Not Pakistan
It’s been raining here up on the Hill, raining fairly hard and fairly often over the last few days. That’s nothing unusual but when the earthquakes hit last night, all heck broke loose (that’s right, I said it). CalTrans, with their penchant for understatement, put the situation this way:
SR 74
[ORANGE CO]
NO TRAFFIC RESTRICTIONS ARE REPORTED FOR THIS AREA.
[SAN BERNARDINO & RIVERSIDE CO.’S]
IS CLOSED FROM THE JCT OF SR 371 TO THE JCT OF SR 111 /IN PALM DESERT/
(RIVERSIDE CO) – DUE TO MUD SLIDES AND FLOODING – MOTORISTS ARE ADVISED TO USE AN ALTERNATE ROUTE
Yeah, okay. The alternate route was to backtrack on my morning commute twenty twisty miles, refuel(!), then head up to 6,000 foot-high Pine Cove, down to Banning, and East on the 10 to the ‘Charity’s Far Eastern Outpost. I was late but nobody cared (a bad omen?).
CalTrans should stand up for some criticism here. The two signs on the road signaled “Road Closed Ahead.” Which road? I thought. Surely my road couldn’t be, you know, closed-closed. What would people do? Maybe the local news would have an answer…
From KESQ.com:
The recent rain has left Highway 74 closed.
California Department of Transporation spent the day blocking off the road, turning away cars and reinforcing the highway.
CalTrans says Highway 74 could be closed for through traffic for two days or two weeks. The closure caused a lot of people to miss work today.
If it continues, locals will have to get to the desert by taking the 243 over to the 10 and through Banning, then cut down from Banning to Palm Springs.
Tonight from 6 to 8 pm, locals with proof of residency for the blocked area will be escorted through.
That area includes those who live just beyond Big Horn [sic] Country Club up to Pinyon Drive.
Wow. Hard-hitting, hard-nosed journalism there. If what continues exactly? It? What’s It? Rain? Earthquakes? Rock slides? If you diagram the thing, It, is “the closure.” The road is closed, hence “the closure” because it’s impassable. That’s a fairly simple concept but I’m seeing an anti-government slant in this, the most basic of stories. Rocks fall on road. Crews close the road to clean it up. People are inconvenienced. Big whoop. The way this is written makes it look like CalTrans’ fault. Back to the media…
KMIR had nothing and frankly, I don’t remember the name of the other local teevee station in the desert. (UPDATE: It’s KPSP, and they’ve got nothing besides the fact that their site looks like crap on a Mac. Follow the link just to check out the smiling head shots in the banner. Almost “Anchorman” -like. Think they were Photoshopped together because they can’t stand to be in the same room at the same time? Just a hunch.)
The worker guy standing at the barricade just beyond Sugarloaf Cafe was smiling but very chilly. He said that he had only worked on clearing the rocks near the top but there were more slides lower, towards Palm Desert. “How many?” we asked (me and the other assembled and stopped commuters) “Oh, I was at marker 79, 82, 88… All pretty bad though. Don’t think it’ll be open for another couple of days at least.”
Think I’ll head back to San Diego. You know, I’ve got some unfinished business there.
More later,
bob