Repairs near completion on giant burst pipe that soaked UCLA, basketball floor to be replaced

Los Angeles Department of Water and Power "Y" shaped juncture where a water rupture occurred, involving two main trunk lines is seen on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles Thursday, July 31, 2014. Work crews have stopped the last of the water gushing from a 30-inch pipe some 30 hours after it burst. Damage costs have yet to be pegged from the rupture of the pipeline that spewed more than 20 million gallons of water in the midst of California's worst drought in decades. The break in the 93-year-old pipe left a swath of the UCLA campus including its basketball arena swamped with water. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes) (The Associated Press)

A car is removed from a parking structure, which was flooded by Tuesday's water main break, on the UCLA campus on Thursday, July 31, 2014, in Los Angeles. Repair crews on Thursday were shoring up a giant hole in the middle of Sunset Boulevard caused by a ruptured pipe, as officials at the water-logged UCLA continued to assess damage from the 20 million gallons that inundated the campus. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong) (The Associated Press)

LOS ANGELES – Utility crews were fitting and welding a nearly century-old pipe that burst and made a mucky mess of UCLA with hopes of finishing the fixes and restoring heavily traveled Sunset Boulevard above it on the weekend.

At the site of the broken main that spewed 20 million gallons of water earlier in the week, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power crews cut away 66 feet of the damaged steel pipe Friday. The ruptured section will be sent to DWP corrosion experts for analysis.

The repairs on the pipe that broke open Tuesday were expected to continue through late Friday or early Saturday, with work then beginning to repair a gaping hole in the street.

Earlier Friday, the school announced that the famed hardwood court at Pauley Pavilion will be replaced because of water damage.

Athletic Director Dan Guerrero said in a statement that the entire floor at Pauley will be replaced by the end of October, and no regular season basketball games would be affected.

No details were provided on the cost of replacing the floor.

Pauley Pavilion underwent a $136 million upgrade just two years ago.

New flooring also will be installed at the Hall of Fame at the J.D. Morgan Center and at a court in the John Wooden Center that is used for women's volleyball games, Guerrero said.

Elsewhere on campus, a parade of tow trucks removed about 400 vehicles that were submerged in the deluge, school spokesman Tod Tamberg said. The process could take several days because workers were still pumping out water and digging through muck and debris.