Council OKs Funds to Fix Deadly Stretch of Roadway

After paying $1.6 million over the past two decades to settle three wrongful death lawsuits for accidents on a flooded stretch of La Tuna Canyon Road, the Los Angeles City Council voted Tuesday to spend $130,000 to fix the road’s faulty drainage, which has been blamed for causing the accidents.

The unanimous vote came nine months after Councilman Joel Wachs called for the repairs in response to a story in The Times that chronicled the seven deaths and 30 accidents on the road over the past 20 years.

“Frankly, the way things go in the city, this is fast,” Wachs said after the vote. “Hopefully, we will be able to complete the work before the next major rains take place.”

City engineers say they have not been sitting idle for nine months but have completed surveys and engineering studies for the job. “Our feelings are that this is actually a pretty good record,” city engineer Sam Furuta said. “It means we have accelerated the project.”

Because of the urgency of the problem, Furuta said a contractor can be hired almost immediately. But he was unsure how quickly the work will be completed.

The three wrongful death lawsuits, for accidents during rainstorms in 1979, 1987 and 1994, alleged that water pools on the roadway near Elben Avenue, in Sun Valleyeast of the Foothill Freeway, caused cars to hydroplane and motorists to lose control.

City engineers have said that two or three spillways had been washed away by mudslides or were paved over. But they have insisted that the problem on the road has been speeding, not flooding.

In February, the council paid $1.2 million to settle a lawsuit by the family of Rafeek Teraberanyans, a 34-year-old mechanic killed in a head-on collision on March 24, 1994. In that accident, a trash truck owned by Browning-Ferris Industries lost traction on a flooded stretch of road, causing it to slide into the path of Teraberanyans’ car.

The city paid $450,000 to settle two other wrongful death lawsuits.

Four other deaths and 30 accidents have occurred during rainstorms on La Tuna Canyon Road, according to a city report to the council.

The city has yet to settle the most recent lawsuit, filed in January by Stormy Livendale, a 26-year-old Glendale woman who said she lost control of her car on the same stretch of flooded roadway, causing another car to hit her from behind.

Livendale’s lawsuit, for an unspecified amount, says she suffered brain damage in the Jan. 3, 1995 accident. She is also suing the manufacturer of her car, claiming that a faulty seat contributed to her injuries.

After a Times article chronicled the deaths in February, Wachs instructed city engineers to make the repairs as quickly as possible.

But it wasn’t until last week that the Board of Public Works issued a “declaration of urgent necessity” to hire a contractor to fix the drainage problem.

In a report to Wachs, former city engineer Robert Horii said the $130,000 will pay to alleviate the drainage problem.

The Engineering Department also recommended a long-term study of drainage problems along the entire three-mile stretch of La Tuna Canyon Road west of the Foothill Freeway.