UCLA Floods: Chancellor Block Calls Flooding at Pauley Painful

Update: Chancellor Block's initial statement has been added. -Ed.

A press conference was held to update folks on the water main break.

Chancellor Block's statement at the press conference included the following:

Unfortunately, UCLA was the sink for this water source. The important thing to remember is that we have no reported injuries. So, the most important thing is everybody's safe. Everyone on campus is being looked after. We did have some damage to some of our buildings, Most notably Pauley Pavilion has taken quite a bit of water and two of our parking structures also have received a good deal of water which has created a problem for many of our employees and visitors whose cars are now either under water or we're not able to get them out for a while. But I want to emphasize again: no injuries, a small portion of campus actually compared to the entire set of activities on campus, but, nonetheless, a major issue for us.

When Chancellor Block was asked what his people are doing to assess the damage, he said:

Currently, we are pumping out all the buildings. We are pumping the water out the buildings. We are trying to dry the buildings out. So, we'll do an assessment as soon as we can get these buildings dry and get these parking structures dry so that we can get people's cars out.

We don't know how many lower level cars were under water. So we're not certain how many cars were on the lower level, but a considerable number. Potentially [more than 100].

In response to a question about how many buildings were damaged, Block answered:

We got water damage in, I think, and I'm going to look to Jack Powazek who is our Vice-Chancellor for Administration, I think 4 buildings total.

Jack Powazek then stepped to the microphone, identified himself and said:

2 parking structures and 2 buildings. The buildings are the Wooden Center and Pauley Pavilion. The parking structures are, we call them, 4 and 7, sustained water damage.

Powazek continued;

We are going to have to assess the floor and make contingency plans. Luckily, we are not in the middle of basketball season.

In response to a question about the hardwood floor at Pauley, Block added:

It's painful. As you know we just refurbished Pauley a few years ago and it's a beautiful structure. It's, of course, a symbolic structure for this entire campus. We're, of course, concerned. We need to let it dry out and see where we are.