The trend for videos of Universal Studios streetcar tours during Hilary
No, the Koreatown subway station in LA was not flooded during Sunday’s Tropical Storm Hilary.
However, a viral video of a flooded train station – captured on a tram tour of Universal Studios – makes you think otherwise. On Sunday, X users @DealinRugs posted a video of the Universal Studios Tour tram ride showing water rushing through the famous Hollywood set, with the incorrect caption “LA Metro station in Wilshire, Vermont gets swamped by storm” and a surprised face emoji. The post referred to the Purple and Red Line subway station in LA’s Koreatown neighborhood.
Many X users caught Sunday’s tweet joke and took it a step further by sharing macabre gags about it Sharks are free in LA with video from the “Jaws” set, while another video posted by the artificial flash flood Part of the tour captioned: “This is happening in Studio City right now. Incredible.” A separate user shared a video from the War of the Worlds set of the ride the false claim that it was debris from a plane that Hilary had shot down in Long Beach.
But that didn’t stop some from processing the memes as actual footage. Multiple reporters were fooled by the fake train station tweet, below Dave Bondya Michigan-based journalist who along with others had requested permission to use the footage as part of their reporting.
Michael Sadri, the user of Posting the video on Sunday afternoon, said he meant the tweet as a little joke and didn’t think it would blow up or that journalists would start taking it seriously.
The Universal Studios theme park tram ride takes visitors on a tour of various sets reminiscent of some of the studio’s iconic films. Part of the ride includes an homage to the 1974 film “Earthquake” and features a replica subway station experiencing a simulated earthquake and resulting flooding.
“Twitter is all about jokes,” said Sadri, 27, of West Adams. “Sometimes joking is another way of dealing with it, you know?” Sadri was born and raised in Los Angeles. She had never experienced a tropical storm and, like many others, was terrified upon learning of its severity.
“Everyone said it was going to be the greatest storm of all time, everyone freaked out,” Sadri continued. “But after that there was only heavy rain.”
LA Metro had the best response to that original misleading tweetalthough I wrote a few hours later, “This is a ride at Universal Studios. You H.”
Actually none of that LA Metro’s The rail and bus system, which includes more than 100 miles of rail lines, was experiencing significant disruptions or delays related to the historic 5.1 magnitude storm or earthquake that struck near Ojai and shook LA, it was confirmed a subway officer. Patrick Chandler, a spokesman for LA Metro, said there were no significant weather-related disruptions to bus or train services and described Sunday as “a pretty normal day.”
The dizziness was part of a trend online with people, mostly Los Angeles residents, complaining about the stark contrast between the horrific media coverage of the storm moving north along Baja California and the storm that was coming , made fun of to be less extreme than previously warned.
Still, damage could still be seen across the city as the storm’s eye hovered over Compton and Dodger Stadium on Sunday night. LA city officials responded to downed power lines, fallen trees, damaged roads and clogged storm drains. About 18,000 Los Angeles Department of Water and Power customers were without power Monday, including residents of Hollywood, Pico-Union and Beverly Grove, according to Marty Adams, the city utility’s chief executive.
Elsewhere in Southern California, debris flows and flash flooding have submerged roads in parts of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, stranding firefighters, residents and motorists.
After the viral hoax tweet trended “Universal Studios,” another LA landmark was trending Monday: “Dodger Stadium.” Aerial photos and photographs appeared to show that the baseball arena was engulfed by flooding. However like The Times and some sharp-eyed users pointed out that the “flooding” was not what it appeared to be and was likely just light reflecting off the wet pavement of the stadium’s huge parking lot.
With Hilary making history as Southern California’s first tropical storm in 84 years, Californians held their breath all weekend as it neared the Pacific, reaching a Category 4 hurricane and killing one in Mexico. Its rarity left much to the imagination, while some turned to memories of storms on the east coast, where hurricanes and tropical storms occur every year.
Metro’s Chandler said he’s noticed some people refer to that Flooded subway system in New York City during Hurricane Sandy in 2012. But he said the infrastructure of New York’s subway system is much older than LA’s system, which opened what was then the Blue Line in 1990.
In more recent memory for Angelenos: Union Station in downtown LA was flooded during a series of heavy rains in January and February. Meanwhile, contractors were on site during the Hilary event to siphon off flood water, Chandler said — but since rainwater never threatened to breach the historic station, their services were never called upon.
