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-Short Attention Span Theater- | |
The Blob attacks Downtown L.A.! | |
2006-02-22 | |
So, it was not a movie, but a documentary, as I suspected all along... Los Angeles officials were still scratching their heads today over what caused a mysterious black goo to burble from streets downtown, forcing the evacuation hundreds of apartment dwellers. A Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman said investigators had yet to identify the ``black tarry substance'' more than 24 hours after it erupted at Olive Street and Pico Boulevard. But he said there might be ``a correlation'' with a petroleum company drilling operation nearby. ``The samples we have taken _ this was determined to be (a) nontoxin, nonflammable, nonhazard,'' said fire Capt. Ernie Bobadilla. ``We're looking to I.D. the scope of the problem. ``This problem is not a simple fix.''
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." | |
Posted by:anonymous5089 |
#13 Anonymoose - not to mention outracing a pyroclastic cloud in said pickup truck. |
Posted by: DMFD 2006-02-22 23:42 |
#12 Cloning has improved that much? Better than the real McQueen? |
Posted by: 6 2006-02-22 21:00 |
#11 The remake was better. |
Posted by: mojo 2006-02-22 17:24 |
#10 Steve McQueen is Dead. WE ARE DOOMED! |
Posted by: BigEd 2006-02-22 16:23 |
#9 Gee, "watery mud" near a drilling operation? |
Posted by: mojo 2006-02-22 12:29 |
#8 Eerily like the plot of the movie "Volcano"... Just what I was thinking! "MacArthur Park is melting in the dark!" ...which is *not* the worst volcano movie of all time. That honor goes to the movie "Dante's Peak"... Dante's Peak may well be buried under twenty feet of ash by the upcoming Disaster Zone: Volcano in New York. A Sci Fi Channel (un)original, I think. We saw previews for it the other day and couldn't stop laughing. |
Posted by: Angie Schultz 2006-02-22 11:59 |
#7 lol, OJ! Maybe the Lord is shining upon us! Now, about those oil derricks in downtown LA! |
Posted by: BA 2006-02-22 10:05 |
#6 Next thing you know, ol' Jeb's a millionaire, Kinfold said, "Jeb, move away from there!" Said, "California's the place you oughta be" So they loaded up the truck and they moved to Beverly. Hills, that is. Swimming Pools. Movie Stars ... |
Posted by: too true 2006-02-22 09:01 |
#5 I told them! Los Angeles is melting! Tipper! To the Global Warming Mobile! |
Posted by: Al Gore 2006-02-22 08:31 |
#4 Hallelujah! It's a sign! The Lord is sending more oil. |
Posted by: Oracle Jones 2006-02-22 08:30 |
#3 Kellog, Idaho's day in the sun though... |
Posted by: bk 2006-02-22 08:13 |
#2 Eerily like the plot of the movie "Volcano", which is *not* the worst volcano movie of all time. That honor goes to the movie "Dante's Peak", for the scene in which Pierce Brosnan is escaping by driving the family pickup with the family in it over a river of lava and, with four burning tires, they see the family dog, Scruffy, trapped on an island in the middle of the river of lava, and shout to him: "Jump! Scruffy! Jump!" A scene so bad that it was known to have caused hundreds of spontaneous nosebleeds in the hundreds of people who actually went and saw the movie in the theater. |
Posted by: Anonymoose 2006-02-22 08:05 |
#1 Gee. It's an old oil field? Probably not too far from the La Brea tar pits? Shifting tectonic plates or global warming? Inquiring minds want to know! |
Posted by: Bobby 2006-02-22 07:59 |