The City of Los Angeles\u2019s flood prevention equipment was unable to manage the deluge that hit the Fairfax District earlier this week, as rainwater flushed into businesses along Melrose Avenue. <\/p>\n
Several business owners said they were disappointed with the city\u2019s ability to manage flooding and drainage systems Monday. <\/p>\n
Christina Silang is the manager at Nathalia Gavira: Black, a clothing store on Melrose.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know we\u2019re never really prepared because it never rains, but what\u2019s the point of doing a flash flood warning and having newscasters and weather reporters if the city cannot just come and do their job properly?\u201d said Silang.<\/p>\n
In response to the flooding the L.A. Sanitation and Environment (LASAN) dispatched Vactor trucks, which are built to vacuum water and other debris from the streets. According to the LASAN website<\/a>, the large blue trucks have a pump that evacuates storm drains clogged up by the rain.<\/p>\n Media Wine and Spirits, a liquor store on Melrose, was one of many businesses in the area damaged during the storm. It took on an estimated foot of flooding. <\/p>\n An employee at Media Wine voiced their frustrations over the damage and lack of immediate response, and said that the flooding stopped as soon as the manhole was uncovered.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was a block over the manhole cover,\u201d the employee said. \u201cAnd when that was removed the water was gone within 15 seconds.\u201d <\/p>\n The trucks, along with being reportedly slow to respond, created additional issues due to their size and slow moving nature.<\/p>\n \u201cThey slow business down,\u201d the employee said. \u201cCustomers can\u2019t turn into the parking lots as easily or drive the street as easily.\u201d<\/p>\n Silang claimed that, despite hearing the trucks in the area, they failed to respond until after the damage had already been done.<\/p>\n \u201cI heard the trucks go off, because they were at the corner a half of a block down, but it wasn\u2019t until about 30 or 45 minutes after the fact that they showed up,\u201d she said. \u201cAs fast as [the water] rises, the minute they turned that machine on, the water just disappeared in 15 seconds.\u201d<\/p>\n Silang said that had the trucks attended to the street earlier, a lot of the damage could have been prevented.<\/p>\n However, LASAN refuted Silang\u2019s claim, saying that the trucks were staffed and readily available to assist.<\/p>\n \u201cA powerful, sudden and fast-moving storm system associated with an atmospheric river condition produced excessive amounts of rain that temporarily overwhelmed the stormwater system,\u201d the agency said in a statement, adding that the Vactor truck on site was \u201cdesignated as backup equipment\u201d and \u201cremained fully staffed throughout the duration of the storm.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis was completely unacceptable,\u201d said Councilwoman Katy Yaroslavsky in a statement to ABC7News<\/a>. \u201cWe have demanded an immediate review from LASAN to determine exactly what happened, who was responsible for the breakdown, and what corrective actions will be taken right now. We expect answers and we expect immediate change. This cannot happen again.\u201d<\/p>\n The LASAN spokesperson added that the department would continue to coordinate with business owners to ensure they had sandbags, were aware of future repairs, and had contact information for reporting flooding or other issues and to address questions or concerns, according to KTLA<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The City of Los Angeles\u2019s flood prevention equipment was unable to manage the deluge that hit the Fairfax…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":602797,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,259480,6537,8580,199305,2961,259482,224,5337,259483,51930,259481],"class_list":["post-602796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-christina-silang","tag-city-of-los-angeles","tag-flooding","tag-katy-yaroslavsky","tag-la","tag-lasan","tag-los-angeles","tag-losangeles","tag-media-wine","tag-melrose","tag-nathalia-gavira"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116101538553494298","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=602796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602796\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/602797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}