Rain, Rain Come Again!

My mom has a story that when I first saw it rained I looked at her, confused, and asked what was happening. She says I was 4 at the time. I live in Los Angeles, so this story is not too farfetched. It does not rain here often or much. California is 9 out of 10 times in a drought and we are always being advised to conserve water by taking shorter showers, turning off sprinklers, and making sure to turn off the sink while brushing our teeth. I remember one summer when I was maybe 9 or 10 my dad used the water from the washing machine to wash our car.

This year we are being warned that we are in one of the worst or the worst drought that has been recorded. It’s only rain a couple of times all winter. Winter, that’s not something we actually know around here. We had 2 cold weeks in November (still Fall time) and winter has given us mostly 75-90* days. While it hasn’t felt like summer (because summer gives us 100*+ days) it has been a far cry from what most people consider winter weather.

Beginning late last week when forecasters began to tell us that there were a couple of storms heading our way the city and surrounding areas have gone nuts. On the news this morning they were reporting how a neighborhood was just abandoning their homes for fear of mudslides. Some of these are based on real fears – areas that had fires recently and therefore more prone to mudslides when it rains. Some people though they are just plain crazy over the rain. Listening to people talk about it you would think that it rains all the time “it’s raining again?” I can’t remember when it rained last!

The first storm has already left and I know it did some damage. My cubicle at work is against a wall – the paint on it bubbled up overnight. My supervisor’s cubicle had some water damage, papers were wet and some towels against the window were soaked. Still, it didn’t rain too much and by the time we got up in the morning the ground was drying up and the sun was coming out. (It always seems to rain at night here, rarely during the day, I wonder why?). The next storm is supposed to come in tomorrow and it’s supposed to be stronger than the last. Some people were saying that it’s strong enough that it will be placing a big dent into our drought situation. I read somewhere that there should be 3 feet of snow in the mountains. I’m sure my brother will be going to Frazier Park this weekend, after it stops raining.

We are very unprepared for rain here. My niece and nephew don’t have rain boots so my mom frets over them ruining their shoes and getting their feet wet. People drive just as fast when it rains than when it doesn’t but they don’t know how to handle their cars so accidents increase.

It's beautiful though...