Glendale Evacuees Await Flooding Repairs

One week after an unseasonal rainstorm buckled the walls of a flood channel and weakened the foundation under their building, residents evacuated from a four-unit apartment building were still waiting Thursday for damage to be repaired so they could return home.

The rear stairwell to a second-floor apartment still dangles from the side of the building with no support. Asphalt in the driveway is buckled, the exterior of the building’s laundry room is gone and part of the building’s foundation, which has been buttressed with beams, is exposed. A section of the storm channel wall, roughly 10 feet high and eight feet across, is also missing.

Despite the remaining damage, enough repairs are expected to be completed by late today or Saturday to permit residents to return, said Brad Barnes, an official with the firm that manages the apartment building.

Renters have been staying in a nearby hotel since last Friday, when surprise showers dumped 1 1/2 inches of rainfall into the Verdugo Wash. The concrete-lined watercourse is undergoing its first major reconstruction since it was built in 1938. The water seeped under the channel bottom--a 1,000-foot stretch of which had been excavated for repairs--eroding a large chunk of land alongside the apartment building.

“We always schedule this type of repair work outside of the storm season, so the chance of rain is minimal,” said Jean Granucci, spokeswoman for the county Public Works Department, which is supervising the reconstruction project. “This is just one of those freak things that Mother Nature does sometimes.”

But some residents of the building said they think the county and its contractor, Tutor-Saliba Corp., are partly to blame for the damage.

“You always have to be prepared for whatever nature might do,” said Rick Guerrero, 30. “I mean, this is in a wash, and we’ve had some strange weather over the past two years. I’ve learned to be prepared for anything.”

“It was really scary. We could hear a loud noise, and we came out and there was just a big hole in the ground,” said Ardavan Javid, 23, who was in the building when the storm struck Friday.

In all, the flood channel wall was damaged in about five places. Two other homes in the area also were evacuated briefly after the storm. Granucci said the contractor is responsible for the cost of repairs, which has not been determined.

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