For our water-logged, moisture-drenched, dew-laden, aqua-sodden LA friends, I recommend a movie festival with "Chinatown" as the main feature to ponder and pontificate upon.
Just exactly WHAT has LA done to take advantage of times like these to trap the water and use it to the benefit of all....or, as I suspect, have they just contented themselves to let it all drain away?
Is the LA River overflowing yet? I'd love to see a picture of it with "something" flowing in it.
I know everyone laughs about the LA River, or at least anyone who has ever seen it. Let's face it, a "river" that doesn't have any water in it, and is paved over with concrete? Remember the drag-racing scene in
Grease where Olivia Newton Bland watched the boys race their cars along that paved riverbed? Or Ahnold rescuing Edward Furlong the first time from the truckdriving Robert Patrick early in
Terminator 2, and then RP just calmly walks out of the fire all silvery and morphy?
That's the LA River.
But it's history is more serious than that. It was during a series of rains over several years, just like the rains LA is getting this year, that the LA River roared to it's true destructive power. Homes were swept away, lives lost. Get enough water in that ditch, which wasn't paved at the time, and you've got the breeding ground for a flash flood.
So the engineers put their heads together and solved the problem by creating the eyesore that is there today. It ain't elegant, but it works. Anyone who has lived in LA for any length of time knows how fast and hard the rain can come, and it can be uglier than the River has ever been.
Store the water? Store it where, is the real question. It would have to be stored near the mouth of the river, and that's all port area.
Of course, now there are people with short memories who take one look at the riverbed and want to make it into a parkland. Plant trees, make it pretty. Never mind that with every serious rain that park would get swept away faster than a Madonna movie.
Best of vibes to all in SoCal right now. Been there, don't really miss it, but I appreciate what you're going though.
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