I’m so glad I was too lazy to get a carwash.

Certainly with the amount of rainfall (More than 4.3 inches downtown!) that’s landed these past two days, it’s easy to throttle back about the power of past El Nino-driven storms. But also as an L.A. native, it’s tough to forget the one in 1983 that tore off that huge section of the Santa Monica Pier, and then the one in 1997 that felled the big oak on Louise Avenue just south of Ventura Boulevard in Encino that had stood there for 1,000 years.

Yeah, just about an hour ago I was in my car and there was this flash of lightning that seemed really close by. The next minute, the boom of the thunder was so loud it actually shook the car- hard! People on the street were crying. It was crazy!

I think it’s the intensity and the fact that the downpours are coming in waves that’s amazing me more than anything else. It’s not coming down in a steady pattern, so it makes trying to figure out when to drive that much more difficult.

Man, I thought the rain was going to come right through my roof at about 6:30 this morning in Chatsworth.

I sat here yesterday morning watching waves touch the underside of the Malibu pier. That’s got to be 30′.

On a brighter note, there was a gorgeous rainbow or two this morning when I was driving down the 91 West to the South Bay.

Some great photos of the flooded-out 110 Freeway:
http://www.livejournal.com/community/los_angeles/1240297.html