October 22, 2007 6:29 am
A Lotta Hot Air
Posted by Will under weather
In my history as a native, I can’t recall a Santa Ana winds event in the fire season where it so decidedly blew like crazy everywhere except where I am. And the results are devestating: 15,000 acres burned in the Agua Dulce fire; 12,000 in Castaic 4,00o in East Orange County, 1,200 in Malibu.
In the meantime, the Los Angeles basin — or at least the part of it where we are — was freakishly calm. Susan and I kept waiting for the gusts to get here, but they never did.
Instead it was a quiet beautiful day with the exception of all the smoke out there on the horizons.
Weird.
October 22nd, 2007 at 12:48 pm
I was in San Pedro Sunday morning and it felt as though someone was Force pushing me down a cliff. It was only Santa Ana.
October 22nd, 2007 at 7:44 pm
I can remember only one time like this. It was the last few days of October leading up to early November. I was commuting from my place in the Valley to Fountain Valley.
I remember driving home on the First amazed that there were huge fires in Glendale, Altadena, Porter Range and Laguna Hills. It seemed as if we were surrounded by fire then.
On the morning of 11/2 we went to Kaiser in Woodland Hills as Kath went into labor. While there we were told to walk the halls. And walk we did often to the end lounge and waiting area. We watched a puff of smoke towards Calabasas in the morning. We watched grow and glow. Eventually it raced to Malibu where it ended when it met the Sea.
I remember the dates only because my son Michael was born at 3Pm on 11/2.
This week will go down as worse than that year as we have fires up in the mountains as well as San Diego and up to Santa Barbara.
The funny thing is if I hadn’t opened my email last night I would not have known about wind let alone fires as it has been so calm here.
October 22nd, 2007 at 7:45 pm
oopsy…the year was 1993.
October 23rd, 2007 at 3:37 am
The Militant seems to have romantic recollections of the Santa Anas. Perhaps it all came from the time when he was dating a certain Angelena in the early 1990s who went to an unspecified California State University. One autumn night we walked hand in hand across the parking lot to her dorm, braving the seemingly invisible forces of air provided by the Santa Anas along the way.
She left the Militant for entirely tragic reasons a few months after that, but that is another story for another time.
October 23rd, 2007 at 3:44 am
Emo Militant?
October 23rd, 2007 at 5:19 pm
It was very gusty on Sat night in Atwater Village, but nothing since. The sky is as still as I’ve ever seen it. Very weird, indeed.