in L. A. D. W. P. And the cleanup right now? Are you talking to businesses? Have you spoken to anyone there? We just got on the ground a little while ago, so I haven't had a chance to speak with any of the businesses. I'm gonna have, you know, point over that wheel. That one is closed today. I believe that is either an employee or the owner standing there with the baseball cap on his phone. So I will work on talking with him as well. But our main focus here, I know we've got team coverage is to try to figure out just how old our pipes, you know, and water mains in the area are. But certainly a point of interest is to speak with these businesses who have been here for years. I'm not sure how long, but I know that a lot of them have been here for quite a while. Absolutely. And this is a place that tourists go to. So I'm sure some tourists are in town. Maybe you'll talk to them as well. Okay, very good. Uh, thank you so much, Nick. And let's go upstairs. You mentioned we have team coverage. We have stew Mandel up in Sky Fox with these aerial pictures and still you were over this right when this happened this morning. We got into work and we went right to work. That is true. Marla five o'clock in the morning. We were up and over this. And you know what? The site picture has changed. But you know what? Sky Fox never changes. We're gonna give you a grand tour of exactly of everything that's going on out here now that that is the sinkhole. That is the spot where Nick is at right now. And this is where they're starting to do the work to repair that pipe. But look at all that roadway. They've got a cut up to get to it and all that damage. It's still so much water in that sink hole itself. I would venture to say it is still being filled by some of the pipes that are leading to this just because the water stopped or the pressure stopped. Gravity is still working. It always does ask Sky Fox and you can see that they are definitely pumping and early in the morning they basically had these little sump pumps that anybody could get. Now check out these machines they got going on and that water level still not dropping. You're talking about businesses. I gotta give a shout out to Supreme. They did have a big drop today. That means this is like one of the times when they have these huge sales where the parking lot is filled and there's lines around the corner. Not today. That's one of the ones that are definitely been affected by this water main break. This building that I'm showing you right there maybe we'll get a quick glimpse but I can tell you the lobby definitely full of mud and all that mud and all that water was ripping down. Made a little turn right here on the Holloway but the big turn was as it made its way down Pine. Now we've been talking about it all morning long. That's gonna be Dialog Cafe. You know it's one of those things it's like you just never know. The water was ripping by here early in the morning but now they're saying that inside not so much damage but on the sidewalk and the infrastructure on Pine. Oh my goodness. Now we weren't exactly here when it collapsed but we were looking at it moments before we did. I was noticing how the concrete was popping up. How there were these access panels or access things like that you see right there. Then they were missing their tops but when we came back the whole street had already collapsed. Look at that. Exposing all this other stuff. I know the gas company is here also. Maybe just doing checks but there's also cable down there. The fiber cable stuff and then all those electrical. It is gonna be a long time before all of this is fixed. Let's kind of just do a little tour as it would be going down the street. Now this parking garage right here is was the one that we were looking at the most. That wall at one point looked like Niagara Falls. Then the water just kept filling and filling and filling till it basically was touching that top right there that you see. The fire department they're still here also. They're gonna be checking for a lot of things and one of them is going to be structural integrity. A lot of the drainage in these parking garages was doing what it needed to do but it just wasn't designed for thousands of gallons a minute coming through there and then of course they probably got clogged up from all that dirt and the etc that was in there and that's what the extra stuff that we're seeing while the fire department is here working to pump things out. These are some of the other crews walking around assessing areas finding us spots where they're going to be having to work. More sidewalk damage right there and we also saw damage it not so bad but on Hancock. That's the street on the other side you can see they're pumping out garages here as well. Now this Hancock kind of got got you know we didn't talk too much about it but they have serious damage here as well. One of the apartment buildings let me see if I can find it because we are moving along slowly but yeah this is the one basically goes from Pine a Palm to Hancock and if I push in real quick it might not look like much but look at all that dirt and everything between these buildings that's all from the water and the water filled that entire garage up down there and all the mud that is still in there you can see this is the other side on Hancock where you have that mud and dirt that's still coming out from that parking garage.