Fires, Mud Slides, Drought, and Santa Ana

The four seasons of weather in Los Angeles come in cycles, much like the four seasons of Fall, Winter, Spring and Summer. And the current season when leaves turn color, the breeze a bit cooler in most of the country, is when winds come blowing, quite a gust which blows, not cool air, but instead is hot dry wind that had, in an earlier time, blown, creating the dust bowls of the west--what we Angelenos call the Santa Ana. This season's Santa Ana's has been more destructive than telephone lines getting toppled. No, this season's winds in confluence with a drought has made nearly a million people homeless.

I always lamented the lack of seasonal changes in the weather, thinking the balmy, 70 something weather an aberration to the natural way of life. It seemed fitting that we would pay, and pay dearly, for such idyll when everyone else contends with the challenges of weather. So, when it rained in LA, it poured. There were no sprinkles or spotty showers. No, the rain would start as if God had turned the sprinkler on full, and then left it on for more than 30 days. During the one winter when it had rained for more than 30 days straight, I joked to my friends that we should all be building an ark since the floods was sure to follow.

As I sit 3,000 miles away, I find myself watching the news of what's happening over there with concern. I know if the winds carried one little ember to the Santa Monica mountains, well, the city would never be the same from such a catastrophe. I keep imagining the flames engulfing the Palisades, Holmby Hills, Bel Air, and then Beverly Hills, devouring the man made lawns and watered gardens in its path.

The New York Times Sunday magazine had an in depth article about graver concerns facing the Southwest that would make these fires look like a mini-Armageddon. They predict global warming will have the averse affect in this dry, arid region by creating not more rains, as they predict for other regions, but in fact a drought of biblical proportions. This drought along with the population surges would create a world much like, "Mad Max," where people aren't fighting for oil, or so we hope, but are in fact fighting for that natural resource, now a commodity, water. The thing that struck me about this article is that the awareness most of those in power have about this upcoming crisis. Yet, none of them have come out and told the citizenry to conserve water, to stop watering their English gardens, an aberration in the desert. Villaraigosa said something about conserving during the summer months, but it was in correlation to the recent drought, not a warning about the dire situation of the future. Yes, the article may be a bit alarmist, but surely if enough scientists predict such a thing, people should give some consideration to their predictions. But no, I know how most of the people in LA work. They will talk about these fires, which I know are being covered assiduously by Paul Moyers--an idiot who must surely have been the model for William Hurt's character on "Broadcast News"--each bit of the story portentous, tragic. All the daytime shows are probably interrupted as the local news covers the stories, running to each new devastated spot, following the 50 mile an hour winds, each new gust bringing another tragic story to cover.

When Griffith Park was engulfed, friends had called to let us know we could evacuate to their homes. Our home, thankfully, was not in danger, but the fires were close enough for us to not feel any measure of comfort that it was the hillside behind engulfed. Other friends of ours, those closer to the park, had to evacuate, fleeing to various hotels in the city--yes, it was a crisis, but no need for any of us to suffer sitting among so many strangers at a Red Cross center.

We awoke to a gray day, rain imminent, rain that would be welcome for those waiting to see whether fate would spare them, even as those to the left and right of them was not spared. I dropped my son off at school, avoiding the PTA meeting scheduled for this morning. Just as I walked outside, the rain started falling, making me grateful that this precipitation is just a part of the ever-changing weather of this city, this coast.