Family members were playing cards Thursday night when they noticed water pooling on the floor of their Los Feliz home, the result of one of three separate water main breaks in a span of a few hours in the Los Angeles area.
Gushing liquid flowed down the street and into the foundation and lower level of the house in the 3700 block of Effingham Place in Los Feliz after the pipe ruptured just before midnight Thursday. The home's owner, who had the three-story property built 20 years ago, was shocked when he discovered water was gushing into his basement.
"I was almost getting ready to go to sleep then all of a sudden my kids call me that our game room is being flooded with water," homeowner Hambik Kazanchyan said. "I go down and I just couldn't imagine where all this water is coming (from)."
After determining the water was not coming from his own pipes, he went outside where he saw water flooding out of the sewer manholes outside. Los Angeles Department of Water and Power crews arrived at the scene at around 12:30 a.m, and are working to fix the problem.
The pipe, part of the city's expansion and aging water system, was installed in 1926, according to LADWP officials.
A second main break involving a pipe installed in 1975 was reported in the 1200 block of El Paso Drive in Eagle Rock at around 2 a.m, and a third was reported near the intersection of Melrose and Vermont Avenues at around 3 a.m. That pipe was installed in 1927, according to the LADWP.
Utility officials said the leaks are not related.
"Two of them are on very old mains," said John Cox, LADWP water supervisor. "So it's not very surprising we had a leak there. They're part of mains that we're going to be looking at in the near future to be replaced."
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The agency responds to about three water main leaks per day, Cox said.
"Our leak rate has gone down over the last ten years," Cox said. "We used to average about six or seven leaks a day."
Pipes typically last 50 to 75 years, and in a city like Los Angeles many -- like the main line trunk that broke near the UCLA campus in August 2014 -- are actually older, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers. A 2012 report on LA County's water system, also by the American Society of Civil Engineers, rated it as a C overall and a C- for condition. According to the study, the grade was primarily based on the age of the systems and their need for replacement.
