San Gabriel family still displaced after home partially collapses in storm
A worker inspects the scene near a red-tagged home after a torrent of water surged through the Rubio Wash and destroyed the back of the home during Tuesday’s rainstorm.
Los Angeles County building inspectors have yet to determine if a San Gabriel family’s home can remain standing after a public works project was overwhelmed with stormwater and caused the back of their property to collapse into a flood control channel, officials said.
Amid the chaos of Tuesday’s rainstorm, a pipe to divert water around the Rubio Wash in San Gabriel was overwhelmed, county public works officials said.
The failure weakened a temporary retaining wall behind the home until it collapsed, which then ruptured two sewage lines and caved in the back of the family’s property, including a backyard fence and the floor of the garage, said Paul Hubler, a spokesman for the Alameda Corridor-East Construction Authority, the supervising agency for the project.
The family was home at the time and called 911 -- authorities told them to flee the home once they saw the damage, officials said. The Alameda Authority has since put the family in a hotel and is working on finding them a rental home until their property can be restabilized; it is also relocating three neighboring families.
Only the home at the site of the collapse was red-tagged, officials said. Inspectors were giving the home a closer look Wednesday to determine if it could be saved, which preliminary signs show is a good possibility, Hubler said.
But other work will have to be done, he said.
One of two sewage pipes that ruptured in the incident has been repaired and another could be online by the end of the day Wednesday. The spill sent 250,000 gallons 33 miles down the San Gabriel River, forcing a citywide beach closure for at least a day, Long Beach health officials said.
As for the project itself, Hubler said its managers are determining how long the collapse could delay its completion. The Alameda Authority is lowering the Rubio Wash floor to accommodate a lower train bridge that passes over it. A 1.4-mile section of Union Pacific railroad track is being lowered to allow San Gabriel streets to pass over them, reducing traffic congestion, Hubler said.
For breaking California news, follow @JosephSerna on Twitter.
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