Archive: Infrastructure

Entries in this category going back awhile
 

Mass evacuation below Oroville Dam

oroville-dam-warning.jpg An estimated 188,000 people fled areas downstream from Lake Oroville after a hole was spotted Sunday in the giant dam's emergency spillway. LA swift-water rescue teams are headed north.

The Mighty Los Angeles (River) was roaring on Sunday

LARiver-Lindley-withwater.jpg Two views of the river: Sunday's rain-swollen racetrack and the big concrete ditch we usually see.

LAX as you have never seen it

lax-image-atlantic.jpg The mega airport is such a vital and vulnerable piece of our infrastructure that it employs two anti-terrorism experts with top-secret clearances.

Cartoonist's view of Diablo Canyon

DiabloCanyonMap-web.jpg Steve Greenberg's cartoon on the Central Coast plant.

Hollywood versus the freeway that carries its name

cahuenga_valley_parkway_postcard.jpg Lost LA's Nathan Masters curates a look at the urban carnage wrought by construction of the Hollywood Freeway in the 1950s.
gigi-graciette-hurt.jpg "I’m hurting and I’m sad and mad...I’m beginning to feel the city isn’t good for me anymore," Gigi Graciette vents.

Our favorite hazardous LA sidewalk, now with cones

now-with-cones-prosser-sidewalk.jpg The sidewalk on Prosser Avenue in Rancho Park has been a trip-and-fall waiting to happen since at least 2012. We have the pictures.

Governor declares Porter Ranch gas leak a disaster

socalgas-cap.jpg Several state agencies are ordered to take a role in getting SoCal Gas to stop the methane venting above Aliso Canyon.

Dockweiler Beach closed by Hyperion sewage and debris

hyperion outfall_0.jpg Elevated bacteria counts plus the discovery of hypodermic needles and tampon applicators are tied to Hyperion's switch this week to a pipe dumping treated sewage just a mile offshore.

LA's crappy streets, sidewalks and water mains in the NYT*

prosser-root-jg.jpg Now everyone knows that a generation of Los Angeles officials has fumbled the infrastructure ball and that Garcetti and the City Council don't yet have a workable answer.

Cool time lapse of the concrete pour at DTLA's Wilshire Grand

concrete-pour-timelapse-grab.jpg This weekend's pouring of the concrete base for the Wilshire Grand Hotel turned into a fascinating dance of engineering, street-level logistics and photo ops. This piece by David Leonard is our favorite.

Media watch cement dry at Wilshire Grand construction site

cement-pour-wilshire-grand.jpg Streets were closed all around Wilshire and Figueroa on Saturday and early Sunday to make way for a big fleet of trucks pouring concrete for the base of the new Wilshire Grand hotel, being built by Korean interests as the highest skyscraper on the West Coast.

County nearly finished updating dams for earthquakes

big-tujunga-dam-after-station.jpg Since the deadly Sylmar earthquake in 1971 it has been recognized that the flood control dams in the San Gabriels were not built sufficiently strong to hold up if a severe regional quake hit while the dams retained a full load of water.

Time Warner Cable will give you a movie to make up for Super Bowl

time-warner-cable-twc-truck.jpg Rather than require ticked-off viewers to make claims and complete a bunch of paperwork, TWC will give all Southern California customers a gift to make up for losing the Super Bowl feed on Sunday.

Time Warner Cable fumbles the Super Bowl

time-warner-cable-twc-truck.jpg Viewers across Southern California lost the game in the second quarter for about an hour. Time Warner Cable noted helpfully that the feed was still available if you were an HD customer.

Trash collection pushes back a day in city of Los Angeles

trash-bins-la-city.jpg New Year's Day is one of the holidays that pushes LA trash collection back one day — service returns to normal next week. Plus some tips on recycling your Christmas tree.

Woe to the commuters of Coldwater Canyon

coldwater-closed-dwp.jpg For a month starting on March 23, the main canyon road connecting the Valley with Beverly Hills will be closed during the day. Coldwater Canyon Avenue needs to be dug up to replace the main water line installed during the William Mulholland era with a new trunk line.

Where all the Christmas trees go to die

christmastree550.jpg The recycling of Christmas trees in Los Angeles County is actually kind of complicated. Some will be buried in landfills, but still be considered recycled. And it makes sense.

California Aqueduct running high

calif-aqueduct-wire.jpg Photos: The California Aqueduct near Littlerock, moving Northern California water across the Mojave Desert on Wednesday afternoon.

Is there a funny smell in the Silver Lake water?

silver-lake-map-grab.jpg A reader emails to say he has been picking up a "strange odor" in the water in his neighborhood above the Silver Lake reservoir. He notes that we've posted about odors in the water before and asks: "Any other reports these days?"

Ed Humes on living with LA's mountain of garbage

mountaingate-aerial.jpg I love stories about infrastructure: sewers, pipelines, trash and the like. The subject of SoCal investigative author Edward Humes' new book warms my wonkish heart — "Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair With Trash" — and has some good LA angles.

3rd Street to remain closed at Fairfax all day *

The DWP, which is scrambling to repair a flurry of water main breaks it blames on work at the distant Lower Franklin Canyon reservoir, says that West 3rd Street will remain closed between Fairfax Avenue and Ogden Drive until 7 p.m.

Paseo del Mar slides into the sea

paseo-del-mar-slide-breeze.jpg A little rain finished off the job in San Pedro's White Point neighborhood, apparently.

6th Street viaduct as photo op

6th-street-yard-sign.jpg Concrete in the 1933 bridge connecting Downtown with the Eastside is rotting from the inside and the structure is slated for replacement.

Piece of Highway One near Big Sur falls into ocean

hwy-one-slide.jpg Don't plan to drive between Big Sur and Carmel or Monterey any time soon.

Here's an enviro idea: forget those DWP 'reforms'

Heal the Bay president Mark Gold isn't a fan of the Department of Water and Power reform measures that may appear on the March ballot in Los Angeles.

Rationing back as top theory in water main breaks

SingingMain-thumb-350x296-1259.jpg Illogical as it sounds, a panel of experts convened by the city has concluded that last year's siege of water main breaks was triggered by the DWP's Monday-Thursday watering restrictions creating higher pressures on aging pipes.

Reading L.A. and its networked ecologies

la-port-mammoth.jpg Over the new few months, the architectural discussion website mammoth will be hosting an online discussion of a forthcoming book, "The Infrastructural City: Networked Ecologies in Los Angeles," as an "experiment in the cooperative reading and discussion of a text."

Water main break in Van Nuys *

watermainbreak11209.jpg Dramatic geyser is blowing higher than the rooftops on Van Nuys Boulevard near Sherman Way. Screen cap is from CBS 2. * Noon update: DWP says the main, which broke...

Do you smell chlorine?

There's too much chlorine smell in the L.A. tap water lately, blogs Atwater Village Newbie. He has collected Twitter reports from others as well. OK, maybe it's not the mysterious...

Morning Buzz: Monday 9.21.09

More water main breaks, Dick Cook's bad day, John Edwards' bad decision and more in Morning Buzz, tucked below the fold. Don't forget to check out Mark Lacter at LA...

Good morning 9.16.09

It's Wednesday and what? No new outbursts to report? Emotional ones, no. But two more water mains burst in the San Fernando Valley overnight. And what do water officials have...

Catching up...

Moving on up: Villaraigosa press secretary Matt Szabo becomes deputy chief of staff. One of his first priorities will be to tackle the city's worsening financial situation. (LAT) Warhol art...

LA Sketchbook: Drip

Studio City still sinking

While city crews try to repair that giant hole where a water trunk line failed on Coldwater Canyon Avenue over the weekend, another water main break has claimed a fire...

Inside the Las Virgenes landfill

lasvirgeneslandfill.jpg Veronique de Turenne drops off a load, posts some pictures at Here in Malibu: "Kind of freaks me out, but it's also fascinating, this other world where tons of junk...

Dorothy Green talks about her cancer

Steve Lopez visits in today's column with Dorothy Green, the longtime water activist and founder of Heal the Bay who is in hospice care for metastasized cancer. She is 79,...

County-USC hospital to open full

Every bed at the new Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center will be filled from the day it opens this fall, according to an independent report requested by the Board of...

Return of recycled water

Stories planted this morning in the Times, Daily News and Wall Street Journal unveil Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's billion-dollar agenda to re-invent Los Angeles' relationship to water. Villaraigosa and DWP chief...

Ports closed at L.A., Long Beach

Louis Sahagun reports for the Times that "thousands of dockworkers at all 29 West Coast ports, including Los Angeles and Long Beach, took the day off work today in what...

Finally, L.A. sewers get some respect

As a reporter, I liked to write about L.A's infrastructure — freeways, water, refuse. I always thought there was a book in the history of the Los Angeles sewer system,...

Silver Lake all but drained

Donna Barstow takes some pics and blogs her thoughts about the Department of Water and Power....

Silver Lake and Elysian water to be dumped

The DWP has decided to dump all the water in Silver Lake and the Elysian reservoir because of unusually high traces of the carcinogen bromate, which formed in the water...

Story of sludge

Examining a plan to inject the city's daily mountain of sludge into the ground under Terminal Island, CityWatch's Marc Haefele revisits past schemes to dispose of the treated (but still...

Beaches to close for testing

Dockweiler State Beach and the northern half of Manhattan Beach — from Ballona Creek south to the Manhattan Beach Pier — will be posted with closed signs Tuesday though Thursday,...
New at LA Observed
Clinton fundraises in LA
kermit-la-brea-closer.jpg Jim Henson Studios on La Brea became a presidential campaign stop on Thursday.
Brown declares disaster area
porter-ranch-sign.jpgThe natural gas leak above Porter Ranch now qualifies for various government actions. Story
Wet coyote
wet-coyote-vdt.jpgSpotted between the storms at Here in Malibu.
Performing arts with cheer
guys-dolls-kevin-parry.jpgDonna Perlmutter closes out 2015 with productions downtown and on the Westside.
Junkyard down
upick-firetruck-560.jpgAfter 53 years, Sun Valley's Aadlen Brothers and U-Pick Parts cleans out. Photos