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Flood!
Drought! I've learned a whole new way to shave since I've been to Los Angeles. First you run the water just long enough to get it hot. Then you stop up the drain and fill the sink with a little water. Pat your cheeks with water, spread on the shaving cream, dunk the razor in the sink and shave. Dunk and shave, dunk and shave. Then run the water just long enough to wet a rag so you can wash the soap off. We won't even talk about the art of toilet flushing --- or non-flushing.In the midst of the drought it started to rain. Okay, it didn't rain forty days and forty nights. It didn't rain twenty days and twenty nights. Maybe it rained two. The New York Stock exchange had N. Arkbuilders Inc. losing half a point on the week. There might have been some two by two action going on down in Hollywood, but not (we hope) with the animals. The pundits said the rain was no good. It wasn't raining in the right place. It wasn't raining the right kind of water. All I know is it seemed wet enough to me.
I was at work at the time. The rumor machine was working full blast. The underpass under Hollywood Way was flooded. That's the way I go home. Okay, so Hollywood Way was flooded. I'd find another way home. Quitting time came and I set out. I guessed it would be quicker to cut through the airport than risk the underpass. Burbank airport is small and it looked good to start, but things turned sour once I reached the turn onto the road south of the airport. It was a river.
I squeezed onto the road and started to paddle. The radio said Sepulveda basin was flooded. Was I anywhere near Sepulveda? I didn't think so. How would I know? I wasn't born here. Cars in Sepulveda basin were under water and their drivers were perched in the tops of trees posing for helicopter cameramen. There were helicopters everywhere, even in the driving rain. Los Angeles must be the helicopter capital of the world. I think I'm the only one here who doesn't have one. One of the motorists got washed out of his tree and a news helicopter swooped down and a cameraman went in after him. What a scoop!
Why do they always call out the fire department when there's a flood? How many fires do you think get started when the humidity's 210%? The people in the mobile homes got the worst of it --- those things don't make very good houseboats.
The current washed me home more than an hour after I left work. I'd rather fight my way through a blizzard. The kitchen ceiling leaked, so I had a flood inside and out. I found out the next day that it was the underpass to the north on Hollywood Way that was flooded, not the one I go under to the south. And guess what? There's still a drought in Los Angeles!
Riot!
When the verdict came down on the Rodney King beating nobody could believe it. I was at the office. When the news came in about fires and looting it seemed inevitable. I was worried. I don't live in the best neighborhood in town. My apartment building is a strange mixture of working people of all races, musicians and would-be actors. But there is a very large Spanish speaking population all around us, and graffiti peppers the walls. It is not the best neighborhood, but it certainly isn't the worst. The drive home was eerily quiet, but it was a result more of what I knew than what I saw. If I hadn't heard about the riots at work and on the car radio I might have thought only that traffic was light that day.Once I got home I turned on the television. Channel after channel showed footage of looters, helicopter shots of L.A. burning, and, of course, Reginald Denny getting pulled out of his truck and beaten. I went out into the courtyard. Other residents drifted restlessly in and out of their apartments. A nurse, Joanne, who lives across the pool from us and on the first floor, had been called to work. She didn't want to go. She has two young children. She didn't go. How could you blame the rioters? They lived in a world without hope. A world without justice.
More people drifted out. We were all worried about fires. I got out some stackable office chairs I keep in my computer room and we used them as a ladder to get up on the roof. Word spread that the Vons grocery store a few blocks down from us was on fire. We couldn't see anything from the roof. There was smoke in the air but no fires in sight. Finally the manager came out and chased us off. Later, by the pool, we looked out across our street,the vacant lot, and the post office parking lot and the main street at a small group of shoppettes. There was a figure lurking in the shadows. Sure enough he broke into the liquor store and we heard the alarm go off. Thank God it wasn't a mob. Just one smart thief knowing the police were much too busy elsewhere to worry about him.
It was a long, long night. Vons didn't burn down. Our neighborhood came through it all with no damage. But, months later, the city is still on edge. A demonstration in support of lower bail for the men who beat Reginald Denny ended when the police moved in to stop looters and vandals. I'm afraid this won't be the last L.A. riot of the nineties.
Earthquake!
I woke up because the bed was rolling --- and I was the only one in it. Beds aren't supposed to roll under these circumstances, not on dry land. But mine was definitely rolling. I didn't panic. I've been through this before. I rolled out of bed and skittered across the floor to the hallway. It's not much of a hallway, it's not any bigger than a small walk in closet, but the door frames to the bed room, Barb's room, the bathroom, and the living room all meet there so it's probably the sturdiest spot in the apartment. The rolling continued. It was big, but gentle. There were no sharp shakes. Nothing to send the glasses crashing out of the cupboard. It seemed like forever but it must have been over in less than a minute. Sleep was impossible so I went outside. There was water all around the pool and the water in it was still sloshing. Gentle but big! It took a lot of shaking to knock the water right out of the pool. It wasn't so gentle at the epicenter. It knocked a bowling alley right off its foundations.
Coming Soon...
The plague of locusts.
Gregg Writes
| 1989 | Besieged | Claire de Lune |
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| 1992 | Flood --- Riot --- Earthquake! |
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| 1993 | * Gregg and the Trail Bike * | A Stabbing | |
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| Under a Full Moon | Burt Rutan | I Meet a Bear | |
| 1994 | * 7.2! * | A Star Is Born | * My Car Is Stolen * |
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| 1995 | This Year I Flew Like A Bird |
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