San Fernando Valley : LAST BLAST

Summer camp counselor Bob Gross was in trouble. In desperation, he scooped up a water hose, and whirling his torso like a tank turret, he began blasting the children as they swarmed in from all directions.

But the youngsters, armed with water balloons, kept coming. Gross, now drenched from shirt to shoes, was learning the hard way that even a garden hose is no match for 40 determined kids with an arsenal of 1,000 water-filled balloons.

“We’re having fun,” said a gleeful Shacher Ross, 11, of Reseda, who was busy at a sink filling balloons for other children.

Thursday’s battle at Calvert Street Elementary School in Woodland Hills marked the close of the first summer camp run by the West Valley Boys & Girls Club, which was formed in January. About 200 children attended the camp, said Gross, the organization’s executive director.

On Thursday, the balloon fights raged at the asphalt-covered schoolyard, which was drenched and littered with balloon fragments.

After a pitched battle, Gross finally sounded a hopeful note: “I think they’re beginning to tucker out.”