Recipes for Disaster: Southern California Rain

The winter rains have finally arrived in Southern California. 

For those who don’t live here, or have moved here within the last eight years, rain is not considered a big deal.  We who have lived here longer know that this is a state for which water is a precious commodity, and with mountains and canyons devastated by rampant wildfires, winter rains are to be both celebrated and feared.

Non-residents either envy or scorn us for our lack of seasons.  To those who watch the Rose Bowl, the weather is always perfect in January.  Why should we complain about “liquid sunshine”?  But we do have seasons:  it’s just that they don’t necessarily follow each other in any particular order.  Our seasons are fire, flood, drought and earthquake.  Unfortunately, when they progress from drought to fire to flood, disaster ensues.

Of course, much of the damage could be averted.   We could deny building on hillsides that afford spectacular views or decline converting low-lying marshland into much more profitable, and taxable, housing.  We could take the time and money to properly grade and surface our roads and rebuild our sewers.  Drivers could slow down on the freeways for everyone’s safety, instead of speeding up to get out of the precipitation.

But this is not what we choose.  Instead, we still continue to play the odds, avoid the hard choices, defer to the priorities of developers, unions, politicians, and hope that what technology and engineering we have employed will compensate for our lack of self-control and apathy.

However, nature has its own agenda.  So, periodically, we are visited with drenching cold rains.  For the parched vegetation, and the local ski resorts, it is a godsend; for the hillside homeowner, or those living in the flood basins, rain is a nightmare.  The networks pull out their anchors for “storm watch” news, miles of K-rails are installed and hundreds fill sand bags.  Then, the wait begins.  Will a crisis be averted or will there be biblical wreckage? 

The ingredients are all there:  just add water.