All Aboard The Ark
Southern California is well on our way to having the wettest season on record, while we endure another rainy weekend. I haven't started building an ark yet, but I'm thinking about it.
Actually, the recent rain storms don't seem to be so bad in comparison to the ones I remember as a kid growing up in Burbank. One dark and gloomy night in the mid-1950's, when we lived on Kenwood at Chandler, the rain backed up at the culvert under the railroad tracks, and was coming over the curb next to our house. You don't see water like that anymore in Burbank. For that you have to go into North Hollywood.
Burbank's great drainage is due to the huge pipes put underground in the 1950's and 60's to take all that rain water down to the Los Angeles River. I still remember seeing those huge concrete pipes big enough to drive a car through, being placed along Hollywood Way. They take all that rain water and dump it out into the little stream at Johnny Carson Park, before it flows into the river.
Then there were the storms of the 1960's. Today's slipping hillsides pale in comparison to the tragedy that happened up on Country Club Drive. The rain was so heavy that it washed a house, with the family inside, into the debris basin. I recall that a Burbank Daily Review reporter jumped in to save the homeowner. Unfortunately, the man's wife was killed.
For intensity, it is hard to beat an overnight storm back in the late 1970's. When I awoke that morning, all the manhole covers on our street had popped off. I thought it was vandals, until I realized that the storm drain had overflowed and pushed the heavy discs up and off. The rain also undermined the railroad tracks on Chandler at the end of our block. Now that was a lot of rain.
Either the rain is getting weaker, or I'm getting more like those folks who live in Portland or Seattle. I took an umbrella with me to John Burroughs High School on Friday morning. When I left that afternoon, it was raining --- not hard, but a steady drizzle. I didn't even bother opening the umbrella. Drizzle doesn't even count as "rain" anymore. Same thing for this Saturday's garage sales; only one of the advertised sales chickened out due to threat of rain. My friend Tony Trotta and I felt obligated to visit every one of those sales this Saturday, since the folks were nice enough to hold them. Of course we go out garage sale-ing rain or shine anyway.
If this weather keeps up, we all may start considering "drizzle" as not really being rain. Who needs sunshine? Suntans aren't really good for your skin. The "rusted" look is definitely "in" this season.
--- Stan
posted 3/19/05