By Susan Abramsusan.abram@langnews.com @sabramLA on Twitter

Work crews set a record Sunday by laying 21,200 cu-bic yards of concrete contin-uously into a massive down-town Los Angeles construc-tion site Sunday, where the tallest building west of Chi-cago is set to be built.

Dubbed “the grand pour,” crews worked for 18 hours straight as 208 cement mix-ing trucks made 2,120 trips to dribble concrete into the foundation of what will be the new Wilshire Grand, a 73-story hotel and office tower. The crew beat an old record set in 1999 by those who built the Venetian in Las Vegas, said a Michael Empric, an adjudicator from Guinness World Record who was on scene.

At 11:15 a.m., truck driv-ers blew their horns in uni-son when they completed the challenge and the record was formalized.

“This is the largest re-cord I’ve been to in terms of scope and construction,” Empric said. “This record is measured in cubic yards, and because it’s an engineer-ing project, it’s very easy to be measured because it’s so precise.”

Crews started work just before 5 p.m. Saturday and had expected to complete pouring the concrete in the giant pit late Sunday. But the 150 workers were able to lay an estimated 82 million pounds of concrete faster, said Sean Rossall, spokes-man for Korean Air, the proj-ect’s developer.

“It was pretty rich,” Ros-sall said of the completion. “It was great feeling. We were all very excited. It was a lot of hard work, but ev-erybody is very excited to see this production come to fruition.”

The $1 billion Wilshire Grand will include 900 lux-ury hotel rooms as well as of-fice, restaurants and retail space, a sky lobby for upscale rooftop dining and views, and glass spire. The project is expected to be completed in 2016 and replaces the for-mer Wilshire Grand Hotel.

Spectators who stood on the plaza level of the Wedbush building at 1000 Wilshire Blvd, watched

crews smooth out glops of concrete into the foundation from afar. Some called the moment historical.

“I can’t believe I’m here on a Sunday watching ce-ment dry,” joked Koreatown resident Martha Thompson.

But she said the project

will serve downtown well and bring more life to an area she remembers as des-olate, but is now booming.

“As a native Angeleno, it’s good to see this revital-ization,” she said.

Dave Baxter and his son, Christian, 14, drove in from

Stanton to see the event.“My son is interested in

architecture,” Baxter said. “We live for this.”

George Benfit, who works in the construction indus-try, also came to watch the “grand pour.”

“It’s unique because L.A.

has grown in such a short pe-riod of time,” he said, adding that along with the 405 Free-way widening project taking place, Los Angeles is in the middle of a jobs boom.

“It seems like we went from 0 to 100 mph,” he said. “We need that.”

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES

When they pour, they reignDAVID CRANE — STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Construction workers on the Grand Wilshire Tower in downtown Los Angeles were part of a world record set for concrete poured.

Workers set a world record for concrete used for tower’s foundation

By The Associated Press

FRESNO » A mother and her four children were killed in fiery crash during the week-end after a vehicle ran a stop sign and hit their SUV.

The crash occurred af-ter 7 p.m. Saturday when a 2004 Nissan Quest minivan ran a stop sign and hit the 29-year-old woman and her four children — boys ages 1 and 3 and girls ages 6 and 11 — riding in a 2003 Ford Ex-pedition SUV at an intersec-tion in Fresno County, Cal-ifornia Highway Patrol Of-ficer Axel Reyes said. The SUV was engulfed in flames. The woman’s husband, driv-ing behind tried unsuccess-fully to free his family.

The minivan’s driver, 41-year-old Juana Martinez Bejarano, was hospitalized for major injuries.

CHP officers and fire of-ficials are investigating the crash and the fire.

Coroner’s investigators haven’t confirmed the iden-tities of the burned bodies. A witness said the minivan was traveling about 60 mph or near the 55 mph limit of county roads in the area, Reyes said.

Speed is not considered a factor in the crash; neither are drugs and alcohol, he said.

Fresno County Coroner Dr. David Hadden said inves-tigators were conducting au-topsies Sunday morning.

DEADLY CRASH

Mother and 4 kids killed in Fresno accident

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2014 PRESSTELEGRAM.COM | NEWS | 7 A