UCLA flood: More than 200 undamaged cars will be moved Thursday night
More than 200 vehicles undamaged by a massive flood that poured onto UCLA’s campus will be removed from parking structures Thursday night and be available for pick up Friday morning, university officials said.
The 267 cars parked in the “easternmost section of Structure 4 … did not experience water intrusion,” UCLA spokesman Tod M. Tamberg said in an email statement. The vehicles are being relocated to UCLA’s Parking Lot 36 where owners can retrieve them beginning 10 a.m. Friday.
About 960 people reported having vehicles inside one of the two flooded parking garages. Of those, about 400 were “deemed to be inoperable due to water damage,” Tamberg told The Times.
The rupture of a 90-year-old city water line on Sunset Boulevard earlier this week sent more than 20 millions of gallons of water coursing across the Westwood campus for hours. Two underground parking garages were flooded, and the floor of Pauley Pavilion -- the school’s storied basketball area -- was warped by several inches of standing water.
Chancellor Gene Block could not provide an exacting estimate of the damage Wednesday, but said it likely was in the millions of dollars.
Subsequently, the university launched a fundraising campaign that officials hope will raise $1 million in the next 60 days. The UCLA Spark crowdfunding page calls the flood “one of the largest emergencies we’ve ever faced” and sets a goal of having damaged facilities open and restored by the time fall quarter begins in late September.
The page had raised more than $5,000 for the Chancellor’s Emergency Flood Relief Fund as of Thursday night -- hours after launch The site said money raised would go toward supporting students and staff affected by the flood and restoring buildings and the campus landscape.
School officials also said power had been restored to the Arthur Ashe Student Health & Wellness Center after its generator had been flooded in one of the parking garages. The center was open and operating Thursday, Tamberg said.
The two flooded garages were still on schedule to have all the water pumped out of them by Friday evening, Tamberg added. After all the water is pumped out, mud and debris will also have to be removed, and the speed of that removal “will form our calendar” for removing the rest of the cars, he said.
Vehicle owners will not be allowed to get their cars from the lot.
“Those structures remain closed and they’re unsafe for public access so there will be no visiting of cars,” Tamberg said.
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