We don’t usually experience rain in California even when an El Nino was reported to occur last year. There simply isn’t that much rain that goes around California especially Southern California.
This OC Register article reports of the troubles of the rain that we are currently getting in Southern California. However, these troubles are quite a laugh to some person in Washington where it rains for most of the year. So why is such minimal rain when compared to other states in the country causing car crashes and potential floods already?
The obvious answer is that rain is not a part of the Californian livelihood. For example, my family traveled to Florida this past summer. We didn’t expect rain because Florida was closer to the equator and would always be warm and sunny. However, on the road trip back from the Kennedy Space Center, a big thunderstorm overtook the area. The car’s windshield wipers felt like they couldn’t keep up, the lanes were almost invisible to my dad, and the rain was so hard that some had to turn on the hazards on their cars to make the car visible for other drivers. However, there was always the odd cars that would drive normally like nothing happened. They drove twice as fast compared to my dad. Then my dad said “How are these guys driving so fast in these types of conditions?” My mom and I resulted to the fact that the residents are simply living their lives. They have to get to point A to point B no matter the conditions.People act as if everything is normal when they are fully adapted to their environment. This anecdote perfectly exemplified that case.
So when news stories are stating that their car crashes and trees toppling over in rain specifically in Southern California, just think that the stories are normal because the Orange County environment and people are not used to that kind of stuff everyday.
Article by OC Register: http://www.ocregister.com/articles/rain-740617-monday-morning.html
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