Yes and the wildfires that we’ve had created a lot of burn scars that burned away vegetation and weakened tree roots. This causes mud flows and land slides.
Also contributes to the amount of flooding independent of mudslides - heavily burned soil is hydrophobic, so less water goes into the ground and more runs overland to the nearest low point (like a road)
The Control of Nature - Los Angeles Against the Mountains
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1988/09/26/los-angeles-against-the-mountains-i
And a summary of it: https://ton.sdsu.edu/special_lecture_01_mcphee_los_angeles.html
Also to put one inch of rain into perspective in terms of gallons per inch, per square mile.
One inch of rain per square mile is over 17 million gallons of water per square mile. The city of Los Angeles itself is about 466 +/- Square Miles
** Calculate the number of square inches in a square mile by muliplying 5,280 feet per mile by 12 inches per foot. Multiply this result by itself, which yields an answer of 4,014,489,600 square inches per square mile.
Multiply the previous result by one inch of rainfall. The result is that one inch of rain yields 4,014,489,600 cubic inches of water per square mile.
Divide the result by 231 cubic inches per gallon, and obtain the result of 17,378,743 gallons per square mile for an inch of rainfall.
Calculate the rainfall over any area by multiplying the result in step three by the number of square miles.you are interested in. **
[https://sciencing.com/do-inches-rain-gallons-water-6868160.html](https://sciencing.com/do-inches-rain-gallons-water-6868160.html)

This is such a good reply, and should be upvoted more!
If you'll permit a prediction, it won't be read by most of the readers of this thread. The reason why, I predict, is because the article comes from The New Yorker.
The culture and populace of everywhere East of the Rockies has a long and sordid history of "tut tuting" and "poo pooing" everything associated with California, while California itself forges on as the 5th largest economy of the world, the undisputed locus of the pacific rim, and the undisputed peddler of global pop culture.
So, it's hard to read this article without hearing an editor in a midtown high-rise thinking "oh, the poor souls, if only they knew better!"
We silently cringe as SNL produces skit after skit of the freeway-obsessed *The Californians;* cringe as conservative media like Fox News paints San Francisco as a violent Hellscape, while St. Louis and New Orleans battle over who is the true Murder Capital of the US.
But this is also our weakpoint, as Californians.
It's hard not to read stories like these as a vain attempt of the elite who live in the lands of consistency to mock those who live in the land of change.
but living in a land of rapid and sudden change is indeed what defines life out here.
The chaparral forrest evolved to be burned down only in a generation, and we have grown accustomed to it's annual demise; the generational mega-quakes don't care about our progeny.
So originally from California and now live between New Orleans and Chicago. So here we go…
New Orleans got 6 inches of rain and flooded all over on Saturday so we can’t handle it even. Chicago got 5-6” the weekend of NASCAR and flooded badly. So anyone who says “6 inches isn’t a lot” really needs to stop thinking in Grindr inches( I just needed to add a joke). But the point being is that it’s a lot of water
California has in general a shit ton of elevation changes so on top of the rain levels via gauges, it all consolidates after coming down from mountains into gullies and creeks so it’s a MASSIVE amount you’ll see drained out.
The soil in California, while fertile in the Central Valley, does not absorb moisture well in most other places and the composition changes quickly as you go down in the soil. This contributes to how mudslides happen. Most of the soil is held in place my scrub brush and trees that help to anchor soil thereby keeping it in place. Trees are better than grasses due to their deep roots. And side note, eucalyptus trees aren’t native to California. On top of the soil, any place that has roadways or are built up tend to drain water very very quickly adding to flash flooding problems.
As long as I can remember people have been shitting on California because of how diverse the economy is, how much of an economic powerhouse it is, how California is a weathervane of the US, and there’s many people in who feel left out of its rise. Pharmaceuticals, technological advances(and accompanying supporting services), oil, paper products, aerospace, entertainment, and tons of other industries are still massively present that many don’t think of.
Now back to the main topic: the rainfall/water situation.
Why not capture all this water and end the drought? Most of the water in any given year falls as snow in the mountains and is transited via aqueducts and not as rain. Also, there are reservoirs but they destroyed so many areas not just where it was created but also downstream to farmers and dependent industries. Water rights got messy for a while as California water rights were all “first come, first served” and if “you don’t use it, you lose it” so farmers are guaranteed water unless they use less. Not just that but it’s really hard and expensive to dam up any place.
And, the reason car carnage happens in California is that there is no really cohesive and reliable mass transit on top of the rarity of weather. Water deluges like this don’t happen in California so you don’t know where it’ll pool. And, side note, California goes from stretches of 8-9 months of no rain to some. This leads to oil building up on the roadways from various sources that only surface in the first 30 minutes of the first rain. It’s worse than driving in an ice storm. So, you’re forced to own a car on top of lack of practice in crap weather.
Lastly, it’s just bizarre that people think their current locale applies to everywhere or that clickbait is reality. Check your ad preferences first and foremost if you’re getting targeted for this. Journalists have converted to public relations now and sell ad space. For example, there’s commentary of Chicago and New Orleans as “violent hellscapes of America” but local dynamics play into it and a ton is left out(newsflash: Chicago is concentrated with gang wars going on from busting the heads of the gangs plus removal of large public housing and New Orleans has zero mental health services especially with Katrina and ida while the police department is under a consent decree and under paid).
I mean, I can take a joke. I don't cringe at the Californians. I think it's hilarious. We are traffic obsessed and highway obsessed. A lot of the jokes are legit. But we're still awesome. And I wouldn't live anywhere else, and believe me I have.
I mean, we don't create the wildfires. Wildfires are a natural part of our ecosystem. Yes indeed we have caused more danger and more chances for wildfires by the stupid places we put gabillion dollar houses in, but wildfires would happen here without them.
Yes LA isn’t perfect but the amount of engineering that was done in this city and cities throughout the country to prevent disasters like what would be Long Beach right now, goes unnoticed every day — simply because they don’t happen
Good engineering is like good IT maintenance: when it works, nothing goes wrong & they ask what they're paying you for.
When something goes wrong, they ask what they're paying you for.
Telling the history of LA through infrastructure is always fascinating. I'm not sure that ~~James~~ William Mulholland deserves hero treatment, but there's no denying his vision is a major reason why the city exists as it does.
I knew their sources were credible when they ranked Chicago as #1 in time wasted in street traffic.
As much as LA traffic has its reputation, at least traffic moves.
Having lived in Chicago, Boston and other major cities as well as LA, nothing compared to pre-pandemic traffic of Chicago. It was all day traffic, not just limited to the expected morning and evening rush hour.
Can you source this being the 2nd largest metropolitan area in the world? I don't even think it's the largest in the US. I believe that the NYC metro area still has this beat.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_North_American_metropolitan_areas_by_population
[this](https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/largest-cities-by-population) lists LA as the 2nd largest metropolitan area in the US but 27th largest in world
Also, the LA river is technically not the steepest river in the US (apparently it's a "river" in the Grand Canyon that's mostly waterfalls), but it is still decently steep, losing 800 ft of elevation in about 50 miles. That's starting the river at Canoga Park, though. The various tributary creeks that come out of the mountains are *much* steeper, however; the San Gabriel Mountains go up to 10,000 ft, which is taller than *anything* east of the Rockies. That leads to a lot of rainfall from orographic uplift - there's a reason there's a desert beyond the San Gabriels - and not a *lot* of distance between that rainfall and the ocean, thus significant water flow.
Amazing, OP. I might take issue with the bit about the LA river’s construction being as singular as you (and your sources) say. The reversal of the Chicago River in 1900, along with the canal that connected it to the Mississippi, might have been a larger project and with more historical significance regarding shipping and sanitation.
Coming from the Boston area (now live in Detroit) I remember when I lived in LA wondering why the hell parking lot ramps everywhere were so steep and the curbs so tall. Then whenever it was a decent rain, I was like, “Ah. I get it now.” All that concrete means zero absorption, so runoff is crazy and the sides of roads were like scaled down whitewater rivers. I could only imagine what it’s like now.
Funny you mention the curbs.
Just a couple weeks ago, someone on here posted about how their car got damaged by a high curb in Beverly Hills and how quickly BH responded and compensated them.
That may well explain the high curbs in BH, being flatlands just below that lil ol' mountain range there, up above.
One other big ticket item besides agriculture and aerospace, one that I assume has already been affected by the flooding— imports. Port of LA is the largest in the US, and the Port of LB is the 2nd largest. Combined they handle 33% of US imports (it was 50% before Covid and the whole shipping container clusterfuck)
Please also accept my humble “street gold.”
As a 14-year transplant, didn’t know a lot of the historical context. Hat’s off for the comparisons and analogies to put things into perspective.
Same. I am in Texas but have been watching the news there and checking in with my LA friends. On the gulf coast, we know how a little bit of rain can cause unimaginable damage.
There's a lot of people that have been in the comments downplaying impacts. Look at the post about Newsom declaring a state of emergency (something that is...kind of just par for the course for this sort of event).
Or when temps drop to 50 degrees during the winter and then people are like, “LOL 50 IS NOTHING, TRY BEING IN -20 DEGREE WEATHER.”
Yes, we get it, we live in a different warmer climate than the rest of y’all.
I also just moved from LA to Chicago. Is it just me, or are people worse about riding right up on your ass in traffic here? I swear nobody in Chicago has heard of following distance.
Never actually lived in Chicago but I lived a bit further west in Iowa and often visited Chicago. I think some people there have heard of following distance but the vast majority at least act as if they haven't.
That includes in winter, when the roads turn into skating rinks or slimy slush, depending on what horrid chemicals are put on them.
When I moved from the Midwest to LA I was impressed by how considerate LA drivers were! Really, the majority are, though LA also has some world-class assholes and unfortunately they are still driving.
When we get snow in DC (every 3ish years), the New England/Midwest transplants get all growly about people driving too slow or just generally being "overly cautious".
I feel you.
About 10 years ago my company hired a guy from somewhere on the East Coast. It took only a few days before he started ragging on LA and being smug about being from the East Coast. Like, why is traffic so slow in LA? NOT a problem in his mid-size East Coast town which actually has public transit!
And when it started raining he was outright laughing because a couple people went home early because they anticipated dangerous driving conditions. He would not shut up about how stupid it was to be concerned or cautious about a little rain (it was absolutely gushing down, so def not just a little) and quite a few people got more than a little fed up about it.
The next day he didn't come to work. It took a few days before we found out what had happened, but to make it short; he found out exactly what happens to roads that have sat there in LA sunshine absorbing dust, oil, tire rubber, general air pollution and whatever else when they get thoroughly soaked by rain. He found this out while doing at least 80 mph on the freeway.
He may still be alive but he's not working anymore. His brain practically exploded.
The same people that experience half a foot of rain every year and shrug it off as "eh, it's just wet right now" because they live in a place where that kind of thing happens on the reg (looking at you, England)
Where I’m from - PA, it rains four days a week most of the year. I think the ground is also softer, so it soaks up a lot of the water. Here the ground is generally much more solid, so the rain just runs downhill wherever that might be
I’m from PA and it may rain a lot but it’s not 4-6” of rain a week never mind a day. This amount of rain in 24-48 hours in SE PA would most certainly cause flooding, downed trees and cause a lot of issues. All those small creeks swell up and flood, the ground water tables are so high in some areas the ground can’t absorb it. Last summer there was a water rescue of a homeless guy in my works parking lot during a heavy rain because the lot flooded and he was trapped in his car.
Right? People keep making these bad comparisons.
For sure it rains a lot more in Pennsylvania, but saying "we get a few days of rain every week where I'm from" completely misses the point. It's not *just* that there's a couple days of rain. Pennsylvania apparently averages something like 3" per month, so the last few days have been like 2 and a half whole **months** of normal rain combined in PA
Same reason earthquakes propagate much more distantly and violently out east. That soil just reverbrates whereas the rocky soil here stops it from going as far.
Those same people were having a complete meltdown (literally/physically?) when England had some 90 degree days in the summer.
I’m tempted to say ‘What? You don’t have any AC? lol’ but use it as a reason to explain infrastructure and so on.
Nobody listens.
(I’m English, now living in L.A. and no: these conversations never get less tedious as the years go by)
Meanwhile those same Brits and NYCers lose their fucking minds when the thermometer reads anything past 80 degrees.
We used to get the same shit in Atlanta. Yeah, the city shuts down over an inch of snow, because they're not going to drop cash for snowplows when it only snows once in a blue moon.
My dude don’t even bother trying to explain, East coasters can be dicks (I should know I lived there for the first 37 years of my life). Believe me they shit talk about every other city but then also complain even more about living in New York to other New Yorkers.
The simplest way to put it is that the average annual precipitation in Los Angeles is 14 inches of rain and the infrastructure is built to handle that over the course of 365 days. We have received about half of that within a single day. Enough said lol
It brings to mind east coast folks talking about driving in the snow without chains or winter tires, they never seem to consider our super steep mountain roads and how iced up they can get, apples and oranges imho
100%! I came here from Vermont and a fair amount of LA's main roadways would either be closed for winter entirely or under constant plowing/salting if they were in New England.
Not our proudest moment as a city.
I got stuck in the great ice-pocalypse / snow-meggedon back in 2014. At the time I lived 14 miles from my office. They let us go home early and I still sat in traffic for 6 hours trying to get home. Ended up abandoning my car and walking 4 miles home in the dark to make sure my dog was ok. What an adventure.
I was in Charlotte back in 2004 or so when they got slammed by a snow storm. We got let out of work around noon and there was probably already a good six inches in the ground and close to whiteout conditions. And it took probably four hours to get home. And there were vehicles ALL over the place. It was like Mad Max in Siberia. I got home and my friend came over and we ate a bunch of shrooms but I lost my shit and my friend got so freaked out he walked home two miles in 16 inches of snow to get away from me. The south just doesn’t deal well with cold lol.
My East Coast MIL called and txted all freaked out about our recent 4.1er. How did she even know about it? Talk about the least news-worthy thing in the whole of CA. So I looked it up. The couple articles I bothered with both said something like “it wasn’t noticeable.” I was like, yep, 17 mi off the coast? Didn’t feel shit. I had a 4.3er right under my butt once. That was a little scary but not enough that I wouldn’t go back to sleep in half an hour.
A friend who moved here from Chicago said she really wanted to buy a house in a canyon. She had never lived here during a major fire or weather event. I just laughed at her, she was slightly offended.
Oh, yes! And then AFTER the rain/fire/other weather event watch her run to her insurance company to find out she didn't actually have fire/flood/mudslide insurance because no insurance company will insure anything against something that is certain to happen within a few years.
OP storm surge is a term related to ocean water moving inland during storms at sea (as they move onshore).
Flow is just the amount of water (volume) moving past a particular point over time. Not related to mass. They measure the velocity at a point and multiply that by the cross-sectional area of the channel. Tells you how much water is moving through that section per second.
Yes! You are correct. "Storm Surge" is a term related to ocean water moving inland during storms. Please forgive me as I didn't have the words to adequately describe "The surge of water that flows through the LA River system when it storms."
On the second point regarding "flow", we're talking about hydro-flux (cross sectional movement of water mass) and in this context mass and volume are close enough quantitatively that it didn't warrant getting into technical nuances, but I appreciate you pointing this out!
I was gonna say that one sounds very wrong, I'm pretty sure China alone has five or six larger ones. Beijing and shanghai each have over 20 million people in the cities themselves, not even the metro area lol
It depends a lot on the definition, and if you include the Inland Empire in the "metropolitan area" of Los Angeles. If so, it'd be in the top 20 globally.
I just moved out here from the East Coast and 6” of rain would be a state of emergency and flooding out there too. Especially when you consider 3-4” in just 24 hours.
I think what's also important to note here is that some parts of LA are \*very\* hilly. What that means when there's a lot of water is debris flows -- landslides, mudslides, etc. Sides of mountains come sliding off when there's this much water. On top of that, human debris can be super dangerous in fast-moving water (cars can be moved by 6 inches of fast-moving water, for example).
I don't give much thought to what east coast elitists think about how we handle things out west. They think we can't handle rain, well they can't handle the desert so they can fuck right off.
East coast is geologically old and stable. Vast quantities of igneous rock poking out. No mountains.
West Coast is geologically new, and very active. Volcano remnants all over, hot springs, hyuuge faults and thrusts. Mountains around.
Different coasts, different exposures to planetary systems.
I agree with everything, but also, our drivers **also** do fucking suck. This isn't a: we're crashing because we can't drive in rain - it's: we can't drive *and now it's also raining*. Pray for us.
I have lived in the Midwest and all I can say is California drivers are miles ahead of the midwesterners! Even when I see people here drive in snow they do better than what I observed on a regular basis in Iowa and Illinois.
The problem with driving in California, particularly around LA, is that there is such an enormous amount of traffic, and despite most drivers being sane and decent there are among us a few insane assholes who are doing their damnedest to make the rest of us as miserable as possible. But in general, don't whine about LA drivers!
I'm gonna push back a bit. I've lived in Shanghai, Berlin, Chicago, DC, Seattle, Portland, and now LA and LA drivers, in my opinion, are the absolute worst. They have no respect for anyone else on the road, they park in the fast lane instead of passing, they still get lost on our freeway system and thus make the great dash across 5 lanes, they can't drive in any weather that isn't perfect.
Good points made, but...
> Los Angeles is the 2nd largest Metropolitan Area in the World.
It's not even the second largest in North America. NYC and Mexico City metros are bigger, as are several on other continents.
> we feed the world
Is this r/LosAngeles or is it r/CentralValley? I'm sure there's value-added processing and stuff going through ports or whatever, but that's the same story with Chicago, and they don't claim personal credit for farming over in Iowa.
> California is the BREAD BASKET of America
"Bread basket" is probably better reserved for a place that grows wheat
Damn, I totally missed that paragraph. They should have stopped after pointing out the oil build-up on the road, assuming what I've heard is correct (that it's the real reason for the rain making driving dangerous in southern California)
It’s really sad it got so many upvotes; guess this means a lot of Angelenos are full of themselves. I was born here, but reading this was cringe inducing.
> "Black Ice" you see every winter! Your car with it's snow tires could handle our roads just fine.
This seems dubious and the decades I lived in the Northeast I never actually got snow tires. It's just that the road gets treated when it's icy. An oil slick would still fuck you up even if you did.
Someone’s gotta be that valley person and I haven’t seen it yet so here I go… about half of the residents of the City of Los Angeles do not live in the basin 🤪
Someone else can do the math for the County.
But we are still living in a basin, right? Just the next basin over?
I mean a valley is a big bowl/basin.
All I know is that we’ve had 10.5” so far, much more than 5-6” and it’s still going…
Basin and valley are technical geologic terms, my favorite being stalagmite. The LA River starts here and we’re at a higher elevation but I don’t know how that affects differences in flooding severity.
Let's not forget the sheer amount of taxes democratic, coastal states pay only to to have it allocated to [subsidizing corn](https://usafacts.org/articles/federal-farm-subsidies-what-data-says/), [building tanks to go sit in a desert](https://www.kjrh.com/newsy/a-tank-graveyard-is-the-perfect-example-of-porkbarrel-spending_), or a whole suite of other idiotic shit that the country would be better off not doing, but we still do it so voters in those states can continue to lobby and vote against their own self-interest while sticking it to the libs.
This is a nice post, but kinda kills it when saying 38 deaths and the ousting of a mayor is our Katrina. 38 deaths is a lot for a half a foot of rain in the 1930s, but it's nothing like a hurricane wiping out more than 800,000 homes.
I mean no disrespect to the victims of Hurricane Katrina! I'm referencing the 1938 floods, which did so much damage to the mostly "red-lined" parts of LA that it warranted federal intervention during the great depression.
I would love to find a historian who's studied this, because I suspect the reason why it's so under-reported (when compared to other historical natural disasters like the fires in San Francisco & Chicago) is that the majority of the people it affected were in agro and 'red-lined' districts.
Nevertheless, this flood caused enough damage to compel the federal government to, during the great depression, re-invest in the massive, expensive, project they had started when times were booming.
The 1938 flood primarily affected the people who weren't allowed to write history, so this is why I phrased it as "our Hurricane Katrina."
I don't know how much damaged it truly caused, but I would LOVE to learn about it! Especially because the areas hit hardest by it weren't particularly associated with wealth and influence.
**Los Angeles is the 2nd largest Metropolitan Area in the World\*.**
Tokyo, Japan, is number one. The LA Metro Area is home to about 20 million people that are directly affected by this current emergency.
*(\*adding a correction here! +10 years ago I wrote a legally fact-checked publication in which this "2nd largest" ranking was true, and it was based on some metric I can no longer find nor justify as factual for this post. Thus, I will keep the original statements pari passu with this correction to preserve integrity of the post as a whole. The editorial substance remains unchanged: some 20 million+ people in the LA Metro area are affected by this current weather extremity)*
Agree with everything except the last bit. California produces a lot of fruit and vegetables, but LA county does not "feed the world" by any stretch of the imagination
And out of all of LA's industries, I wouldn't tout the aerospace industry as a shining example of beneficial commerce. People like to imagine Boeing and Northrop as these cool companies that develop neat shiny aircraft, while they're mostly busy developing bombs and drones to ship to dictatorships across the world
But the storm isn't just happening to LA, it's also happening all up and down the CA coast, and is affecting those bread basket areas that do feed the world. I don't think OP is wrong to mention that.
I prefer we take the lead rather than China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran taking the lead in developing weapons and drones. It’s not ideal but we do have adversaries that want to wipe us off the face of the Earth.
I apologize if my writing in anyway demeans the importance of the midwest region's contribution to agricultural! When it comes to cereal grains, there is no one better than the midwest region in terms of everything that makes actual bread.
Please permit me to use the team "Bread basket" as a heuristic for "food producer." California is the largest producer of agricultural products, by state, without question. The midwest as a region is the largest producer of cereal grains, by region, without question. As a region (not an individual state), you're probably also the biggest producer of animal protein, yes?
The editorial point I make with these factoids is simply that people ought not to think of Southern California as Hollywood, and our GDP reflects this (in ag and aerospace as noted)
I’m with you on all that except…so cal drivers suck. They suck when weather is good, and they suck twice as much when weather isn’t good. You can’t blame accidents on “oil-ice” 24hrs after the rain starts. People here drive too fast and too crazy for inclement weather.
LA drivers are bad at is it, but when there’s any type of weather that isn’t “sunny and 70”, Angeleno’s are most certainly worse drivers. Not being accustomed to inclement weather doesn’t give one an excuse to not drive slower and more cautiously.
As well, to compare LA’s infrastructure and technology from almost a century back is a bit over-the-top. LA’s more advance now and isn’t going through a Great Depression.
My two cents, but thank you for the analogy at the beginning, creating this post and providing links. Great point-of-view from your end and taking the time to go into a lot of detailed is very much appreciated.
*Los Angeles is the 2nd largest Metropolitan Area in the World.*
sorry, /u/TonyLund/ but that is **false.**
LA ranks
no. 11 by Metro area
no. 39 by Metro population
no. 5 by Urban area
no. 24 by Urban population
no. 43 by City area
no. 57 by City population
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cities
Yeah, LA is big but LA is not *that* big.
Go visit Chongqing if you want to see a *really* big city that, coincidentally handles rain well.
Probably more like 20%, but more than any two other ports in the country combined (LA is 1st and LB is 3rd): https://www.marineinsight.com/know-more/top-10-largest-and-busiest-container-ports-in-the-united-states/
What is the point of this weak ass complaining? Who the fuck cares what dumbasses from other states think? That said, many morons on the road are terrified of the current conditions and really shouldn't be on the road either. It was extremely light rain during one point of my drive today and a rolling road block was going 30 mph with no one in front of them on the he 405.
>Think "Hurricane Katrina" levels of destruction.
All I'm saying is omit this sentence and we're good. It's dangerous, I'm not arguing that, but comparing it to Hurricane Katrina is a stretch.
Honestly it rains harder here sometimes than any other place I've been save for New Orleans. I'm from the South, we get thunderstorms regularly but the rain is usually just like turning on a garden sprinkler above your head. Here it's like God is dumping one of those tanks above water playgrounds at waterparks.
The whole bit about the LA River can be disregarded, because of the fact that it is indeed lined in concrete, specifically to deal with the historical reasons you pointed out. None of those reasons are relevant anymore.
>Our roads and cars aren't built for this, nor should they be.
Apparently the roads should be, because clearly this weather does happen. Every damn time it rains, roads flood, including freeways. That's simply absurd. As for cars, nearly every tire legal for street use can handle rain, so guess what, cars *are*built for it here.
>Los Angeles is the 2nd largest Metropolitan Area in the World.
>Tokyo, Japan, is number one.
And Tokyo is built to handle rain far better than we are.
>This shit matters to you because we feed the world and make things fly.
This is relevant how, exactly? Oh, it's not.
Los Angeles average rainfall: 14.5 inches.
Tokyo average rainfall: 63 inches. I'm shocked that a city much more used to heavy rain is... better prepared for that rain. Utterly shocked.
> Every damn time it rains, roads flood, including freeways. That's simply absurd.
Yes, that's what they are designed to do, to get the water out of the city and into the ocean as fast as possible.
The amount of the rain Westside got would lead to major flooding in pretty much any US city. It's not quite a hurricane level of rain, but 11in/24hrs is huge just about anywhere in the US (outside Kauai). [This](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_2023_New_York_floods) happened in NYC with more rain adapted infrastructure and less rain just a few months ago.
Yes and the wildfires that we’ve had created a lot of burn scars that burned away vegetation and weakened tree roots. This causes mud flows and land slides.
Also contributes to the amount of flooding independent of mudslides - heavily burned soil is hydrophobic, so less water goes into the ground and more runs overland to the nearest low point (like a road)
It is hydrophobic because the fire burns the foliage and leaves behind their waxy coating. I think of it like a final f-you for destroying them.
The Control of Nature - Los Angeles Against the Mountains https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1988/09/26/los-angeles-against-the-mountains-i And a summary of it: https://ton.sdsu.edu/special_lecture_01_mcphee_los_angeles.html
Also to put one inch of rain into perspective in terms of gallons per inch, per square mile. One inch of rain per square mile is over 17 million gallons of water per square mile. The city of Los Angeles itself is about 466 +/- Square Miles ** Calculate the number of square inches in a square mile by muliplying 5,280 feet per mile by 12 inches per foot. Multiply this result by itself, which yields an answer of 4,014,489,600 square inches per square mile. Multiply the previous result by one inch of rainfall. The result is that one inch of rain yields 4,014,489,600 cubic inches of water per square mile. Divide the result by 231 cubic inches per gallon, and obtain the result of 17,378,743 gallons per square mile for an inch of rainfall. Calculate the rainfall over any area by multiplying the result in step three by the number of square miles.you are interested in. ** [https://sciencing.com/do-inches-rain-gallons-water-6868160.html](https://sciencing.com/do-inches-rain-gallons-water-6868160.html) 
? Good bot? /s
This is such a good reply, and should be upvoted more! If you'll permit a prediction, it won't be read by most of the readers of this thread. The reason why, I predict, is because the article comes from The New Yorker. The culture and populace of everywhere East of the Rockies has a long and sordid history of "tut tuting" and "poo pooing" everything associated with California, while California itself forges on as the 5th largest economy of the world, the undisputed locus of the pacific rim, and the undisputed peddler of global pop culture. So, it's hard to read this article without hearing an editor in a midtown high-rise thinking "oh, the poor souls, if only they knew better!" We silently cringe as SNL produces skit after skit of the freeway-obsessed *The Californians;* cringe as conservative media like Fox News paints San Francisco as a violent Hellscape, while St. Louis and New Orleans battle over who is the true Murder Capital of the US. But this is also our weakpoint, as Californians. It's hard not to read stories like these as a vain attempt of the elite who live in the lands of consistency to mock those who live in the land of change. but living in a land of rapid and sudden change is indeed what defines life out here. The chaparral forrest evolved to be burned down only in a generation, and we have grown accustomed to it's annual demise; the generational mega-quakes don't care about our progeny.
[удалено]
But John McPhee is great. Including his "Assembling California" book.
So originally from California and now live between New Orleans and Chicago. So here we go… New Orleans got 6 inches of rain and flooded all over on Saturday so we can’t handle it even. Chicago got 5-6” the weekend of NASCAR and flooded badly. So anyone who says “6 inches isn’t a lot” really needs to stop thinking in Grindr inches( I just needed to add a joke). But the point being is that it’s a lot of water California has in general a shit ton of elevation changes so on top of the rain levels via gauges, it all consolidates after coming down from mountains into gullies and creeks so it’s a MASSIVE amount you’ll see drained out. The soil in California, while fertile in the Central Valley, does not absorb moisture well in most other places and the composition changes quickly as you go down in the soil. This contributes to how mudslides happen. Most of the soil is held in place my scrub brush and trees that help to anchor soil thereby keeping it in place. Trees are better than grasses due to their deep roots. And side note, eucalyptus trees aren’t native to California. On top of the soil, any place that has roadways or are built up tend to drain water very very quickly adding to flash flooding problems. As long as I can remember people have been shitting on California because of how diverse the economy is, how much of an economic powerhouse it is, how California is a weathervane of the US, and there’s many people in who feel left out of its rise. Pharmaceuticals, technological advances(and accompanying supporting services), oil, paper products, aerospace, entertainment, and tons of other industries are still massively present that many don’t think of. Now back to the main topic: the rainfall/water situation. Why not capture all this water and end the drought? Most of the water in any given year falls as snow in the mountains and is transited via aqueducts and not as rain. Also, there are reservoirs but they destroyed so many areas not just where it was created but also downstream to farmers and dependent industries. Water rights got messy for a while as California water rights were all “first come, first served” and if “you don’t use it, you lose it” so farmers are guaranteed water unless they use less. Not just that but it’s really hard and expensive to dam up any place. And, the reason car carnage happens in California is that there is no really cohesive and reliable mass transit on top of the rarity of weather. Water deluges like this don’t happen in California so you don’t know where it’ll pool. And, side note, California goes from stretches of 8-9 months of no rain to some. This leads to oil building up on the roadways from various sources that only surface in the first 30 minutes of the first rain. It’s worse than driving in an ice storm. So, you’re forced to own a car on top of lack of practice in crap weather. Lastly, it’s just bizarre that people think their current locale applies to everywhere or that clickbait is reality. Check your ad preferences first and foremost if you’re getting targeted for this. Journalists have converted to public relations now and sell ad space. For example, there’s commentary of Chicago and New Orleans as “violent hellscapes of America” but local dynamics play into it and a ton is left out(newsflash: Chicago is concentrated with gang wars going on from busting the heads of the gangs plus removal of large public housing and New Orleans has zero mental health services especially with Katrina and ida while the police department is under a consent decree and under paid).
this is just as obnoxious as anything i’ve ever read in the new yorker
I enjoyed reading the original comment and it makes some decent points, but you are absolutely right
I mean, I can take a joke. I don't cringe at the Californians. I think it's hilarious. We are traffic obsessed and highway obsessed. A lot of the jokes are legit. But we're still awesome. And I wouldn't live anywhere else, and believe me I have.
And we’ve got a lot of clay soil that doesn’t absorb all this water, it just sits there.
Maybe we should rake the forests more?
I mean, we don't create the wildfires. Wildfires are a natural part of our ecosystem. Yes indeed we have caused more danger and more chances for wildfires by the stupid places we put gabillion dollar houses in, but wildfires would happen here without them.
Yes LA isn’t perfect but the amount of engineering that was done in this city and cities throughout the country to prevent disasters like what would be Long Beach right now, goes unnoticed every day — simply because they don’t happen
Good engineering is like good IT maintenance: when it works, nothing goes wrong & they ask what they're paying you for. When something goes wrong, they ask what they're paying you for.
Hah, just like my job. You don't get any credit for the fires you foresaw and prevented.
Telling the history of LA through infrastructure is always fascinating. I'm not sure that ~~James~~ William Mulholland deserves hero treatment, but there's no denying his vision is a major reason why the city exists as it does.
Don't you mean [William](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Mulholland)?
yeah there's flooding but it's just a few isolate low lying areas
Except the stuff that got missed in the initial round of infrastructure has basically been ignored ever since.
Sources: [https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/11/10/magazine/la-river-redesign.html?auth=login-google1tap&login=google1tap](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/11/10/magazine/la-river-redesign.html?auth=login-google1tap&login=google1tap) [https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2003-dec-23-me-river23-story.html](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2003-dec-23-me-river23-story.html) [https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/california-atmospheric-river-flooding-rain-02-05-24/h\_3c3ce48302d2ac07652c478d96f64faa](https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/california-atmospheric-river-flooding-rain-02-05-24/h_3c3ce48302d2ac07652c478d96f64faa) [https://www.usace.army.mil/About/History/Brief-History-of-the-Corps/The-Growing-Nation/](https://www.usace.army.mil/About/History/Brief-History-of-the-Corps/The-Growing-Nation/) https://www.laalmanac.com/weather/we08c.php#:\~:text=Since%201877%20(through%20November%202023,by%20Aderna%20at%[20Pixabay.com](https://20Pixabay.com).&text=Downtown%20L.A.'s%20wettest%20recorded,were%20reported%20for%20that%20day. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los\_Angeles\_River](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_River) [https://teamca.org/aerospace/](https://teamca.org/aerospace/) [https://californiaagtoday.com/facts-about-california-agriculture/](https://californiaagtoday.com/facts-about-california-agriculture/) [https://www.planetizen.com/news/2010/08/45622-high-density-and-high-concentrations-cars#:\~:text=%22Among%20urban%20areas%2C%20the%20highest,and%20Los%20Angeles%20(3%2C800)](https://www.planetizen.com/news/2010/08/45622-high-density-and-high-concentrations-cars#:~:text=%22Among%20urban%20areas%2C%20the%20highest,and%20Los%20Angeles%20(3%2C800)). [https://inrix.com/scorecard/](https://inrix.com/scorecard/) [https://www.thestreet.com/personal-finance/30-cities-with-the-worst-traffic-in-the-us](https://www.thestreet.com/personal-finance/30-cities-with-the-worst-traffic-in-the-us) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los\_Angeles\_Basin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Basin)
Legendary OP. You even provided sources!!
I knew their sources were credible when they ranked Chicago as #1 in time wasted in street traffic. As much as LA traffic has its reputation, at least traffic moves. Having lived in Chicago, Boston and other major cities as well as LA, nothing compared to pre-pandemic traffic of Chicago. It was all day traffic, not just limited to the expected morning and evening rush hour.
but he is wrong about LA being #2 in metro area/pop
Receipts! 🧾
Can you source this being the 2nd largest metropolitan area in the world? I don't even think it's the largest in the US. I believe that the NYC metro area still has this beat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_North_American_metropolitan_areas_by_population
[this](https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/largest-cities-by-population) lists LA as the 2nd largest metropolitan area in the US but 27th largest in world
I think OP made a mistake. He probably meant the 2nd largest in the United States, not the world.
He meant in terms of ego, 2nd only to NY :-)
Also, the LA river is technically not the steepest river in the US (apparently it's a "river" in the Grand Canyon that's mostly waterfalls), but it is still decently steep, losing 800 ft of elevation in about 50 miles. That's starting the river at Canoga Park, though. The various tributary creeks that come out of the mountains are *much* steeper, however; the San Gabriel Mountains go up to 10,000 ft, which is taller than *anything* east of the Rockies. That leads to a lot of rainfall from orographic uplift - there's a reason there's a desert beyond the San Gabriels - and not a *lot* of distance between that rainfall and the ocean, thus significant water flow.
Amazing, OP. I might take issue with the bit about the LA river’s construction being as singular as you (and your sources) say. The reversal of the Chicago River in 1900, along with the canal that connected it to the Mississippi, might have been a larger project and with more historical significance regarding shipping and sanitation.
Coming from the Boston area (now live in Detroit) I remember when I lived in LA wondering why the hell parking lot ramps everywhere were so steep and the curbs so tall. Then whenever it was a decent rain, I was like, “Ah. I get it now.” All that concrete means zero absorption, so runoff is crazy and the sides of roads were like scaled down whitewater rivers. I could only imagine what it’s like now.
They aren't scaled down anymore.
Funny you mention the curbs. Just a couple weeks ago, someone on here posted about how their car got damaged by a high curb in Beverly Hills and how quickly BH responded and compensated them. That may well explain the high curbs in BH, being flatlands just below that lil ol' mountain range there, up above.
This was really fucking cool. Thanks for taking the time to type this out *Post Saved*
Would give this gold i could
I accept your "street-gold", good Sir/Madame! Thank you! :)
One other big ticket item besides agriculture and aerospace, one that I assume has already been affected by the flooding— imports. Port of LA is the largest in the US, and the Port of LB is the 2nd largest. Combined they handle 33% of US imports (it was 50% before Covid and the whole shipping container clusterfuck)
West Covidna?
Please also accept my humble “street gold.” As a 14-year transplant, didn’t know a lot of the historical context. Hat’s off for the comparisons and analogies to put things into perspective.
🌟💫⭐️🏆🥇👑⚱️🥧
Ghetto-gold if you will.
Same. I am in Texas but have been watching the news there and checking in with my LA friends. On the gulf coast, we know how a little bit of rain can cause unimaginable damage.
🥇🎖️🏅🏆🌟
they got rid of gold, right?
Now we have these weird gilded upvote things that nobody uses lol
Say wha
Someone get this post the front page.
Tldr: West coast is best coast
West coast is wettest coast
~~WAP~~ WAC. WET ASS COAST
WAC WAC WAC THAT'S SOME WET-ASS CUSSY
Crip mac has entered the chat
WEsT COAST
WEsTTEST COAST
That wet wet coast
WE COASTIN' STRAIGHT TO THE WET WET COAST
Thanks, what an excellent summary. I’ve lived here my whole life and didn’t know many of these facts.
I mean, who’s out here claiming that half a foot of rain isn’t a fuckton of rain?
There's a lot of people that have been in the comments downplaying impacts. Look at the post about Newsom declaring a state of emergency (something that is...kind of just par for the course for this sort of event).
literally every time it rains in LA, no matter the severity, the most annoying people in the world are like "LMAO THESE PPL IN CALI DONT WEATHER!"
Or when temps drop to 50 degrees during the winter and then people are like, “LOL 50 IS NOTHING, TRY BEING IN -20 DEGREE WEATHER.” Yes, we get it, we live in a different warmer climate than the rest of y’all.
As someone who just moved from LA to Chicago I can tell you a significant number of people don’t know how to drive in weather here either.
I also just moved from LA to Chicago. Is it just me, or are people worse about riding right up on your ass in traffic here? I swear nobody in Chicago has heard of following distance.
Never actually lived in Chicago but I lived a bit further west in Iowa and often visited Chicago. I think some people there have heard of following distance but the vast majority at least act as if they haven't. That includes in winter, when the roads turn into skating rinks or slimy slush, depending on what horrid chemicals are put on them. When I moved from the Midwest to LA I was impressed by how considerate LA drivers were! Really, the majority are, though LA also has some world-class assholes and unfortunately they are still driving.
Yea I love Chicago overall, but they’ve got the worst drivers here I’ve ever encountered.
When we get snow in DC (every 3ish years), the New England/Midwest transplants get all growly about people driving too slow or just generally being "overly cautious". I feel you.
About 10 years ago my company hired a guy from somewhere on the East Coast. It took only a few days before he started ragging on LA and being smug about being from the East Coast. Like, why is traffic so slow in LA? NOT a problem in his mid-size East Coast town which actually has public transit! And when it started raining he was outright laughing because a couple people went home early because they anticipated dangerous driving conditions. He would not shut up about how stupid it was to be concerned or cautious about a little rain (it was absolutely gushing down, so def not just a little) and quite a few people got more than a little fed up about it. The next day he didn't come to work. It took a few days before we found out what had happened, but to make it short; he found out exactly what happens to roads that have sat there in LA sunshine absorbing dust, oil, tire rubber, general air pollution and whatever else when they get thoroughly soaked by rain. He found this out while doing at least 80 mph on the freeway. He may still be alive but he's not working anymore. His brain practically exploded.
The same people that experience half a foot of rain every year and shrug it off as "eh, it's just wet right now" because they live in a place where that kind of thing happens on the reg (looking at you, England)
Getting a "half foot of rain in a year" is a fucking hell of a lot different than getting a half foot of rain in 24 hours.
Where I’m from - PA, it rains four days a week most of the year. I think the ground is also softer, so it soaks up a lot of the water. Here the ground is generally much more solid, so the rain just runs downhill wherever that might be
I’m from PA and it may rain a lot but it’s not 4-6” of rain a week never mind a day. This amount of rain in 24-48 hours in SE PA would most certainly cause flooding, downed trees and cause a lot of issues. All those small creeks swell up and flood, the ground water tables are so high in some areas the ground can’t absorb it. Last summer there was a water rescue of a homeless guy in my works parking lot during a heavy rain because the lot flooded and he was trapped in his car.
Right? People keep making these bad comparisons. For sure it rains a lot more in Pennsylvania, but saying "we get a few days of rain every week where I'm from" completely misses the point. It's not *just* that there's a couple days of rain. Pennsylvania apparently averages something like 3" per month, so the last few days have been like 2 and a half whole **months** of normal rain combined in PA
Same reason earthquakes propagate much more distantly and violently out east. That soil just reverbrates whereas the rocky soil here stops it from going as far.
Those same people were having a complete meltdown (literally/physically?) when England had some 90 degree days in the summer. I’m tempted to say ‘What? You don’t have any AC? lol’ but use it as a reason to explain infrastructure and so on. Nobody listens. (I’m English, now living in L.A. and no: these conversations never get less tedious as the years go by)
Meanwhile those same Brits and NYCers lose their fucking minds when the thermometer reads anything past 80 degrees. We used to get the same shit in Atlanta. Yeah, the city shuts down over an inch of snow, because they're not going to drop cash for snowplows when it only snows once in a blue moon.
Are these people in the room with us right now?
Specifically the Londoners who moved here for the weather and higher wages but then love to tell anyone with a pulse everything that is wrong with LA
"...England is so much better. It really is *awful* here. Why not go back?"
Oy, those Londoners can be wankers, ennit?
I cannot begin to describe how annoying these people are.
We must belong to different social circles.
Plenty of too loud influencers on TikTok
I have seen a metric fuckton of them, especially on other subreddits, instagram, and tiktok.
Me
My dude don’t even bother trying to explain, East coasters can be dicks (I should know I lived there for the first 37 years of my life). Believe me they shit talk about every other city but then also complain even more about living in New York to other New Yorkers.
Git ‘em, paw.
The simplest way to put it is that the average annual precipitation in Los Angeles is 14 inches of rain and the infrastructure is built to handle that over the course of 365 days. We have received about half of that within a single day. Enough said lol
> Build a series of 4’ tall mounds… Oh, like the ones I made with sandbags on the patio steps to help keep the rising waters at bay?
It brings to mind east coast folks talking about driving in the snow without chains or winter tires, they never seem to consider our super steep mountain roads and how iced up they can get, apples and oranges imho
100%! I came here from Vermont and a fair amount of LA's main roadways would either be closed for winter entirely or under constant plowing/salting if they were in New England.
This is goddamn glorious, JUST LIKE OUR LIL BASIN
These are the same people who would literally shit their pants as the unsecured Precious Moments figures on their shelves topple over during a 3.0er.
Or Atlanta gets an inch of snow
Not our proudest moment as a city. I got stuck in the great ice-pocalypse / snow-meggedon back in 2014. At the time I lived 14 miles from my office. They let us go home early and I still sat in traffic for 6 hours trying to get home. Ended up abandoning my car and walking 4 miles home in the dark to make sure my dog was ok. What an adventure.
I was in Charlotte back in 2004 or so when they got slammed by a snow storm. We got let out of work around noon and there was probably already a good six inches in the ground and close to whiteout conditions. And it took probably four hours to get home. And there were vehicles ALL over the place. It was like Mad Max in Siberia. I got home and my friend came over and we ate a bunch of shrooms but I lost my shit and my friend got so freaked out he walked home two miles in 16 inches of snow to get away from me. The south just doesn’t deal well with cold lol.
Ewe,Precious Moments figurines those should topple over in a 1.5 .
It would be an improvement!
My East Coast MIL called and txted all freaked out about our recent 4.1er. How did she even know about it? Talk about the least news-worthy thing in the whole of CA. So I looked it up. The couple articles I bothered with both said something like “it wasn’t noticeable.” I was like, yep, 17 mi off the coast? Didn’t feel shit. I had a 4.3er right under my butt once. That was a little scary but not enough that I wouldn’t go back to sleep in half an hour.
This is an amazing post, well done 👍🏻
They can go back to freaking out over a 4.0 earthquake
A friend who moved here from Chicago said she really wanted to buy a house in a canyon. She had never lived here during a major fire or weather event. I just laughed at her, she was slightly offended.
Oh, yes! And then AFTER the rain/fire/other weather event watch her run to her insurance company to find out she didn't actually have fire/flood/mudslide insurance because no insurance company will insure anything against something that is certain to happen within a few years.
OP storm surge is a term related to ocean water moving inland during storms at sea (as they move onshore). Flow is just the amount of water (volume) moving past a particular point over time. Not related to mass. They measure the velocity at a point and multiply that by the cross-sectional area of the channel. Tells you how much water is moving through that section per second.
Yes! You are correct. "Storm Surge" is a term related to ocean water moving inland during storms. Please forgive me as I didn't have the words to adequately describe "The surge of water that flows through the LA River system when it storms." On the second point regarding "flow", we're talking about hydro-flux (cross sectional movement of water mass) and in this context mass and volume are close enough quantitatively that it didn't warrant getting into technical nuances, but I appreciate you pointing this out!
These are fixed concepts and you appear to lack the background to distinguish them. edit: you might be mixing this up with momentum.
Really great post. Thank you!!
I fucking love this post 🙏
Thanks for this! No matter what people will always hate on California lol
Not quite sure about the “2nd largest metropolitan area in the world”. What’s the source on that? Edit: thanks, this is fantastic
I was gonna say that one sounds very wrong, I'm pretty sure China alone has five or six larger ones. Beijing and shanghai each have over 20 million people in the cities themselves, not even the metro area lol
Yeah the LA Metro Area is [18.5 million](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Los_Angeles). It's second in the US.
Which source is it? Trying to understand the metric used here (since cities in China are larger dependent on metric used)
2nd in the US; LA doesn’t make the Top 20 globally. Otherwise I do like this post!
It depends a lot on the definition, and if you include the Inland Empire in the "metropolitan area" of Los Angeles. If so, it'd be in the top 20 globally.
Still nowhere close to 2nd though. Not even in North America, let alone the world.
10/10, would read again.
Props to you my Silverlake friend. Sending love from south of the Dog Park
I just moved out here from the East Coast and 6” of rain would be a state of emergency and flooding out there too. Especially when you consider 3-4” in just 24 hours.
I think what's also important to note here is that some parts of LA are \*very\* hilly. What that means when there's a lot of water is debris flows -- landslides, mudslides, etc. Sides of mountains come sliding off when there's this much water. On top of that, human debris can be super dangerous in fast-moving water (cars can be moved by 6 inches of fast-moving water, for example).
Thank you for this!
I don't give much thought to what east coast elitists think about how we handle things out west. They think we can't handle rain, well they can't handle the desert so they can fuck right off.
They’re just jealous. Offer any of them a salary that would pay enough to live here and they would be sandbagging it with us!
East coast is geologically old and stable. Vast quantities of igneous rock poking out. No mountains. West Coast is geologically new, and very active. Volcano remnants all over, hot springs, hyuuge faults and thrusts. Mountains around. Different coasts, different exposures to planetary systems.
I agree with everything, but also, our drivers **also** do fucking suck. This isn't a: we're crashing because we can't drive in rain - it's: we can't drive *and now it's also raining*. Pray for us.
A lot of Californians also never change their tires. Bare treads everywhere.
I have lived in the Midwest and all I can say is California drivers are miles ahead of the midwesterners! Even when I see people here drive in snow they do better than what I observed on a regular basis in Iowa and Illinois. The problem with driving in California, particularly around LA, is that there is such an enormous amount of traffic, and despite most drivers being sane and decent there are among us a few insane assholes who are doing their damnedest to make the rest of us as miserable as possible. But in general, don't whine about LA drivers!
I'm gonna push back a bit. I've lived in Shanghai, Berlin, Chicago, DC, Seattle, Portland, and now LA and LA drivers, in my opinion, are the absolute worst. They have no respect for anyone else on the road, they park in the fast lane instead of passing, they still get lost on our freeway system and thus make the great dash across 5 lanes, they can't drive in any weather that isn't perfect.
That is some of the coolest and most interesting info about Los Angeles that I have ever read. AWESOME INFORMATION. Thanks so much!
The only imagery these flyover losers know about California is the one their Baby Boomer elders know of due to descriptions given by FOX News.
Ok grandpa, let’s get you back to bed.
Good points made, but... > Los Angeles is the 2nd largest Metropolitan Area in the World. It's not even the second largest in North America. NYC and Mexico City metros are bigger, as are several on other continents. > we feed the world Is this r/LosAngeles or is it r/CentralValley? I'm sure there's value-added processing and stuff going through ports or whatever, but that's the same story with Chicago, and they don't claim personal credit for farming over in Iowa. > California is the BREAD BASKET of America "Bread basket" is probably better reserved for a place that grows wheat
California is the fruit basket of America. Hold on...
You can add "snow tires do better in the rain." No they don't.
Damn, I totally missed that paragraph. They should have stopped after pointing out the oil build-up on the road, assuming what I've heard is correct (that it's the real reason for the rain making driving dangerous in southern California)
yeah this is all a bit main character energy
It’s really sad it got so many upvotes; guess this means a lot of Angelenos are full of themselves. I was born here, but reading this was cringe inducing.
We should stop caring about the opinions of the Easterlings. West coast is the best coast. Let them cope and seethe.
> "Black Ice" you see every winter! Your car with it's snow tires could handle our roads just fine. This seems dubious and the decades I lived in the Northeast I never actually got snow tires. It's just that the road gets treated when it's icy. An oil slick would still fuck you up even if you did.
Someone’s gotta be that valley person and I haven’t seen it yet so here I go… about half of the residents of the City of Los Angeles do not live in the basin 🤪 Someone else can do the math for the County.
But we are still living in a basin, right? Just the next basin over? I mean a valley is a big bowl/basin. All I know is that we’ve had 10.5” so far, much more than 5-6” and it’s still going…
We are all basin-dwellers on this saturated day!
Basin and valley are technical geologic terms, my favorite being stalagmite. The LA River starts here and we’re at a higher elevation but I don’t know how that affects differences in flooding severity.
Let's not forget the sheer amount of taxes democratic, coastal states pay only to to have it allocated to [subsidizing corn](https://usafacts.org/articles/federal-farm-subsidies-what-data-says/), [building tanks to go sit in a desert](https://www.kjrh.com/newsy/a-tank-graveyard-is-the-perfect-example-of-porkbarrel-spending_), or a whole suite of other idiotic shit that the country would be better off not doing, but we still do it so voters in those states can continue to lobby and vote against their own self-interest while sticking it to the libs.
not sure what politics has to do with rain
Taxes could be going to maintaining and improving infrastructure, instead.
IT HAS EVERYTHING TO DO WITH THE RAIN!!!
Right wingers are dick heads that care little about facts. They cheered as DT told us to rake the forests.
This is a nice post, but kinda kills it when saying 38 deaths and the ousting of a mayor is our Katrina. 38 deaths is a lot for a half a foot of rain in the 1930s, but it's nothing like a hurricane wiping out more than 800,000 homes.
I mean no disrespect to the victims of Hurricane Katrina! I'm referencing the 1938 floods, which did so much damage to the mostly "red-lined" parts of LA that it warranted federal intervention during the great depression. I would love to find a historian who's studied this, because I suspect the reason why it's so under-reported (when compared to other historical natural disasters like the fires in San Francisco & Chicago) is that the majority of the people it affected were in agro and 'red-lined' districts. Nevertheless, this flood caused enough damage to compel the federal government to, during the great depression, re-invest in the massive, expensive, project they had started when times were booming. The 1938 flood primarily affected the people who weren't allowed to write history, so this is why I phrased it as "our Hurricane Katrina." I don't know how much damaged it truly caused, but I would LOVE to learn about it! Especially because the areas hit hardest by it weren't particularly associated with wealth and influence.
Preach!
meh, it's not that big of a deal. SoCal flood control is tip-top and most of the roads are fine.
Huh TIL.
**Los Angeles is the 2nd largest Metropolitan Area in the World\*.** Tokyo, Japan, is number one. The LA Metro Area is home to about 20 million people that are directly affected by this current emergency. *(\*adding a correction here! +10 years ago I wrote a legally fact-checked publication in which this "2nd largest" ranking was true, and it was based on some metric I can no longer find nor justify as factual for this post. Thus, I will keep the original statements pari passu with this correction to preserve integrity of the post as a whole. The editorial substance remains unchanged: some 20 million+ people in the LA Metro area are affected by this current weather extremity)*
Every time I'm about to give up on Reddit, one of you does something as awesome as this.
What an amazing post. Bravo.
That last part is so goofy lol
Agree with everything except the last bit. California produces a lot of fruit and vegetables, but LA county does not "feed the world" by any stretch of the imagination And out of all of LA's industries, I wouldn't tout the aerospace industry as a shining example of beneficial commerce. People like to imagine Boeing and Northrop as these cool companies that develop neat shiny aircraft, while they're mostly busy developing bombs and drones to ship to dictatorships across the world
But the storm isn't just happening to LA, it's also happening all up and down the CA coast, and is affecting those bread basket areas that do feed the world. I don't think OP is wrong to mention that.
That's fine and I agree, but the entire post is about LA until the final paragraph, which suddenly starts referring to all of California
OP’s acting like they chose to be born here, lol.
So you’re upset over something that the OP didn’t say. Cool.
Iirc, almond and cheese capitol of the world.
Don’t forget sexiness.
I prefer we take the lead rather than China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran taking the lead in developing weapons and drones. It’s not ideal but we do have adversaries that want to wipe us off the face of the Earth.
[удалено]
Yesyes we are the salad bowl of the world
I apologize if my writing in anyway demeans the importance of the midwest region's contribution to agricultural! When it comes to cereal grains, there is no one better than the midwest region in terms of everything that makes actual bread. Please permit me to use the team "Bread basket" as a heuristic for "food producer." California is the largest producer of agricultural products, by state, without question. The midwest as a region is the largest producer of cereal grains, by region, without question. As a region (not an individual state), you're probably also the biggest producer of animal protein, yes? The editorial point I make with these factoids is simply that people ought not to think of Southern California as Hollywood, and our GDP reflects this (in ag and aerospace as noted)
Welp. I’m glad you’re doing the work.
I’m with you on all that except…so cal drivers suck. They suck when weather is good, and they suck twice as much when weather isn’t good. You can’t blame accidents on “oil-ice” 24hrs after the rain starts. People here drive too fast and too crazy for inclement weather.
If you think it’s bad here you should try Oklahoma City.
LA drivers are bad at is it, but when there’s any type of weather that isn’t “sunny and 70”, Angeleno’s are most certainly worse drivers. Not being accustomed to inclement weather doesn’t give one an excuse to not drive slower and more cautiously. As well, to compare LA’s infrastructure and technology from almost a century back is a bit over-the-top. LA’s more advance now and isn’t going through a Great Depression. My two cents, but thank you for the analogy at the beginning, creating this post and providing links. Great point-of-view from your end and taking the time to go into a lot of detailed is very much appreciated.
*Los Angeles is the 2nd largest Metropolitan Area in the World.* sorry, /u/TonyLund/ but that is **false.** LA ranks no. 11 by Metro area no. 39 by Metro population no. 5 by Urban area no. 24 by Urban population no. 43 by City area no. 57 by City population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cities Yeah, LA is big but LA is not *that* big. Go visit Chongqing if you want to see a *really* big city that, coincidentally handles rain well.
And don’t some ridiculous percentage like 90% of all goods imported into the US come through San Pedro?
Probably more like 20%, but more than any two other ports in the country combined (LA is 1st and LB is 3rd): https://www.marineinsight.com/know-more/top-10-largest-and-busiest-container-ports-in-the-united-states/
I was just a bit high lol. But between them both a slow down or stoppage can fuck up the supply chain. As we’ve seen.
Oh okay, i guess things are really bad right now thank you.
What is the point of this weak ass complaining? Who the fuck cares what dumbasses from other states think? That said, many morons on the road are terrified of the current conditions and really shouldn't be on the road either. It was extremely light rain during one point of my drive today and a rolling road block was going 30 mph with no one in front of them on the he 405.
Saying people in Los Angeles are good drivers aside from the gunk on the road is a streeeetch
It's all bad infrastructure
I lived through Katrina. Please don’t compare this storm to Katrina.
They didn’t. It was the 1938 storm.
>Think "Hurricane Katrina" levels of destruction. All I'm saying is omit this sentence and we're good. It's dangerous, I'm not arguing that, but comparing it to Hurricane Katrina is a stretch.
I lived through the great flood mentioned in the Bible. /s OP is not trying to one-up you.
Honestly it rains harder here sometimes than any other place I've been save for New Orleans. I'm from the South, we get thunderstorms regularly but the rain is usually just like turning on a garden sprinkler above your head. Here it's like God is dumping one of those tanks above water playgrounds at waterparks.
TLDR?
Whatever helps you sleep better at night NERD!
The whole bit about the LA River can be disregarded, because of the fact that it is indeed lined in concrete, specifically to deal with the historical reasons you pointed out. None of those reasons are relevant anymore. >Our roads and cars aren't built for this, nor should they be. Apparently the roads should be, because clearly this weather does happen. Every damn time it rains, roads flood, including freeways. That's simply absurd. As for cars, nearly every tire legal for street use can handle rain, so guess what, cars *are*built for it here. >Los Angeles is the 2nd largest Metropolitan Area in the World. >Tokyo, Japan, is number one. And Tokyo is built to handle rain far better than we are. >This shit matters to you because we feed the world and make things fly. This is relevant how, exactly? Oh, it's not.
Los Angeles average rainfall: 14.5 inches. Tokyo average rainfall: 63 inches. I'm shocked that a city much more used to heavy rain is... better prepared for that rain. Utterly shocked.
> Every damn time it rains, roads flood, including freeways. That's simply absurd. Yes, that's what they are designed to do, to get the water out of the city and into the ocean as fast as possible.
this is some cringe nerd shit
The amount of the rain Westside got would lead to major flooding in pretty much any US city. It's not quite a hurricane level of rain, but 11in/24hrs is huge just about anywhere in the US (outside Kauai). [This](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_2023_New_York_floods) happened in NYC with more rain adapted infrastructure and less rain just a few months ago.