Workers raced for miles in the dark to escape being trapped after tunnel collapsed in Los Angeles

LOS ANGELES (AP) — After a section of a large industrial tunnel caved in, more than two dozen construction workers who were hundreds of feet below the streets of Los Angeles raced for miles in the dark — clambering over towering debris, terrified of being trapped, according to descriptions by their family members and officials Thursday, a day after the collapse.

Remarkably, all 31 workers escaped to safety Wednesday night and none suffered any major injuries.

Fire Department Chief Ronnie Villanueva said the workers had to make it through the most treacherous part themselves, climbing over more than 12 feet (3.6 meters) of loose dirt before rescuers could reach them and drive them to the only opening.

The tunnel, which is 18 feet (5.5 meters) wide and 7 miles (11.3 kilometers) long, is under the Wilmington neighborhood, a heavily industrial area filled with oil refineries just north of the Port of Los Angeles. It is a nearly $700 million project that's designed to carry treated wastewater to the Pacific Ocean.

The workers were 400 feet (121 meters) underground and as much as 6 miles (9.6 kilometers) away from the only exit, said Michael Chee, spokesperson for the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts.

A transport vehicle had taken them in to supervise the operations of a machine that digs out the corridor and then builds the tunnel at the same time and uses the panels that are installed to move itself forward, Chee said.

When they learned of the collapse, they ran back and hopped aboard the transport vehicle that had taken them into the tunnel, but it could only move for a mile before it encountered the debris.

“What we understand is the men who were in front of the collapse had approximately 6 to 8 feet of space above the debris where they were able to clamber over,” Chee said.

After that, the workers — still in the dark, frightened and miles from the opening — continued on foot until rescuers were able to reach them and help them onto vehicles to take them to the shaft where a cage carried them out.

Aerial footage showed a crane hoisting workers out of the tunnel in a yellow cage.

“They’re shaken up,” Chess said, adding that the workers will be taking time to recover and all work has been halted.

Arally Orozco said her three brothers who were in there are too traumatized to speak to journalists. After escaping, one came out crying.

“He told me he thought he was going to die underground," she said.

She said they described to her what they experienced: That night they heard a hissing sound after they got to their area of work, which took them an hour to get to by the transport vehicle.

As they worked in the dark with only headlamps, "They heard like a psss sound, like air was going out, like pressure was escaping, and they didn’t know what it was,” Orozco said.

A while later, a couple of workers were heading back through the tunnel toward the opening when debris started raining down, the brothers told her. One worker ran back to alert the others while the other worker rushed ahead to get to the opening and call for help, Orozco said.

The group had to squeeze through a tiny hole that she said her brother feared he would not fit through. Water was rushing in so strong it pulled at the transport vehicle, she said. Her brother told her at one point the water reached up to his waist and he struggled to breathe because it seemed like the tunnel was losing oxygen.

“They felt helpless,” she said.

The project has been underway for two years without any problems, Chee said.

“The tunnel boring machine has been digging under streets, public right-of-ways, homes, parks, lakes, ponds, golf courses without incident until now,” he said.

Officials will investigate to determine the cause, Chee said.

“What our people and what our contractors and their specialists are going to do is a full assessment," he said. “Everything from the engineering to the structural integrity to the safety, and obviously a very close inspection and look at the actual collapse point in the tunnel before anything else is done.”

Working so near the shoreline and at such a depth means crews could have been contending with very wet conditions that add challenges during design and digging, said Maria Mohammed, president of the Structural Engineers Association of Southern California.

“You would design not just for the pressure from the soil and the weight of the soil, you have to design for the pressure from the water,” said Mohammed, whose group is not involved in the Wilmington project.

Mohammed said the investigation could take months, if not longer. It will take some time just to make the tunnel safe for investigators to enter. Once inside, they'll try to determine where the collapse originated, she said.

“It all comes down to, what’s the first element that broke?” Mohammed said. “Usually a collapse is a propagating thing. One thing fails and it takes other things with it. So you would try to figure out, of the broken elements, which one broke first.”

City Councilmember Tim McOsker praised the workers for keeping cool heads.

“This is a highly technical, difficult project. And they knew exactly what to do. They knew how to secure themselves,” he said. “Thank goodness for the good people that were down in the tunnel.”

Mayor Karen Bass said at a news conference that she met with some of the workers.

“I know when we raced down here I was so concerned that we were going to find tragedy. Instead, what we found was victory," Bass said.

Watson reported from San Diego. Associated Press journalists Damian Dovarganes and Eugene Garcia contributed to this report.

An aerial view shows the only entrance to an industrial tunnel in the Wilmington neighborhood of Los Angeles, Thursday, July 10, 2025, after a section of the tunnel partially collapsed Wednesday night. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts Public Information Officer Michael Chee speaks to media after a tunnel collapsed on Wednesday, July 9, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

An aerial view shows the only entrance to an industrial tunnel in the Wilmington neighborhood of Los Angeles, Thursday, July 10, 2025, after a section of the tunnel partially collapsed Wednesday night. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

From left, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, left, LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell, Congresswoman Nanette Barragan Los Angeles Council member Tim McOsker, at microphone, and Supervisor Janice Hahn take questions from the media after all the workers who were trapped in the Wilmington tunnel were out and accounted, Wednesday, July 9, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

A Los Angeles Fire Department truck leaves after a tunnel collapsed on Wednesday, July 9, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

Maria Orozco hugs her son, Oraldo Orozco, one of her three sons who were trapped as tunnel workers inside a collapsed tunnel under construction for Los Angeles County's Clean Water project, Wednesday, July 9, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

This image taken from footage provided by KABC/ABC7 Los Angeles shows first responders working the scene after a tunnel collapsed on Wednesday, July 9, 2025, in Los Angeles. (KABC/ABC7 Los Angeles via AP)

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass stands during a press conference after a tunnel collapsed on Wednesday, July 9, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

This image taken from footage provided by KABC/ABC7 Los Angeles shows first responders and workers after being lifted after a tunnel collapsed on Wednesday, July 9, 2025, in Los Angeles. (KABC/ABC7 Los Angeles via AP)

This image taken from footage provided by KABC/ABC7 Los Angeles shows first responders and rescued workers after a tunnel collapsed on Wednesday, July 9, 2025, in Los Angeles. (KABC/ABC7 Los Angeles via AP)

This image taken from footage provided by KABC/ABC7 Los Angeles shows first responders working the scene after a tunnel collapsed on Wednesday, July 9, 2025, in Los Angeles. (KABC/ABC7 Los Angeles via AP)

MONROE, Wash. (AP) — A blast of arctic air is sweeping south from Canada and spreading into parts of the northern U.S., while residents of the Pacific Northwest brace for possible mudslides and levee failures from floodwaters that are expected to be slow to recede.

The catastrophic flooding has forced thousands of people to evacuate, including Eddie Wicks and his wife, who live amid sunflowers and Christmas trees on a Washington state farm next to the Snoqualmie River. As they moved their two donkeys to higher ground and their eight goats to their outdoor kitchen, the water began to rise much quicker than anything they had experienced before.

As the water engulfed their home Thursday afternoon, deputies from the King County Sheriff’s Office marine rescue dive unit were able to rescue them and their dog, taking them on a boat the half-mile (800 meters) across their field, which had been transformed into a lake. The rescue was captured on video.

In Snohomish County, Washington, north of Seattle, emergency officials on Saturday led federal, state and local officials on a tour of the devastation.

“It’s obvious that thousands and thousands of Washingtonians and communities all across our state are in the process of digging out, and that’s going to be a challenging process,” Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson said.

“It’s going to be expensive,” he said. “It’s going to be time consuming, and it’s going to be potentially dangerous at times. So I think we’re seeing here in Monroe is what we’re going to be seeing all across the state, and that’s what’s got our focus right now.”

As the Pacific Northwest begins to recover from the deluge, a separate weather system is already bringing dangerous wind-chill values — the combination of cold air temperatures and wind — to parts of the Upper Midwest.

Shortly before noon Saturday, it was minus 12 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 24 degrees Celsius) in Grand Forks, North Dakota, where the wind chill value meant that it felt like minus 33 F (minus 36 C), the National Weather Service said.

For big cities like Minneapolis and Chicago, the coldest temperatures were expected late Saturday night into Sunday morning. In the Minneapolis area, low temperatures were expected to drop to around minus 15 F (minus 26 C), by early Sunday morning. Lows in the Chicago area are projected to be around 1 F(minus 17 C) by early Sunday, the weather service said.

The Arctic air mass was expected to continue pushing south and east over the weekend, expanding into Southern states by Sunday.

The National Weather Service on Saturday issued cold weather advisories that stretched as far south as the Alabama state capital city of Montgomery, where temperatures late Sunday night into Monday morning were expected to plummet to around 22 F (minus 6 C). To the east, lows in Savannah, Georgia, were expected to drop to around 24 F (minus 4 C) during the same time period.

The cold weather freezing much of the country comes as residents in the Pacific Northwest endure more misery after several days of flooding. Thousands of people have been forced to evacuate towns in the region as an unusually strong atmospheric river dumped a foot (30 centimeters) or more of rain in parts of western and central Washington over several days and swelled rivers, inundating communities and prompting dramatic rescues from rooftops and vehicles.

Many animals were also evacuated as waters raged over horse pastures, barns and farmland. At the peak of evacuations, roughly 170 horses, 140 chickens and 90 goats saved from the flood waters were being cared for at a county park north of Seattle, said Kara Underwood, division manager of Snohomish County Parks. Most of those animals were still at the park on Saturday, she said.

The record floodwaters were expected to continue to slowly recede Saturday, but authorities warn that waters will remain high for days, and that there is still danger from potential levee failures or mudslides. There is also the threat of more rain forecast for Sunday. Officials have conducted dozens of water rescues as debris and mudslides have closed highways and raging torrents have washed out roads and bridges.

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Associated Press writers Hallie Golden in Seattle and Jeff Martin in Atlanta contributed.

A man pushes a truck through a neigbhorhood flooded by the Skagit River on Friday, Dec. 12, 2025, in Burlington. (AP Photo/Stephen Brashear)

An aerial view shows homes surrounded by floodwaters in Snohomish, Wash., Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Stephen Brashear)

Emergency crews, including National Guard soldiers, wort in a neighborhood flooded by the Skagit River on Friday, Dec. 12, 2025, in Burlington, Wash. (AP Photo/Stephen Brashear)