While city crews worked Wednesday to fill the gaping hole a ruptured trunk line dug in Coldwater Canyon Avenue, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power crews were busy with smaller main line breaks in the Fairfax district.
Two overnight breaks in separate 6-inch lines, in the 100 block of North Hayworth Avenue about 1:25 a.m., and the other in the 1400 block of Hi Point Street, each put about 50 DWP customers out of service, Gale Harris of the DWP said.
The pavement did not buckle in either case, she said.
The Saturday night break in the giant pipeline that forms an underground river between the Los Angeles Reservoir in Sylmar and the Franklin reservoirs in Hollywood drew attention to the city's aging infrastructure.
The 62-inch steel pipeline was installed in 1914 under then-City Engineer William Mulholland and had ruptured near the same spot in 1993.
On Tuesday, a city fire truck falling in a sink hole caused by a break in a 6-inch line, just east of where the ruptured trunk line flooded a stretch of Ventura Boulevard, further focused attention on the need to replace old water lines, prompting a city councilman to call for speeding up the process.
On Coldwater Canyon Avenue -- its intersection with Ventura Boulevard is expected to stay closed through Friday at least -- workers welded and riveted a patch on the trunk line, but that did little to help the commuters who normally cross the hills on the canyon road.
City officials urged San Fernando Valley commuters to use Beverly Glen or Laurel Canyon boulevards instead. Coldwater is closed between Moorpark and Halkirk streets.
Brooks Baker of the DWP said crews were working to backfill the roadway and, once that work was done, the rest of the job, including repaving, would be handled by the city's Department of Public Works.