Posted on 02/21/2006 8:23:44 AM PST by mattdono
A mysterious black blob attacked downtown Los Angeles on Monday with a tar-like goo that oozed from manholes, buckled a street and unmoored a Raymond Chandler-era brick building, firefighters said.
About 200 residents were forced to flee as a hazardous materials team and dozens of firefighters worked throughout the day to identify what was first deemed "a black tarry substance" and later morphed into a "watery mud."
While outside temperatures struggled to break 60, sidewalks in the vicinity steamed at 103 degrees, Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Ron Myers said.
"It's worrisome in the fact that it will keep the street closed and residents will be evacuated till the building is considered safe," Myers said.
Firefighters were alerted at 3 a.m. by complaints of a sewer-like smell at an apartment house at 1220 S. Olive St. near Pico Boulevard, but found nothing.
They returned at 1 p.m. to find a Slimer-like ooze lurking beneath central Los Angeles.
"We were called back because there was a gooey substance, a tarry-type substance, coming out the underground electrical vaults, out of manhole covers in the street, through the sidewalks and possibly in one older apartment building," Myers said.
A 120-foot stretch of Olive buckled 1 1/2 feet, he said. The pre-1933 unreinforced masonry apartment building shifted one foot from its foundation. Sidewalks were as hot as Jacuzzis.
And a pressurized liquid shot from every street orifice located above what used to be a historic oil field downtown.
No one was injured in what amounted to a black lagoon. Hazmat and Urban Search and Rescue crews determined that the mysterious substance wasn't flammable, Myers said.
"Incident commanders are evaluating some form of drilling operation one or two blocks away as the possible cause," he added.
"They told us to get out from the building, because, probably, I don't know, anything could happen. The basement was flooding," resident Mary Robles told KABC-TV, Channel 7.
By late afternoon, the American Red Cross had set up an evacuation center for the 150 adults and 50 children forced to flee the stuff of nightmares.
"We're opening a shelter," said Nick Samaniego, spokesman for the Red Cross of Greater Los Angeles. "We're looking for a place to put them."
Dana Bartholomew, (818) 713-3730
dana.bartholomew@dailynews.com
Nadler got his tummy stapled and has lost a ton of weight...
I'd like to believe I am irresistible to women.
It didn't just eat away a guy's head; you saw the whole head MELT on screen. The blob also kills a kid through radiation poisoning. Even in black and white, Hammer flicks pulled no punches.
Incidentally, the movie is available on an excellent DVD put out by Anchor Bay. I also have their Quatermass discs.
These two ideas were both on my mind as well, especially with the thermal aspect. That's sure going to put a damper on the housing market. ;o)
Bingo. We have a culprit.
(PaMom hangs her head in shame for posting a silly, but irrevent comment on a serious thread...using my mom skills, I will give myselt a time out).
I'm guessing they may have edited it a bit for a Saturday noon broadcast. Nice to know one that holds up. No small number of the films I saw back then ended up as MST3K fodder (favorite line? from the lampoon of "This Island Earth": "come on, give a hug to uncle scrotie!"). Thinking back, I'm surprised they let "The Creature" kill the dog (heartless creature - must have been a republican)
A lot of films shown on MST3K were quite good; the Best Brains folks have frequently admitted this themselves, but they were limited but what Comedy Central, and later Sci-Fi, insisted they lampoon.
Further info. Most of what surfaces was not oil but water, about 98% water. DOG says this is only the second time in its history this has happened.
The current idea is they were injecting water into a well for the same zone and it look like another old well, abandoned in the 60's leaked.
If you know how wells were abandoned in the 60's this might occur. The only other idea is a previously unknown well on the lease leaked.
They are now checking will histories, api, etc to see if they missed an old well.
Maybe it's the chocolate Nagin ordered, on it's way to New Orleans.
It's possible.
A lot of wells are not cemented in (plugged and abandoned, in the lingo), but plugged with a bridge plug or otherwise temporaily stopped up, with the idea that there would be a re-entry at some later date.
All said, it would have to be a very nearby well, on the same lease, and the operator (the co who was injecting) would have the burden to make sure any other well tapping that zone was: (1) P&A or (2) properly shut in with no casinghead pressure (which results from a leak of the plug downhole).
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