For those of you still with me, I apologize for the long gap in postings. I have been dealing with a number of issues related to my earlier cancer treatments, some serious and some not so bad. I’m doing well, and hope to be out with my camera before much longer but the weather has prevented that effort for a whle!
Speaking of weather, we were waned last week that this would be a rainy week. As the week progressed, that prediction became an “atmospheric river,” in which the weather map looks like a hose pipe of rain pointed from the Hawaiian Islands towards Southern California. The broadcast meteorologists commented that they couldn’t remember a time when they were predicting more than one day of rain at a time — this time it was up to 3 days of unbroken rain, as the storm stalled out over the LA Basin.
As usual, Northern and Central California get their rain a few days before we do. Here, it began to rain on Monday night, and we didn’t see the sun at all until late Wednesday afternoon — and then only a finy patch shining through still wet clouds! Today, Thursday, it was sunny and pretty for part of the morning, and is now looking as if we will still receive more rain overnight. There are several cities and areas around the LA Basin where the rainfall amounted to between 1 and 5 inches, and some where there was 10 inches in 24 hours while it continued to rain. There are hundreds of mud slides, and dozens of damaged houses. The news included photos of several house literally swept down hills onto roads, where they disintegrated and the contents were washed down the street! And there are many trees that have fallen — eucalyptus trees have notoriously shallow root systems, and come down easily in heavy winds that accompany storms.
I am quite safe. I shopped for groceries over the weekend, and have not had to go out for more food. Unfortunately, last Friday my furnace burned out a part — this was diagnosed on Monday, and replaced just today. That meant that for the past week I have had no heat other than a borrowed space heater. The roofs are new, and the house is well enough insulated that I made do with extra blankets and layered clothing, as the indoor temperature dropped to 60 degrees during the days! I can’t complain too hard — I remember growing up with radiator heat that was turned on only at bedtime to take the edge off the cold! I have only left home once in the last week, to find a warmer place to eat dinner last night! The house is warming up today, and by tomorrow morning all should be pretty much back to normal!
I rather expect there is snow on the mountains now — as the next few days go by, I will try to get out with the camera and see what I can find.
The Hangar Fire (see my last previous post) is still erupting in flames where hot spots remain from the massive fire that occurred last week. The smoke is causing serious issues in the midst of the city of Tustin, as the building was full of asbestos — people are being warned to close windows, stay indoors, etc., and all the schools in the city are closed at least for this week. And because of the hot spots and the danger of collapse, the fire fighters are still stationed on the outside of the building — they are not yet allowed inside
On my way to have my car serviced, I drove by the area yesterday. The photographs shown in the attached article (https://www.ocregister.com/2023/11/13/before-and-after-photos-show-destruction-of-tustin-hangar-by-massive-fire/?utm_email=E48A3463D5D79401D514F4B51F&active=yesD&utm_source=listrak&utm_medium=email&utm_term=https%3a%2f%2fwww.ocregister.com%2f2023%2f11%2f13%2fbefore-and-after-photos-show-destruction-of-tustin-hangar-by-massive-fire%2f&utm_campaign=scng-ocr-localist&utm_content=curated) The sliders in these photos are rather dramatic before and after comparisons, and show what I saw. The photos were apparently taken yesterday afternoon — there is one side of skeletal building remaining, and not much else. The other hangar (the South hangar) remains intact, about a city block distance from the hangar that burned. A lot of building has occurred around the site — two corners of the South Hangar now come out to the sidewalk beside roads across from major apartment buildings!
It has been a fiery week in Southern California. A couple of nights ago there was another fire that caused serious damage to the I-10 freeway in the midst of a major interchange with two other freeways. This fire occurred in a palate yard underneath a bridge, and the heat was so intense that the fire could not be doused. It damaged about a mile of the freeway to the extent that more than 100 concrete pillars are expected to be destroyed and rebuilt from the ground up. This section of freeway is estimated to carry 300,000 cars a day into and out of downtown Los Angeles. There are alternative routes to reach downtown, but that’s a LOT of cars to re-route for several months!
South Orange County experienced a sad day this past Monday and Tuesday — one of the Tustin Blimp Hangars burned to the ground! The blimp hangars span almost the same period of time as my lifetime, and they were added to the National Register of Historic Places in April, 1975.
In December of 1941, Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese, and in early 1942 the Japanese lobbed shells into an oil field just north of Santa Barbara, among other spots along the West Coast of America. In order to prevent further attacks, several blimps were sent to a farming area in Tustin, just south of Santa Ana, where they would be near a Navy air base (later known as El Toro Marine Corps Air Station). A concrete pad was built as a launching pad for the blimps, and two hangars were built nearby for storage and maintenance of the blimps.
The hangars were HUGE — with a footprint of 1,000 x 300 feet, they were also 17 stories (180 feet) high, with a “half egg-shell) exterior shape, and doors at each end. Built mostly of wood, with metal joints, they housed blimps through WW-2, and later a helicopter fleet. They were built in 1942, and completed in 1943.
After the war, the base continued as a helicopter base affiliated with El Toro MCAS, and it became known as MCAS(H) Tustin. The land was annexed to the relatively new city of Tustin, and iin 1975 it was listed in the National Register of Historic Places. In 1999, after much discussion and as a part of a national effort to close obsolete military bases, El Toro MCAS and Tustin MCAS(H) were closed. The hangars belong to the Navy, and, until earlier this week they both still stood on land in the middle of a now growing city.
On Tuesday morning, November 7, 2023, shortly after midnight, the “North Hangar” was seen with flames coming from the middle of the roof — by 6 am Tuesday, it was decided that they only way to fight the fire was to let it burn until the roof collapsed, and then go in with fire-fighting tools and equipment. As of today, Friday, the wreckage is still smoldering, and only the end panels still stand.
For more detailed history and additional photos, see https://www.tustinca.org/DocumentCenter/View/1163/The-Tustin-Hangars-Titans-of-History-PDF
Hurricane Hilary is here!, although it was downgraded to a Tropical Storm. It was raining this morning when I woke up — and, afater a short break, it rained hard from 1″00 to about 3:00 this afternoon.
You may also have noticed the title of this post — at about 3:00 there was a 5.1 earthquake centered in Ojai, a small town northwest of Los Angeles, in Ventura County (about 100 miles from here)_ This means that all the Los Angeles and Ventura County fire stations send their people and equipment out to survey the some 450 square miles for apparent damage (like cracks in bridges or downed chimneys, etc,) Early reports are that there is minimal damage — one power line and a cell tower are town, but so far nothing major.
The fire departments will be switching between Storm mode and Earthquake mode for the rest of the day!
One of the news stations called Los Angeles the “Nation’s Disaster Theme Park!”
After a long, slow spring, the sun suddenly came out, and temperatures were very hot during July — so hot that I stayed indoors most of the month! Fortunately, Southern California has had relatively few brushfires, and most of those we have had were contained at 100 acres or less. I was, and continue to be absolutely shocked by the devastation in Maui. Lahaina was an absolutely lovely coastal town on Maui, dating from approximately 1700 whaling days. When fire struck there, it burned right through the town, taking with it all those years of history and joy, and leaving ash and devastation. It sppeears that the fires were caused by power lines downed in high winds. She stories about fighting the fire sound much like some of the worst of earlier California fires — people trying to escape jumped into the sea, others were overtaken by flames moving a mile a minute as they tried to escape in their cars on small island roads; hydrants turned on but no water coming through, and so forth. Survivors now must face many of the same conditions as they attempt to rebuild their homes, their shops, their livelihoods. It will be a long time before the town is as joyful as it once was, and the survivors will need lots of help along the way.
In the meantime, yesterday we began to hear warnings of a Pacific storm, a Category 4 hurricane, on its way to Southern California. It will be the first tropical storm in 85 years to hit landfall in San Diego, at which point it will continue to move northwards, but at slower speed and reduced magnitude. It is expected to reach San Diego during the day on Sunday, and move northwards overnight to Orange County as a tropical storm during the day on Monday.
Weather patterns have definitely changed — climate change is not something in the future, but is here now! Please keep Southern California in your thoughts over the coming weekend!
Since I last posted, the weather has changed from Atmospheric Rivers every 3rd or 4th day to being much nicer, with storms coming through about once a week. About 10 days ago, on a nice day, I went to the Dana Point Harbor lookout to see if there was anything happening in or around the harbor. There was an early spring sailboat race, with about 15 or 20 boats on a short race.
On the left side of the next picture, you can just see the waves breaking on the inner bend of the breakwater. The inner harbor is just to the left of that.
Those familiar with sailboat racing will recognize that the two boats in the next picture are going in opposite directions, rounding the buoy being used as a marker for their turning point.
I then went down the hill to see if there were any herons in the trees, and captured what may be the last photo of a heron for the season. The bait barge has left the harbor, which means that the herons’ food has moved elsewhere, so the have likely followed them for the summer.
For the last week, the weather has been quite lovely, with what we fondly call “May Gray” — foggy in the mornings, and clearing around noon, with afternoon temperatures around 75 degrees/ Flowers are in bloom everywhere — though I haven’t seen any poppies yet this year, as it hasn’t been quite warm enough for them along the coast. The predominant wildflower this spring has been Black Mustard (or Wild Field Mustard), an invasive weed that covers the hillsides where there are no buildings. It is quite tall, and drowns out any other wildflowers that may have been in last year’s spring bloom. It will dry out as soon as the temperature is a little warmer, and will create a serious danger of wildfire in another month or so. The next two are of a little hill next to the road not far from my house.
Since I last posted, we have had a series of “Atmospheric Rivers” flow through Southern California. Atmospheric rivers are basically storms which look to satellites like rivers. They begin with water evaporating in the South Pacific or equatorial areas of the Pacific Ocean which is then picked up in the formation of counterclockwise storms moving towards the coastal United States. In the last month, we have had 6 of these atmospheric rivers, and another is forecast to reach Southern California tomorrow evening. They reach Northern California first, and follow the jet stream lows to the south and then towards the northeast, dropping moisture along the way. This month’s storms have been quite cold, and the snow level on the mountains has often been around 3,000 feet — below that, the precipitation is in the form of rain. We have had about 2-1/2 times the normal annual rainfall in the last month!
With that much water raining in such a short time, there has been a lot of flooding in urban areas, and cliffs eroding, taking buildings with them — you have probably seen photos of these in your news reports. There is also beauty in the aftermath of these atmospheric rivers — snow on the mountains, greenery growing where there had previously been only the brown of drought-ridden death of the plants, and so forth.
Yesterday, I took the camera out to see what we could find. By the early afternoon, blue skies had a filmy layer of mist covering the bright color — I was able to see Mt. Baldy in the distance, however.
And I noticed how green the grass was at my observation point, with Saddleback Mountain in the distance, and in the canyon below.
This week is warmer, so the snow will melt at the lower levels, leaving some of the earlier snow at the mountain tops. There are some 40,000 people living in coommunities where it snowed during each of the previous atmospheric rivers — they are finally able to dig out enough to get to grocery stores, but some of them were completely buried within their snow-covered homes! I am certain that they are anxious for spring to come!
On January 2, the world saw a beautiful picture of Southern California as a backdrop for the Rose Parade and the Rose Bowl Game. The next day, it began to rain, and several heavy winter storms later over the next 6 weeks, it only stopped raining for a day at a time between storms.
Meantime, our Condo Association has been re-roofing all the buildings in our complex — there are 197 units within something like 85 buildings. When we reached the half-way point on that project, the Association began a painting project, beginning with those units which had previously completed roofs, and moving through the complex behind the roofers. My unit is in a building which was to be power-washed this past Tuesday, and painted during the week and the beginning of next week.
On Monday I went to the back yard to move furniture and other miscellaneous items away from the house and out of the way of the paint crews — and smelled gas. I immediately called the Gas Company, which came out and turned off my gas at the meter. I also called the Association Manager to get the leak fixed, and they sent the plumber out on Tuesday to begin the process, which involved taking photos of the area where the leak had occurred, and discussing their plan of action with their corporate office. I heard nothing more on Tuesday until I called the Association Manager again to find out what was going on — they were “figuring out what to do about it.” I had to call them again, and was told they would get back to me — five minutes later I had a call from the same person telling me that the plumbers would be here at 8:30 on Wednesday morning!
There were three plumbers working on the pipe all day — they found the leak, which was from a “riser” — a pipe leading up from the main line to my home from my meter. The pipe had actually split along a seam, which surprised everybody. They replaced the pipe, and filled the hole back with the dirt that had been dug out, and were finished before about 5 pm.
On Thursday morning, a man came by to tell me that his people would be here at 8 am Friday (today) to cover the hole with concrete to repair the corner of the patio that had been broken on Wednesday — that was completed before noon today.
I am very grateful to have found this leak before anything major occurred — and to have had it repaired relatively quickly (although it seemed at some points as if it would take much longer than it actually did!). And I am happy to report that I and others in my building are now safe from tragedy that could have been caused by this leak.
You are probably aware that gasoline has been extremely expensive in California for the last few months. You may not have heard that our natural gas has also had a pricing spike for the period covering late January and early February — we have heard of prices 2-3 times the normal price for the same time period last year. I received notice today that my bill is about 3 times my normal, at least partially caused by the excess flow of gas to my unit because of this leak!
I love living in California, but it is not inexpensive to live here!
This afternoon was quite breezy, and sunny with storm clouds passing over. The temperature was in the low 60’s. I drove to Dana Point Harbor to see if the Black Crowned Night Heron chick was still in the parking lot under the eucalyptus trees. As I drove into the lot and parked, a Great Blue Heron flew into one of the treetops, flapped its wings as if it was going to settle there, and flew away — all before I could grab the camera to capture a photo of it.
The Black Crowned Night Heron chick was there, however. Because this is a working harbor as well as a marina, there were several stacks of lobster traps sitting in the parking lot. The heron was standing between a stack of the traps and a car. When a person in the car opened the door, the heron flew to the top of the traps and sat there in safety for a while.
I watched and took a couple more photos — and then my camera stopped working. It is basically a new camera, and I have not fully learned to use it. I believe that in picking it up quickly to take a photo I accidentally reset a critical setting, but I could not quickly correct the setting, and will have to work with it and the manual over the weekend!
From these two photos, though, you can see that the chick is growing well. (For scale, the dark spot in the lower right of the last photo is the rear-view mirror of a large SUV.) You can also see the lobster traps that are used here during the season. Our lobsters are smaller and not as flavorful as those that live in Maine, probably because our sea water is considerably warmer than in the Northeast. Small boats take a pile of these traps out and drop them to the bottom of the sea; they come back in a few days and pull the traps up to empty them.
As you know if you have followed my posts, I enjoy visiting the harbor at Dana Point, and viewing birds that live there. Recently I have been watching what appeared to be a couple of nests of Grreat Blue Herons, possibly left behind from the time a very few years ago when there was a colony of Great Blue Heron nests at the tops of a group of very tall eucalyptus trees. In my last post, I showed photos of a young Black-Crowned Night-Heron in the parking lot below the nests. Yesterday I was there again, but did not see the same bird.
When I looked to the treetops, though, there was an adult bird sitting on a limb of one of the trees. This bird was very white — definitely not a Great Blue Heron — instead, it was an egret. It was in a section of the tree that had a number of limbs in various directions, and it remained partially hidden behind a trunk for the entire time I watched it, so I couldn’t get a clear photo of the entire bird — its head was hidden while I was there.
When herons and egrets take off to fly, they are very quick to take off — they are sitting in the tree one moment, and the next they are in full flight, with just one lifting movement of their wings. I was fortunate this time to have the camera in my hands and able to snap one photo of the bird in flight. It flew right over where Ii was sitting in my car, and flew quickly enough that I could only get one photo.
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