Heater Meal heating

The power going out in some ways turned out to be a nice little lesson on survival after the “Big One”.  In my corner of the SGV trees didn’t just break apart they were uprooted with giant rootballs leaving craters behind.  All that flying and falling trees made for numerous power lines down and power out for me for two-and-a-half days.  The clean up was all outside instead of inside, but still took plenty of man power to get things back in order, not unlike the aftermath of Northridge.

Once it became apparent that it would be days instead of hours before power was restored my neighbors and I got the brilliant idea to cook up all the perisables in our fridges and have a giant “candlelight potluck” party on the first night.  Chilly as it was in the house it was fun just talking with the neighbors, commiserating on the lack of power and just feasting and enjoying all the wine.

Anyway this was also a great test of the Earthquake kit.  Out came the flashlights and candles.  We even tried out the “Heater Meals” that were coming closer to expiration date, they were edible but not terrific. The principal behind it is pretty easy. One simply takes out the heater package, adds water that is included in the packaging to activate the chemical reaction that creates the heat. Once that is done you quickly fold the top over and place the heater on top of the food package. 10 minutes later it is done and you have a meal ready to eat. (Well sort of, in spite of all the steam your food is just warm. The food is fine for an emergency but it is lacking seasoning. The included “saltless seasoning pack” is mostly pepper which is to say the food is still a little bland even with it being used).

After the clean up was done and we entered the second day we were very greatful that we had packed “baby wipes” into the earthquake kit.  They turned out to be very handy for sponge bathing among other things.  (We had no hot water as we have a tankless water heater that needs electricity to work).

We had a nice time with the kids.  It was the first time in a while where we just sat and talked while playing card or board games without distractions such as TV or Xbox to ruin it all.

I did learn that I need to stock more batteries than I had in the EQ Kit as they did die off much faster than I had expected.  I decided that we need to have more snacky type items in the kit as prepared meals aren’t as easy to do nor happen as often in an emergency.  Grab and go stuff has a lot of merit in the kit.

Several of my neighbors broke down and got generators.  Turns out a basic one that can run a TV and fridge can be had for around $130.  I may spring for one as at least once a year whether we need it or not here in the foothills we do lose power for a while.  Would be nice to know what is going on in the city as well as not lose a fridge worth of contents.  Once the lines die down at the local OSH I may just break down and get the generator for future emergencies.

By Saturday our power was restored and the fridge was nice and clean ready to be restocked.  I can’t say that it was a miserable time living a few days without power, but it was enlightening.  I doubt it would have been as much fun if we hadn’t had broken out all the perishables and had a party the first night.

In case you haven’t been able to load twitter or step outside today, you very well know that the wind is blowing hard here in LA. As I made my way East on the 101 toward my Studio City home last night, all sorts of debris blew past, including some old woman on a bicycle saying something about my little dog. A brief scan of twitter let me know that people from various parts of the city have been without power, such as a few friends in the Eagle Rock/ Glendale area.

What’s your experience of the wind been? Let us know in the comments—what part of town are you in and what effects have you witnessed?

The Great California Shake Out

Are you ready to Drop, Cover and Hold on?  Mark your calenders for 10/20 at 10:20AM for the next installment of the Great California Shake Out.  This is an annual quake drill on a statewide level and there is much going on in L.A. for the event.  Not signed up yet to participate?  There is time to do so on their web page HERE.

Its been over 17 years since our last big quake here in L.A. (Northdridge 1994 to be precise).  Many here don’t remember the shaking or waiting for sometimes days for water and power to be restored.  The Shake Out is about more than just riding out the shaking, its about preparing to be a survivor in the time one waits for help to arrive.  Their 7 Steps are outlined in their web.  In short be prepared to be on your own until help arrives.For me October Shake Out prep involves going back through the Earthquake kit, updating food, batteries and water that have gone stale over the last year.

There are a lot of activities planned for that day here in the greater L.A. Area.  The folks at Shake Out have it all outlined HERE by city or city department what is going on that day.  They even have a list on what you can do that day if you are at home doing it as an individual.

Want to do more?  There is the City of Los Angeles CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) that you can join and learn to help others and yourself in the event of a disaster.

I tend to nerd out a bit on quakes and the earth sciences. I have the USGS recent quakes page bookmarked and it is interesting to see how many tiny quakes we have each day.  You can even follow our recent quakes on twitter.

Finally, I stumbled upon this little Urban Myth buster regarding quakes.  Did you know its just urban legend that pets can sense a quake coming?

1" @ 9AM • 3" @ 11AM • 4" @ 3:30PM

OK, yeah… so, second off that is a full-on rain-o-meter you see pictured above, which for better or worse definitively demonstrates the degree to which I am a raincatching geek. Seriously, I’ve been quantifying the wet stuff since I was 10 years old. I have no idea why. And if it’s any consolation, I didn’t buy the decorative contraption myself,  it was a gift from my beloved wife (probably because Susan got reeeeeal tired of me taking Sharpies to various vases/glassware and inking inch mark approximations all up and down them).

Thirdly, if you look in the background of the middle shot you can make out most of what is in fact a 9-foot-tall wooden heart leaning up against one of our trees in the backyard. That’s a longer story I won’t bore you with here, but yup: we have a rain-o-meter AND a 9-foot-tall wooden heart in our Silver Lake backyard. WIN!

But firstly: Dang if today’s cloud action didn’t dump one,two, three, four inches of precipitation between the hours of 8AM when I set the precipitometer up and 3:30PM when the storm called it a day. Of course your inch-count will vary, but still that’s pretty badass as far as water falling from the sky during the fall. I don’t have LA’s meteorological history in front of me but I’ll bet you October is typically one of our drier months and this drenching could rank as one of the biggest October storms Silver Lake — or perhaps Los Angeles as a whole — has absorbed.

Cathy Cole's photo used through Creative Commons license

One of the things I love about LA is the way bad weather is regarded as such a bizarre, unforeseen anomaly. (Insert lyrics to “Camelot.”) It’s chilly by LA standards in Chatsworth today (66) and grey. I walked outside to second-hand smoke with my boss this morning, and she looked up at the dreary sky and said “What weird weather,” this being a fairly common response to 66 and overcast here in the Valley. When I first moved to LA years ago, after an extended stint in the upper midwest, it used to crack me up when people would say that. Cloudy sky? “What weird weather.” Drizzle? “What weird weather.” June gloom in September? You got it: “What weird weather.” I used to think of these exclamations as symptomatic of Angelinos’ hot house flower-ish inability to withstand anything but a narrow, precipitation-free  temperature band. This dismayed surprise, like the hats and scarves that get put out on the shelves when the temperature drops below 70, made me smile the vague smile of superiority that anyone who has lived ten Midwestern winters can’t help but feel when an Angelino complains that it’s cold.

Well, it took about two and half years for my blood to thin sufficiently that I am now compelled to bust out my wool beanie and flannel sheets when it’s in the 50s. And not only has my standard for what constitutes “cold” changed radically, but I now understand that weather-induced bewilderment totally differently. I no longer see it as a sign of weakness, but more like a synecdoche for a pervasive culture of optimism–like “How strange that it should not be a nice day!” And what’s so wrong with believing it’s going to be beautiful? Raised on the east coast, I was brought up to be suspect of too much optimism. I come from a family of sardonic, leftist Jews who regarded unadulterated  cheer as some sort of borderline retardation. But LA has changed me. I’ve lived here long enough that I find myself surprised on a day like today when the sun doesn’t come out. Weird.

This video showed up in my email this morning.  Not everyone in the SGV, include me among them, think that bears in our yards are a bad thing.  This homeowner had them in their Koi pond and enjoyed it tremendously.  They have the right idea, give them distance to stay safe and enjoy the visit the best you can.  Not all bear visits are bad news.

View from Mt. Wilson just off Angeles Crest Highway

Last Friday, Caltrans announced that the portion of California State Route 2 known as the Angeles Crest Highway is now open over its full 66-mile length from La Canada Flintridge to Wrightwood (see June 3 press release on this page). This has been a long time coming for Los Angeles area sports car and sport bike enthusiasts, as well as hikers and others who have discovered this nearby escape route over the years. Unfortunately, the Highway has had more destructive disasters than the castle in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”.

After discovering the Highway in my road atlas, I had a great date up there in November 2008, enjoying the drive and the scenery, including the short detour to the Mount Wilson Observatory. Even then, however, a middle section of the Highway was closed, and had been since 2005, due to storm-related damage. When the section finally reopened in May 2009, it was only a few months later that the whole thing was ruined, and closed, by the massive Station Fire and ensuing rock slides and mud slides. More recently, even as other sections of the Highway have reopened, drivers have been unable to access the entire beginning section from La Canada Flintridge to the Angeles Forest Highway.

So yes, it’s a big deal that the full Angeles Crest Highway has reopened for the first time in approximately six years. I know I’ll be heading there again soon, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that disaster won’t strike first — again.

Corner of Franklin and Vermont about 12:15AM, 4/29/11

Someone was Lighting a String of Trashcan Fires late Thursday Night / Early Friday Morning

I took the picture to the right myself. Firetrucks were already on the way, and in fact, already in the area, as this was at least the third trashcan fire lit.

I felt slightly guilty snapping the pic, like I should have done something more, but my Android doesn’t have a “Fire Extinguisher” App, and I really didn’t have that much water on me at the time.

“I.C.M.E.” indeed. Eyewitness account after the jump.

I came across a group of friends having a bite outside Palermo’s on Vermont around 11:30 – 12AM. As we were chatting, someone mentioned there had been some trashcan fires around the neighborhood that night, and sure enough, just then I turned around and farther south, pretty much across from the Dresden, a trash can is fully ablaze.

We watched a few people, presumably from neighboring businesses, pouring water on it and hitting it with an extinguisher just before the firetruck showed up.

We continued chatting as the truck pulled up to House of Pies and the firemen stopped a homeless man to talk to him. Whether they suspected him, or just hoped he witnessed something, I don’t know, but they let him go and he made his way South on Vermont, down the street.

As we chatted a bit more, I look North from where I’m standing on the sidewalk and see smoke billowing up from where the 7-11 is on Franklin and Vermont. That’s when I walked up and took these pictures.

I normally can’t help but do a Beavis, “Heh. Fire. Heh heh…” at any mention of the element, but I just can’t bring myself to with this. Maybe because that’s actually someone’s mind set right now, as they light these things up. Someone is quite disturbed.

It’s unknown at this time if a suspect has been apprehended.

There’s even a chat set up, so you can get answers to all your burning questions.

These guys also get bonus points cuz the device glows in the dark!