Rain

Plans to cut down a large palm tree on the 4600 block of Palm Drive as early as Friday have been postponed due to wet weather. Gonzalo Venegas, the city’s facilities and maintenance superintendent, said the 50-foot tall California palm is infected with the mushroom-like ganoderma fungus, which eventually will damage the tree’s ability to remain standing and could spread to neighboring palms if the tree is not removed. Another palm that had become infected was removed last year.

The 1952 film, “Singin’ in the Rain” took audiences to an imaginary studio, Monumental Pictures, where the end of the silent film era loomed overhead. Imitating real life, two mega silent film stars are about to have their lives changed when “The Jazz Singer” is released, changing the world of entertainment forever. “Singin’ in the Rain” has been adapted for the live stage and the Glendale Centre Theatre has taken on the task of producing this well-known story.

With a heavy rain on the horizon, foothill residents on headed another round of evacuation orders by mid-afternoon, many of their neighborhoods already sopped from a storm last week. With the powerful storm expected to produce thunderstorms and up to two inches of rain Friday night through early today, Lyn Slotky said she wasn’t planning on staying in her Ocean View Boulevard home, especially after the damage it sustained during a Feb. 6 mudflow. “It’s cold,” she said.

A series of three storms that began on Friday and continued through to Monday brought 6.39 inches of rainfall to La Cañada Flintridge, according to measurements taken at Descanso Gardens. Although it was the most rain to fall here in a single month since February 2004, no flooding was reported to the Crescenta Valley Sheriff’s Station. The highest concentration of rain was recorded on Sunday at 3.40 inches, with the lightest rainfall, .18 inches, arriving on Friday. Temperatures were relatively cold, dropping down to 39 degrees on Monday night.

Nobody needed a reminder of the storms, the fires, the mudflows of the last six months in the community, and yet, here everybody was on Sunday, after a heavy rain the day before and puddles left all over the field. It drizzled on and off, but the children marched with their teams in the parade and an estimated 2,500 people took a collective sigh of relief at La Cañada High’s baseball field for the La Cañada Junior Baseball Softball Assn.’s opening day ceremonies on Sunday.

Residents in the Station fire burn areas no longer have to check the weather channel for the latest forecast. They know the prediction is for rain when they see television news vans cruising local neighborhoods and hovering at major intersections along Foothill Boulevard. La Cañada Flintridge, thrust into the national spotlight during the Station fire in late August, is once again making headlines with the ongoing threat of mudslides. Reporters, photographers and cameramen have joined the mix of safety engineers, public works crews and city officials who swarm impacted communities at the first sign of rain.

The rain of last weekend and cool temperatures may fit well with the holiday season in La Cañada. But be warned, the wet stuff did not bring Southern California out of its ongoing dry spell in a meaningful way, according to the experts. “Right now we have had a little storm and we will be at normal [rainfall for the season]. That’s the good news,” said Bill Patzert, climatologist and oceanographer from Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “But normal doesn’t cut it in terms of the drought.

It seems nothing much can be done about the airborne soot that, depending on the day, drapes La Cañada like a widow’s veil, an unwanted accessory fashioned by the hand of the unknown arsonist. No sooner do we wipe things down than a breeze comes through and blows debris off the denuded San Gabriels into our air and onto every surface it encounters. Last weekend’s wind gusts were unnerving, and had the added element of a traffic threat: They pushed already teetering rocks, no longer held firmly in place by plant life, onto Angeles Crest Highway above town just as Caltrans was readying to reopen it for the first time since that late August afternoon when the Station fire was ignited.

Having dodged a bullet when this week's rainfall was not as heavy as anticipated, officials continue to call on La Cañada Flintridge residents to clear away yard waste and debris generated by the recent windstorm before more rain arrives. The city helped advertise county-sponsored green waste disposal opportunities last weekend in anticipation of Monday's rain, said Kevin Chun, director of administrative services. “We did make preparations in anticipation of the rains, but as it turns out, the rains were uneventful for us,” Chun said.

”Anything goes” says it all when speaking and writing about New York City. It is indeed a special place. If Chicago is the city of big shoulders, then New York City is the city of big - everything imaginable. My wife, Marilyn, her mother and I ventured forth from La Cañada last month for an eight-day sojourn to this town with the big muscles. Frank Sinatra gets it right every time he sings, “New York, New York, I want to wake up in a city that never sleeps.” Of course it's not La Cañada or even Los Angeles.

“Hey, Mary, do you want me to go out and bring in the mail? I just saw the mail truck stop at our box.” Another day of reliable mail service. We residents of La Cañada Flintridge are served faithfully by our letter carriers. We expect our mail to be delivered to us six days a week in the morning or in the afternoon. Day in and day out, nothing stops the trusted postal patrol bringing our letters, catalogs, checks (we need more of these, please) and bills. Ugh. I had the opportunity last week to meet with Roslyn Strawther, our postmaster since 2009.

The rainy season announced its return yesterday with a steady downpour that soaked La Cañada Flintridge streets. Fortunately, no rain damage had been reported to the Crescenta Valley Sheriff's Station as of late afternoon, though several traffic collisions on the 2 and 210 freeways were attributed by Sheriff's deputies and California Highway Patrol officers to excessive speed on the wet roads. No flooding or mudslides were expected, according to Sgt. Randy Tuinstra of the CV Sheriff's station.

La Cañada Flintridge resident Diana Schulz, CEO of the water-conservation technology company Cyber Rain, will receive a Women in Business award next month from the area’s state representatives in recognition of her company’s positive impact on the environment. State Assembly members Anthony Portantino (D - La Cañada) and Mike Gatto (D - Silver Lake) joined state Sen. Carol Liu (D - La Cañada) to recognize Schulz and 20 other businesswomen in their districts as role models.

Local water agencies give credit to wet weather and genuine conservation efforts by many La Cañada Flintridge residents for significantly reducing water usage throughout the city during a recent 10-day cutoff of imported water supply. The temporary closure of a Metropolitan Water District treatment plant for repairs prompted a voluntary ban on outdoor watering from March 18 to March 28. During that time, demand for water fell 20% to 30% throughout the city — meaning a lot of residents did refrain from irrigating lawns and gardens, which accounts for the majority of the city’s water use. Local water officials also admit luck had a lot to do with it. As if on cue, rain clouds and cooler temperatures fell upon the city shortly after the call for conservation began, eliminating much of the temptation for residents to sneak a few gallons for roses and other water-thirsty plants.

Let us go easy on beleaguered meteorologists, even as we set umbrellas and rubber boots by the door for another week of weeping gray skies. Let us not scorn those forecasters who, months ago, so confidently predicted a drier-than-normal Southern California winter. Instead, let's calmly note that Sunday's ferocious storm dumped so much water throughout the region that it shattered records in several communities. Downtown Los Angeles and many other areas have exceeded rainfall averages for an entire season -- and there's still three months to go. "La Niña definitely was a bust," said Bill Patzert, a climatologist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge and one of several meteorologists who predicted last fall that La Niña, a climatological phenomenon marked by cold ocean-surface temperatures, would bring a drier-than-normal rainy season.

La Cañada homeowner Neal Peterson is a walking library of snake-encounter stories, beginning with the one about the rattler that slithered out from the boards of his house while it was under construction in 1975. Then there was the five-footer who lashed out at his wife from its resting spot near a storage shed, and the rattler that was found dead next to the body of a cat who used up all nine of its lives in the deadly heat of battle. Dogs gone missing, gruesome shovel beheadings and fire-department dispatches to the occasional in-home invasion are nothing new to homeowners on Gleneagles Place and Starlight Crest.

Plans to cut down a large palm tree on the 4600 block of Palm Drive as early as Friday have been postponed due to wet weather. Gonzalo Venegas, the city’s facilities and maintenance superintendent, said the 50-foot tall California palm is infected with the mushroom-like ganoderma fungus, which eventually will damage the tree’s ability to remain standing and could spread to neighboring palms if the tree is not removed. Another palm that had become infected was removed last year.

A series of storms that touched down late Monday night could bring two to four inches of total rainfall to La Cañada Flintridge and the surrounding foothills throughout the weekend, though local forecasters report this wet weather likely will not threaten hillside stability. Despite December’s record-breaking rainfall of 14.5 inches, this most recent spate of rain will be simply a return to average levels for February after a drier-than-usual January. The National Weather Service issued a special weather statement on Monday, reporting that a series of Pacific storm systems would produce unsettled weather, including gusty winds, rainfall and snow in the mountain areas.