But they'd just as soon do without the rain
In a memo this morning to county supes, Donald Wolfe, public works director in the big Alhambra office, reports 4. 4 inches of rain since Friday in the San Gabriel Valley, vs. just 1.9 inches in the San Fernando Valley. But our mountains got a whopping 8.8 inches. That snow you can see on the front range from Pasadena is nothing compared to the total whiteout on the peaks visible from the East SGV, where I am this morning. Good day to be on the powdery slopes at Baldy or Big Bear instead of at our desks. More from Wolfe:
"Our Flood Maintenance and Road Maintenance personnel continue to monitor flood
control facilities and road conditions. Dams are holding water, and spreading of water
for water conservation has been initiated. Over the weekend, we conserved 8,700 acre
feet of stormwater runoff in our spreading grounds and impounded 5,700 acre feet in
our reservoirs."
So the question is of course begged -- how many more massive drenchings like this one until we are out of the woods on the water shortage? The Times said that L.A. would require eight more such storms until matters were back to normal -- but that town gets much more of its water from Northern California sources in the Sierras. We get more of ours than Angelenos do from groundwater right underneath us -- as well as from the Colorado River.
Not that I have a swimming pool to fill or refill, but are Pasadenans, say, still supposed to voluntarily "refrain from" that if they do have one? Or from watering more than once every three days? (No need to water for a week, though, after a soaking like we've just had -- that much I can tell you.)
And not that I am a drought skeptic. One big storm does not mean a recovery has been made, and only the ignorant would assume it has been. But as I mentioned in a column the other day, we're clearly in a regular, old-fashioned, normal-year storm track here, with really good rains coming through from the north every 10 days to two weeks.
Kindly do refrain from bemoaning this happy weather. Don't be a sniveler. Recall the poem (this is all of it) by the great poet of the real and the surreal West, Ed Dorn:
Californians want the water
But they'd just as soon
Do without the rain
I happened to be in Big Sur at a conference from Friday through Sunday night, and if you want to talk wet ... it was positively Ben Lomond-y on the edge of the continent. And falling rocks on Highway 1 Friday evening knocked out the cars of three conference-bound colleagues ...