{"id":943127,"date":"2026-07-18T10:21:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T10:21:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/943127\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T10:21:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T10:21:15","slug":"west-hollywood-faces-long-recovery-from-massive-water-main-break-it-was-like-whitewater-rapids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/943127\/","title":{"rendered":"West Hollywood faces long recovery from massive water main break: ‘It was like whitewater rapids’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Tadeh Ghazalian, owner of Dialog Cafe, a family business of 20 years, is struggling in the wake of the water main break <\/a>on Sunset Bouelvard.<\/p>\n

His entire store is completely closed, facing structural damage, food and product loss and a complete wipeout of their inventory.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest thing is that there is so much water, there\u2019s so much sand that went through this place,\u201d Ghazalian said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to take a while before we get everything up and running again.\u201d<\/p>\n

The rupture of a 3-foot-wide trunk line Thursday morning sent 17 million gallons of water into a West Hollywood neighborhood, from the Sunset Strip downhill beyond Santa Monica Boulevard. Officials are still trying to assess the damage but say those impacted face a long recovery.<\/p>\n

West Hollywood Mayor John Heilman estimated that between 150 and 200 cars were damaged or destroyed in the flood. Officials are going door to door to tell residents how they can file claims with Los Angeles Department of Water and Power to pay for water damage.<\/p>\n

A handful of residential units were inundated, including a few where electricity had to be shut off because their electrical panels were compromised. Most of the damage was centered in underground garages where water had to be pumped out.<\/p>\n

\"Repair <\/p>\n

Repair work is underway after a water main break flooded streets in West Hollywood<\/p>\n

(Myung J. Chun\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

Standing in a garage full of mud and wrecked cars on Friday, Joe Artle, who manages an apartment building on Palm Avenue and Cynthia Street, stared bewildered into the distance trying to figure out what to do next.<\/p>\n

Artle, 70, was trying to sleep when his neighbor and friend, Rudy Vargas, came banging on his door around 3 a.m. Thursday, panicked, urging him to get his car out of the underground garage because of the flooding.<\/p>\n

He rushed out of the apartment and started trying to wake his neighbors. They were only able to save maybe four of the 20 cars in the garage, Artle said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe water was so intense,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was like whitewater rapids, like when you\u2019re river rafting. You couldn\u2019t stand in it; it would knock you over.\u201d<\/p>\n

Artle said the broken pipe unleashed the worst damage he\u2019s seen in the 25 years he\u2019s lived in the building. Most of its 35 tenants lost vehicles or belongings stored in the garage. The building\u2019s washer and dryer units were also destroyed in the deluge.<\/p>\n

Vargas, 40, said his adrenaline was so high that he wasn\u2019t completely processing the situation as it was happening. When he navigated his way outside it was akin to crossing a river, he said. He had to grip onto street poles just to keep himself up.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes, it rains hard enough that water comes into here, and it floods the garage, but it hasn\u2019t been that bad, so when I came out to the kitchen window to see, and I saw it was really bad, that\u2019s when I\u2019m like, \u2018panic mode,\u2019\u201d said Vargas, who has lived in the building for about 13 years.<\/p>\n

Sunset Boulevard remains closed due the sink hole caused by the rupture.<\/p>\n

Staff writer Hannah Fry contributed to this report. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tadeh Ghazalian, owner of Dialog Cafe, a family business of 20 years, is struggling in the wake of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":943128,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[9102,1582,276,2332,11366,379880,2961,286379,224,2444,5337,379881,229471,1408,379882,379884,379883,379879,22662,1628],"class_list":["post-943127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-building","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-car","tag-damage","tag-joe-artle","tag-la","tag-long-recovery","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-losangeles","tag-massive-water-main-break","tag-much-water","tag-official","tag-rudy-vargas","tag-rupture","tag-tadeh-ghazalian","tag-underground-garage","tag-west-hollywood","tag-year"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943127","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=943127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943127\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/943128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=943127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=943127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=943127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}