UCLA flood: Pauley Pavilion undergoes dramatic cleanup

By Wednesday morning, the court at UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion looked as though nothing had happened -- a tribute to the hours of clean up turned in by work crews.

Less than 24 hours earlier, water was ankle high as the result of a burst water main on Sunset Boulevard that sent silt and water cascading toward the historic arena.

Workers toiled through the night to dry it out, and they were successful. No visible water or dirt remained on the court, though the wood was warped and swelled at the edges.

At joints in the wood, water damage was visible. UCLA Athletic Director Dan Guerrero said the floor would have to be replaced, but he added that sporting events scheduled for Pauley Pavilion should go on as scheduled in the fall.

Structurally, Guerrero said, the building is sound. Most of the damage was contained to things like carpeting, dry wall, paint, furniture and equipment.

Dozens of fans circulated air throughout the arena to aid the drying process. A nearby truck held dozens more. Workers removed peeling paint and crumbling ceiling tiles from the locker-room area and the Pavilion Club, but overall, much of the facilities looked as if nothing had occurred. The carpeting was damp, but the silt that littered the floors of the locker room area had been removed.

Hundreds of workers and volunteers responded within hours on Tuesday, and about two dozen remained on Wednesday morning.

“They were coming from everywhere,” Guerrero said of the workers.

He didn’t estimate how many workers and volunteers were involved in the initial response, but Pauley Pavilion and surrounding facilities became a beehive of activity. About 150 firefighters helped in the response, rescue and clean up. Custodians worked alongside team officials. Even athletes lent a hand, Guerrero said.

At first, water trickled onto the east end of the court on Tuesday at about 3:30. Soon it poured into the arena faster than the workers could remove it.

Clint Svatos, UCLA’s aquatics director, heard about the flooding and came down from the pools to help out.

“The water was only on that quarter of the court when we started,” he said, gesturing to the east end. “And it was a lost cause after a while.”

Workers and volunteers used squeegees, vacuums, modified floor cleaners, brooms — whatever they could find. Firefighters worked in tandem using fire hoses to drag water out of the arena’s concourses. They blocked off the doorways with sand bags, moved chunks of earth with tractors and stopped the flow down the stairwells using blocks of concrete.

By about 7:30 p.m., when the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power had managed to staunch the geyser that had burst through the asphalt on Sunset Boulevard, workers had made progress inside Pauley Pavilion. Less than an inch remained on the court, down from as much as an estimated eight inches, according to UCLA spokeswoman Carol Stogsdill.

Still, in the arena’s underbelly, water still trickled steadily from the ceilings and air vents. In the women’s basketball locker room, Pam Walker, director of women’s basketball operations, squeegeed next to Jonah Badrna, a custodian.

“I don’t know,” she asked Badrna. “Do you think we’re getting somewhere?”

Water dripped on Badrna’s head as he worked. He shrugged.

“No,” he replied.

“OK,” Walker said.

As they worked, much of the new locker room area was under water. In the wood-paneled film room, water leaked from above onto the carpeting and plush seats. Soggy ceiling tiles grew heavy and crumbled before falling to the floor. Dirt, leaves and silt littered the carpeting. In the glass-enclosed film room, a Powerade cooler was overflowing with brown-tinted water.

Many workers said they didn’t know how long they had been laboring. Adela Lopez ran continually across the basketball court with a large squeegee. She works for Pauley Pavilion and said she arrived soon after the water started rising. She didn’t have a phone or watch, so she hadn’t know she had been running and mopping for almost four hours.

But by 9 p.m., the water was disappearing. On the west end of the court, no standing water remained. The water in the locker rooms was mostly contained to the carpeting, which facilitated the clean-up effort the next day.

Guerrero credited quick response with helping to limit the damage.

“We had volunteers, we had staff, we had our student athletes in there with squeegees,” Guerrero said. “It was really a wonderful thing to see.”

Times staff writer Everett Cook contributed to this report.