Reply #64: LA Times: Oil Buckles Street and Damages Building [View All]

[IndianaGreen]

Oil Buckles Street and Damages Building

Apartments are evacuated after a nearby petroleum operation apparently causes black goo to bubble up from underground.

By Bob Pool, Times Staff Writer

They struck oil Monday at an apartment house in downtown Los Angeles. But residents were not in a celebratory mood.

The black, tar-like substance that oozed into the basement of the three-story Iris Apartments forced authorities to red-tag the 99-year-old building and evacuate its 130 occupants.

The 1200 block of South Olive Street was also shut down when its pavement suddenly began to bulge and the oily liquid bubbled from cracks and manhole covers.

Families grabbed what they could and fled to a parking lot across the street from the brick apartment building and watched as Department of Water and Power, Gas Co. and city sanitation workers huddled with police and firefighters trying to figure out where the steaming-hot liquid was coming from.

By midafternoon South Olive Street seemed ready to deliver a gusher.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-ooze21feb21,0,5594636.story?coll=la-home-headlines