So, yes, a tropical storm made its way through the Los Angeles area in the past 24 hours. First time in decades, and first time since alerts were started, so it had everyone aflutter, trying to prepare. And not unreasonably so, although I had to wonder at the media coverage of lines at grocery stores and the same level of stocking-up/hoarding that we saw early in the pandemic.
I've had a number of friends reach out and ask if we were safe here, so let me say that, yes, we were and are. There are parts of Pasadena (the northern end of town, around the arroyo) that may be prone to mudslides or debris flow. Most of the city, though, is like a gently tilted plane. North is higher than south. There are a few channelized creeks, as in the arroyo, but no river or larger stream. Conrad and I live in an apartment building, and not on the ground floor. Van's house sits above a street below.
The long and short of it is that we got wet. 3.2 inches fell, according to the weather app on my phone, in a 24-hour period, which is a lot. But a lot of it also ran off the streets and into the drains and down toward the Los Angeles River or some such channel eventually. Conrad and I went out this morning walking,
and we saw a lot of smaller plant debris (berries, flowers, leaves, needles, small branches) littering streets and sidewalks, but only a few larger branches down.
The arroyo had a healthy flow down the narrow channel,
backing up between Holly and Colorado to fill the broader channel,
but far from overflowing its banks. By the time we finished the walk, the streets were starting to dry up.
And yes, there was an earthquake yesterday, a 5, centered near Ojai. That's about 60 miles or so from us, so we felt a bit of a jiggle, but not too much else. Weird, coincidental timing, but only coincidence.
We're fine, thank you to all who may have wondered. My library seems to be fine as well, at least at the one campus. The college will reopen tomorrow, and it will be back to normal, more or less.
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