Another water main break hit the Hollywood Hills on Monday afternoon, sending water rushing down the street near Wonderland Avenue Elementary School and briefly disrupting service to about 100 homes. No flooding was reported inside the school campus or nearby homes, but parked cars along the street were stuck until the leak was shut off.
A Los Angeles Department of Water and Power spokesman, Christian Zamorano, said crews were digging up the road to determine the size of the broken pipe and the extent of the damage, and he said it was too early to say when repairs would be finished. Zamorano also said this break was unrelated to the major West Hollywood incident last month, explaining that the pipe under Sunset Boulevard is a large trunk line serving the Westside from a reservoir, while the pipe under Wonderland Drive is a smaller local line serving homes in the Hollywood Hills.
The latest break came just two weeks after a much larger rupture under the Sunset Strip, where a 110-year-old, 36-inch steel main installed in 1916 burst and sent about 17 million gallons of water into the street. The earlier break caused widespread flooding and a sinkhole, and the New York Times described the scene as a rushing river.
The back-to-back incidents have снова put Los Angeles’ aging water infrastructure under scrutiny, with city officials facing renewed questions about how many old pipes remain in service and how long they can hold up.
