Taking the high road

Here's something I don't tell a lot of people: occasionally - very occasionally - I watch the Weather Channel.

Fine. Use it against me. But I know more about tornadoes and typhoons than you ever will. And I'm sure that and the algebra I had to take four times will eventually come in very handy.

When I'm watching and see all the hurricane footage they show, I always think the same thing: I'll take our earthquakes over their hurricanes any day (although I'd like that day to be a Monday, because why ruin a perfectly good weekend).

With a hurricane, everything it touches is blown to smithereens. Houses become splinters. Cars become airborne as if they were the same size and weight as Hot Wheels. Everyone's life resets to zero and they have to start over.

I'm born and raised in L.A. I've been through a lot of earthquakes. And as a rule, about 98% of everything is still standing afterwards. Cosmetic damage, sure. But this is L.A. We have lots of people who know how to take something that's fallen apart on the outside and make it look better.

When it comes to earthquakes, the news is a cruel tease. Whether it's L.A. or Japan, the coverage would make you believe that entire cities or countries have been destroyed. Simply not true.

All of this brings me to Hermosa Beach.

I was down there walking around with my son last Tuesday, and we saw the sign you see above. Truthfully, tsunamis, or tidal waves, had never really been on my radar (that would be my Doppler radar). Unless the Weather Channel was doing a special on them. This sign immediately brought back images of the footage from Thailand in '04, and the tsunami in Japan after the most recent earthquake.

And as I looked at the sign, I just had one thought. Say goodbye to Hermosa Beach.

If you look just to the right of the sign, that's where the ocean is. Close isn't it?

And Hermosa is the quintessential sleepy beach town with all that implies: narrow streets, too little parking and too many cars, and a beachy little attitude that just screams, "Why the rush?"

They're goners.

So, as I sit in my house three miles inland on a small hill, I'd like to take a minute to say goodbye to Hermosa Beach, and let them know how sorry I am they spent good money on tsunami evacuation signs that aren't going to do jack when surf's up - way up.

I hope they at least made them waterproof.