The famed Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, a small city surrounded by the much larger metropolis of Los Angeles, has seen its share of chaos.
In the 1960s, there were riots protesting curfews. There were rowdy punk rock and hair metal shows in the 1970s and 1980s. Today, influencers descend on bars in droves, hungry for social media content.
On Thursday, residents woke up to a different kind of mess: A river of water gushing down the streets, flooding into the underground garages of apartment buildings, causing at least one major sinkhole and snarling traffic.
At about 3 a.m. on Thursday, Los Angeles County fire officials responded to a call reporting water in the street at an intersection just blocks from the Whiskey a Go Go, the rock club that helped launch many bands into orbit.
Within minutes, a fire engine based nearby arrived on scene.
The current was flowing fast enough to sweep away someone for a brief moment before the person walked away, based on local news footage. Firefighters followed the water uphill to Sunset Boulevard and Holloway Drive, where they discovered a 32-inch water main had ruptured.
Although West Hollywood became a city only in 1984, its infrastructure is old, said Aaron Katon, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Fire Department, and there are three agencies with water pipes running through town.
As of about 9 a.m., Mr. Katon said, water was no longer flowing through the broken pipe and water service had been restored to nearly every affected property. There were no injuries reported, and officials were working to assess any damage to other infrastructure and cars.
Emergency responders determined that the water main that had broken belongs to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and dates back more than a century, to 1916, Mr. Katon said.
After the water and power agency was alerted to the break, workers started to shut off the water.
“Due to the highly pressurized water system, our crews must turn valves slowly and carefully to avoid causing further damage,” the department said in a news release.
L.A.D.W.P., as the agency is known, did not immediately respond to questions about how much water spilled and how quickly the damage might be repaired.
“We’re all going to be here working and working tirelessly to get this restored to the level residents expect,” Mr. Katon said.
Johnny Diaz contributed to this report.