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.
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