WHAT'S GOING ON?

If you watched the news last week you probably saw that poor old Pasadena, north and a bit east of Los Angeles, was hit by hurricane-strength winds that took down more that 100 huge trees, took roofs off houses, and made spaghetti out of electrical lines. Although a wind had been expected - our usual fall/winter "Santa Ana" winds - no weatherperson predicted the strength of the winds that we got. It took a week to get the streets drivable again and to get everyone back with power.

We had a surprise rainstorm on Tuesday of this week and it was so cold we actually had snow down to the 3,500 foot level on Wednesday of this week. Here's what our mountains looked like from Mimi's Cafe in Rancho Cucamonga. Usually we don't get this kind of snow until January.


Then Wednesday we had a tanker truck catch on fire and stop directly under a bridge on one of our freeways. The fire was so hot it cracked the cement on the overpass and the freeway is now in its third day of being completely shut down while the overpass is demolished.


The freeway, of course, is a major east-west road for people working in the LA area, and what has normally been a 45-minute commute has turned into a 2 hour drive.

The weathermen predicted another Santa Ana for today, so we prepared for the ordinary winds but after what happened earlier we all held our breath while we watched the wind get stronger and stronger.

Here's what our TV is showing:





And now our TV is reporting that a gunman has taken over a commercial building in the San Gabriel Valley and so far three people are reported dead.

Each of these events is bad enough on its own; when they hit one after another you just have to wonder when the next shoe is going to fall.

And we just have to keep pushing the "e" word out of our mind, because we are overdue. A little scary, I say.