January 11, 2005

• This Just In:

  "When Havoc Hits Home"

  (There used to be a television program in the late 70s called "When Havoc Hits", hosted by Glenn Ford. The host would interview disaster survivors from around the world. When I created my last "TV Guidebook" parody in 1977 one of the "programs" was called "When Havoc Hits Home" and the program description in my parody dealt with Glenn's reaction when a 747 crashed into his own house.)

  Sunny Southern California has been "awash" in what seems like an endless rainstorm which doesn't seem to want to stop. In between "storm waves", we'll get a nice day, with beautiful cloudscapes, and relatively clean air, then another storm washes over us. There's been over 20 inches dropped on us just over the last week, and it hasn't really stopped raining since last Thursday night. We're not really "used" to rain out here. 6 inches a year is "normal." I don't watch much television news, preferring to get my news fix from the AP and Reuters feeds on the internet,  NPR and the L.A. Times, but last night I did tune in to Brian Williams on NBC and then watched the BBC program. I haven't seen a lot of the "Tsunami" footage which has been relatively ubiquitous, but last night California was in the news as well. My roommate thought footage of the La Conchita mudslide was somewhere in Indonesia. "No, that's right up in the hills, Joel." It's been a very surreal experience.

  I live in a little town called Lomita (little hill) which is nestled between Torrance and the Palos Verdes peninsula. I drive 15 miles to Long Beach every day to go to work. This morning there were two detours. Normally, when I'm detoured, I tend to think it's a "small inconvenience". This morning  the surreal "nature" of "nature's" wrath "hit home" somewhat more starkly. Just as I was thinking that it sure has been good luck that I had plumbers fix the bathroom leaks last year, and the runoff from the rain around our house hasn't "leaked" into my bedroom floor, soaking the carpet, like it did during the last "great storms" in about 95, I started wondering what it might be like if something "disastrous" happened to me personally. I always "feel lucky" to "miss" disaster, as most people do when it narrowly misses them.

  At 5:15 am this morning, I backed out of my driveway, and turned south on the street on which I live, headed to the video store to drop off some rentals, and three doors down, my headlights showed a 40 foot tree across the expanse of the street. There are very few streetlights on our street. It's a "diagonal" which runs only a block to Lomita Blvd., one of the "main drags" and doesn't get much traffic except for the people who live here. I stopped, got out of the car, and assessed the situation. It is still very windy as I write this, two hours later, and the winds must have been very strong last night to uproot this tree, an old oak or spruce. Luck would have it that the tree fell across the street, and not back onto one of the homes. There was nobody around, and I did go back in my house, got my camera and snapped some photos, but without any light, even with the flash, they didn't come out too well.

  On the way to work, Pacific Coast Highway was closed at Avalon, and I drove down Avalon, which was littered with palm fronds. When it storms with lots of wind in SoCal, all the aging palm fronds blow into the streets. Maneuvering around them was like driving an obstacle course. I finally got to work, only about 15-20 minutes "late" from when I usually come in, but told John, who is always the only other person at work this early, that if there had been a third detour, I probably would have driven right back home, and called in a personal day off. John comes the other way, from Huntington Beach, and he spent last evening filling up sadbags to put around his entrance so water wouldn't come up in through his living room door. We don't have any "tidal waves", but we do get "flash flooding" which can flood complete beachside communities. I saw a photo in the Times yesterday showing Seal Beach, and the main drag looked like a river.

  All the flood control culverts in Long Beach, usually empty, are filled with raging rivers of water. Communities are being evacuated because of rain soaked hills which might "come down".

  It's interesting to note that we try to act as if this is still a "small inconvenience" but in some cases, and in some places, the "inconvenience" becomes "havoc hitting home." People are losing their lives. Certainly not in the thousands as in Indonesia and Sri Lanka, but I do get a weird feeling when seeing video footage of walls of water flowing through Banda Aceh followed by footage of mountain sides in La Conchita, CA disappearing in a mudslide.

  My own personal transportation, a convertible, isn't harboring this storm very well. It "rains" inside my car, where the top meets the windshield, and water collects in the section where the top would normally be when I have it down. I usually empty the water from where it collects, but since it doesn't stop raining , that would be useless. The inside of the car, with soaked seats and carpets, is starting to smell. I have to take towels with me every day. I sit on one, and even then my backside gets wet. I cover my lap with a towel, so that the water which streams from the corner of my windshield into my lap every time I turn doesn't soak me completely.

  Well, I'm hearing what sounds like thunder or galeforce wind outside as I type this in my relatively "safe" office. My boss, our engineer, whose office is next to mine, has to continually move his desk, because the rain leaks through the roof and is in danger of soaking his computer, and files.

  I always feel "lucky". And at some point I wonder if I won't be so lucky. Will "havoc hit home"? I hope not. I  hope it stops raining. I was watching a documentary on the MGM studio last night (we haven't lost power during this storm season on my block, even with the downed tree, more luck) and it showed a clip of Gene Kelley dancing and "Singing in the Rain" and I almost threw my shoe at the television set.

  We've had enough.

  (I only joined the Xanga community of bloggers this past Memorial Day, but I have noticed that an inordinate amount of bloggers are describing unnatural and weird weather patterns in their vicinities. Snow and rain where it doesn't usually snow and rain. I think I read that it's sunny in Seattle, WA, a place where it usually rains a lot. Very weird.)

  • 10:05 am
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