Whenever the hammering shitstorm on our rooves lets up just a whit and goes back to merely raining kittens and puppies, let's take stock:
The second heavy wash cycle in three weeks has managed to kill a homeless guy in an Elysian Park mudslide, a driver on PCH and a Darwin Award nominee who was trying to wade across a creek near Ojai while wired to shore. It's shut down the 5, sent a 2-story house tumbling down the Hollywood Hills with a family inside (they lived), and dumped more than a foot of rain on town (one third of Seattle's annual bath) and two feet on the mountains.
Both the LAFD and Mayor Jim Hahn are putting out helpful little press releases reinforcing the head-smackingly obvious: stay the hell away from creeks, flood channels and downed power lines ...
But let's keep a little perspective: Your roof may be leaking, but you can still read this.
Your cabin-feverish kids (or s.o., or roommate or co-workers or the idiot tailgating you) may be driving you bats. Your car may smell like a used sweatsock and mold may be devouring your clothes.
But you're not among the tragic few who've died - or the 155,000 more people in southern Asia who may yet die of disease and malnutrition because a tsunami erased their homelands and their most of their loved ones.
Sure, it's not quitting until Tuesday, but we've all been through much worse. It will be good for the crops, the ski resorts and L.A.'s fathomless thirst for imported water. It'll take some of the burden off of ruined Owens Lake. The surf will be up (if a little putrid) and the air across the basin will be clean for days.
Keep a safe following distance, wear good boots and don't bi tch too much, L.A. It's just rain. It'll pass.
