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Santa Anas and Firestorms

People who live in hurricaine country always compare earthquakes and hurricaines, but people who live in Southern California always compare earthquakes with Santa Anas, which people whos only knowledge of california comes from the annual visit to that place in Anaheim have no knowledge of. Earthquakes get the headlines because they are exotic, but Santa Anas are what people in the southland truly dread. You can prepare for earthquakes, but there is nothing you can do to prepare for the twice annual arrival of the damned 'Santa Anas'.

If you've never been in the Santa Ana winds, you just have no idea what they feel like. But for comparison purposes, Its like having poison ivy, then having the upper layer of your skin rubbed raw by latex ballons while you stick your head in an convection oven.

Its not just the heat, its the way the wind makes you feel crazy that makes the wind especially creepy. And to make matters worse, the desert scrub that grows on the hillsides burns like gasoline, as do the tops of all those palm trees. Once the fire starts, it just races from house to house until it gets to the beach, the only thing that seems to slow its progress are the freeways and the cement river channels. Notice I said "slow", because Santa Anas feel like they have a life of their own. Nothing stops a Santa Ana, it stops whens its good and damned ready to stop and not before.

Once upon a time, I lived in Anaheim right next to the big amusement park dedicated to a mouse. One day during a Santa Ana wind, I went to work in the morning and as I drove down Katella Ave, I looked behind me to see a small fire at the top of a telephone pole just a few streets away with a fireturck or two at the bottom trying desperately to put it out.

The small fire I saw that morning ended up engulfing and devouring several blocks of homes, apartments and stores. It became a fire big enough to be seen from where I worked in Tustin. It started because one palm frond on one palm tree touched a powerline and it just spread down the street, block after block after that. And thats how it goes, you go to work in a neighborhood of homes, you come back into the debris of disaster, all because of a few knots of wind blowing down from the desert. One minute you live in the center of calm suburban normality, the next minute its all under a foot of ash. Once the firestorm gets started, theres nothing in the world that will stop it. It stops when its done, not because of anything you do.

How bad are firestorms? Well, I've lived through earthquakes and firestorms, and I will take earthquakes any day. The biggest earthquake I ever lived through, the loma prieta quake had several of my co-workers displaced for several months. They did they best they could, and their spirits were up for most of their displacement.

By contrast, the Oakland fires that happened just a small time later were much more emotionally distrubing. I dont remember anyone leaving the Bay Area over the quake, but after the Oakland hills firestorm, I knew a large number of people who not only left the bay, but the state. I saw more than a few people break down in tears over the fires. I never saw that happen over the quake.

Strange as it sounds, in California, you are prepared for quakes which happen randomly and rarely, but nothing can prepare you for watching not just your house but you entire neighborhood burn to ash down to the foundation in just a few hours. The Santa Anas come twice a year, and there's not enough alcohol in all the bars of LA to calm the jittered nerves of the southland when they come.

Posted @ October 22, 2007 08:58 AM | Current Affairs

Posted by: a reader at October 22, 2007 04:15 PM

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Posted by: AmyB at October 23, 2007 06:24 PM