Pipeline Bursts, LA Neighborhood Knee-Deep in Oil

An oil pipeline burst in LA's Atwater Village neighborhood this morning, spilling thousands of gallons of oil into the streets. The 20-inch above-ground pipe burst just after 1am, sending oil shooting up to 50 feet in the air, the LA Times reports. Remote crews soon shut off the oil, but not before it had created knee-deep pools 40-feet wide. "It looked like a lake," an LA fire captain says. Some spilled into the nearby "Gentlemen's Club," forcing it to evacuate. Multiple other businesses were affected as well, according to KTLA.

Firefighters contained the spill by building berms out of sand from a nearby cement company, creating what they called a "lagoon." Initially they believed that a million gallons had spilled, but as tanker trucks sucked up the crude, that was revised down to 50,000 and then 10,000 gallons. The cleanup is expected to take 24 hours. (More oil spill stories.)