Thursday, January 21, 2010

Heavy Rain Closes Colleges in Long Beach

It was a torrential downpour when I ran out from my office building yesterday to head home from work. I had parked by the athletic facilities, and thus after pulling my car out I drove south on Faculty toward Conant, and then right over to Lakewood Boulevard south, which is my normal route in the afternoon. Perhaps I should have thought twice about it (although at the moment it was raining so hard I doubted an alternative route would have been better). Lakewood was totally flooded and I thought some of the cars might stall from the high water -- mine included. Police had set up a detour at the Lakewood Boulevard and Spring Street intersection, and I traveled east on Spring to Bellflower Boulevard to the 405 southbound. And to my surprise, not a car was on the freeway when I pulled up around the on-ramp. No doubt the 405 was flooded not too far up the road northbound, and the traffic on the other side of the freeway was backed up. When I got home, ABC 7 was showing clips of the Lakewood Boulevard undercrossing (which goes literally under the Long Beach Airport) totally flooded out with mud and debris:

Unlike Long Beach State, where the semester doesn't start until next week, my college is open for classes. Here's the message at the LBCC website as I logged on from my kitchen laptop to write this post:

Thursday January 21, 2010, 4:30 p.m.

Tonight’s weather forecast for Long Beach predicts more rainfall, but at this time, both LAC and PCC campuses are scheduled to remain open for evening classes. We will notify you immediately if there are any changes via email and updates on the LBCC home page.

Please continue to exercise caution when walking around/within campuses, as the walkways and floors may be slippery.

Eloy O. Oakley,
Superintendent-President
Thanks to Dana at Common Sense Political Thought, who asked if my house was dry. That's an affirmative. But it's gnarlier around here than I can remember for a long time.

Check
KABC-TV Los Angeles for updates on the Southern California storms.

1 comment:

  1. Dr. D,

    Sounds like you guys are going through what we in Georgia experienced over the summer.

    Y'all try and stay dry out there, ya hea?

    I had two close calls at Kennesaw State U back in the day.

    One was an idiot who nearly ran me down in the parking lot as I was headed back to my car one evening after my last class.

    The other was me in the computer lab late one hot summer afternoon, toiling frantically to put the finishing touches on a rather lengthy research paper due that very evening.

    There was one of those famous Georgia thunderstorms raging outside, but I wasn't aware of it, as we were buried pretty deep into the building.

    That is, not until I felt (not heard) a severe vibration, and then felt the charge that came through the keyboard, which was a split-second before the lights flickered.

    LOL - I got a A- on the paper, but damn near died in the process of its completion.

    It's what I got for being the world's worst procrastinator when it came to research papers.

    Funny thing was, the later I started them, the better grades I received.

    Go figure.

    -Dave

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