Wall Collapse In Echo Park Buries Car, Causes Gas Leak

ECHO PARK (CBSLA) – A wall collapsed and buried a car in concrete block and dirt in Echo Park, causing a gas leak, but no one was injured.

The collapse was reported just before 6 a.m. in the 100 block of Douglas Street near Beverly Boulevard, according to Brian Humphrey of the Los Angeles Fire Department.

SKY2's Stu Mundel was over the scene where dirt from the home covered the car and was spilling into the street. Part of the structure's stairway also appeared to have given way.

Two cars near the home were damaged, including Jason Gudasz's vehicle.  He says he woke up to see his car covered in dirt.

"Kind of like someone took an X-Acto knife and just like cut off part of my car – just completely flattened part of it. For a while, the only thing holding up the wall was my car," he said. "I was just like laughing the whole time because whoever was in front of me, she comes out of the door, she takes like one look at the car and she just like goes back to bed. She couldn't handle it."

He said the sound of the 100-year-old wall smashing into his car made him think "a bomb went off."

"A whole mess of earth and brick and all these things just came down and just leaned up on my car and it did it with so much force," Gudasz says.

Firefighters determined no one was injured and dispatched crews from Southern California Gas Company and Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety personnel to the scene, Humphrey said.

The gas leak was plugged and the building later was red-tagged, according to a report.

(© Copyright 2019  CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. City News Service contributed to this report.)