Section of National Trails Highway to reopen

Public Works equipment repairing a section of National Trails Highway between Newberry Springs and Ludlow to repair road damage caused by flash flooding. (@CountyWire)

@CountyWire
County of San Bernardino

Public Works is planning on reopening the section of National Trails Highway from Hector Road to Crucero Road, in the Newberry Springs/Ludlow area, by Friday, November 7.

Severe thunderstorms blasted the Mojave Desert September 7 and 8 triggering flash floods throughout the desert regions. Closure of I-95, I-40, National Trails Highway (Route 66), Needles Highway, and various other desert roads occurred due to washouts and bridge damage.

The most extensive damage was along National Trails Highway where approximately 40 bridges were damaged along with major portions of the roadway. Sections between Hector Road to Crucero Road (Newberry Springs/Ludlow, area), Crucero Road to Amboy Road, and Cadiz Road to Mountain Springs Road at I-40 have been closed pending roadway repairs, shoulder repairs and bridge evaluations.

Public Works crews have been working diligently to make these repairs. This is the first stretch of the road to be reopened since the storms occurred.

It is anticipated the section of roadway between Crucero Road and Amboy Road will be open by the end of December 2014 and the section between Cadiz Road and Mountain Springs Road at I-40 by the end of January 2015. All of these time frames could vary depending on the weather.

ROUTE 66: After the rains, a humbled highway

Travelers are being turned away from fabled Route 66 and large sections of the historic highway have been closed since mid-September after heavy desert thunderstorms washed out bridges and undermined sections of pavement.

Route 66 heading west out of Ludlow is closed to traffic, one of several sections of the historic highway that are shut off to travelers. (Mark Muckenfuss)

By Mark Muckenfuss
The Press-Enterprise

Just try getting your kicks on Route 66 these days. It’s not easy.

Large sections of the historic highway have been closed since mid-September after heavy desert thunderstorms washed out bridges and undermined sections of pavement. In some spots there are holes large enough to swallow one of the motorcycles belonging to tourist groups that regularly retrace the Western route.

Those travelers and others now have to detour off of Route 66 between Newberry Springs and Needles, taking I-40 instead. San Bernardino County officials estimate it will take $1.4 million to fix the damage. They hope to reopen the road by late November.

For Route 66 enthusiasts, the detour is a disappointment. For those who live on the highway that brought generations of migrants west to California, the closure is more painful.

“We’re basically closed,” said Jim Wilson, 62, owner of Bolo Station Bar & Grill & RV Park, in Cadiz.
Barriers at the Kelbaker Road/Route 66 intersection 6 miles west of Wilson’s place tell eastbound motorists the road is closed to through traffic. Not many venture through to his place. The handful that do have had to turn around.

“You can get down to my place here,” Wilson said, “but right after you go over the bridge past my property (the road) is closed.”

Beyond that, there are bridges that have washed out.

“They’re bad,” he said.

Brendon Biggs is deputy director of operations for the San Bernardino County Department of Public Works. He’s overseeing a workforce of 20 to 30 people making repairs to Route 66.

“Right now it’s high on the priority list,” Biggs said. “We want to get the road open.”

The flooding that hit the region was almost unprecedented, he said.

“We had multiple locations of severe damage,” he said. “We had approximately 40 bridges damaged in some way along with the road surface itself.”

Residents in such tiny towns as Essex and Chambliss can get in and out, but everyone else has to go around.

“It definitely affects tourism,” Biggs said. “National Trails Highway (the original name for Route 66) is a big road. The most scenic areas, they’re not able to enjoy that right now. There are big holes in the road.”

ROUTE 66 DAMAGE
Where the route is closed:

• Along I-40, from the Hector Road exit to Ludlow

• East of Ludlow to Amboy

• From Kelbaker Road east to I-40

Where it's open:

• Between Amboy and Kelbaker Road

Opened: Nov. 11, 1926, though the famed "Rte 66" signs didn't go up until 1927.

Nicknames: The Mother Road, America's Main Street

Household name: Popularizing the road in the 1960s were a hit TV show starring Martin Milner and George Maharis, which ran 1960-1964 on CBS, and a top-selling pop song, "(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66," later recorded by scores of artists.

No longer super: Route 66 was removed from the U.S. highway system in 1985 because it had been replaced nationwide by a network of bigger, newer Interstate highways.

But always beloved: The road is still popular among pop-culture enthusiasts, historians, classic car collectors and tourists, particularly visitors from Europe.

The gates are open! Tens of thousands of stranded 'burners' flood into Burning Man site after festival is reopened following rare storm

Deserted: Tens of thousands of people should have arrived to create a make-shift city in Nevada's Black Rock Desert. But after Monday morning's rains, the site was empty until today.

By Alex Greg and Ted Thornhill
UK Mail Online

Tens of thousands of so-called 'burners' were flooding through the gates of Burning Man this morning after the event was reopened following a rain storm that left Nevada's Black Rock Desert looking more like a swamp on the festival's opening day.

Vehicles were allowed into the event's entrance on Highway 34 northeast of Gerlach from 6 a.m. Tuesday, organizers tweeted just after 1 a.m.

Festival goers, or 'burners,' responded to the good news with excited tweets such as 'time to get back on the road,' and 'all roads lead to #burningman.'

Yesterday, incredible pictures taken from the air showed the astonishing number of people stranded in the desert after rare heavy rains prevented them entering the site of the annual festival.

By Monday, it should have resembled something from a post-apocalyptic Mad Max movie, a teeming mini city growing out of the sand.

But standing water turned the playa 90 miles north of Reno into a quagmire and police barred ticket holders entry to the free-spirited week-long arts event.

Hundreds of vehicles massed outside the gates waiting for the weather to clear up, with some posting messages on Twitter about their predicament using the hashtag #strandedman.

Festival-goer Jordan Kalev arrived at the event by plane and took pictures of the site as he flew over showing the sheer volume of traffic massed at the entrance and the soggy state of the ground.

Around 70,000 people were left anxiously waiting for the event to start, with many driving back to Reno rather than queue in the desert.

Several hundred people who arrived on Sunday were told to remain in place in their camps but those who came to the gates for the 10 a.m. opening on Monday were turned away and told to keep an eye on social media.

'Black Rock City has shut down following rainstorms that left standing water on the playa, leaving it undrivable,' said Jim Graham, a festival spokesman, in a statement issued on Monday.

Highway patrol officers turned back festival goers who have paid upwards of $1,000 on the black market for tickets to the event, which last year saw a record 68,000 people spend a week in the desert for the annual art, music and everything else festival.

Rudy Evenson, who works at the US Bureau of Land Management, who operates the Black Rock Desert site Burning Man uses said that the festival would not get underway on Monday 'because there was too much rain. When it dries out they'll let people in again.'

The downpour began at 6 a.m. on Monday and continued for several hours, only dumping a tenth of an inch of rain, enough to make the muddy flats unfit for vehicles to drive on.

'We're going to make the best of the situation,' Charlie Lucas, of Portland, Oregon, told the Reno Gazette-Journal.

By midday Monday, hundreds of people had gathered outside a tribal smoke shop just off US Interstate 80 in Wadsworth east of Reno where they were buying camping permits at the lake that sits on the Pyramid Lake-Paiute Reservation.

Clerks at the smoke shop said they had no idea how many permits had been sold, only that they were 'overwhelmed' and did not have time to talk.

'We're going to make good of a bad situation,' Shaft Uddin of London told the Gazette-Journal. 'I hear Pyramid Lake is beautiful, and apparently there is going to be a big party.'

By Monday afternoon, yellow Volkswagen buses, countless recreation vehicles and at least one school bus painted to look like a cheetah with whiskers on the hood began packing campsites along the lake.

Close to a dozen of those first arrivals took off their clothes and entered the lake, the newspaper reported.

Nudity is allowed at Burning Man as part of the celebration of art and self-expression.

But within an hour, a park ranger at Pyramid Lake had asked the campers to put their clothes back on. 'How can you not know that it is not OK to be naked in public?' the ranger asked.

Hundreds of travelers searching for oneness with nature and celebration of self-expression inf act spent their first night in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart or Reno resort casino.

But most were taking it in stride and were largely optimistic - as so-called 'Burners' are apt to be - that the gates to the counterculture event would reopen Tuesday.

'You take it as it comes,' said Mark Vanlerberghe, who left San Jose, California, in an RV that he ended up parking Monday at the Wal-Mart for the night when he heard the access road to the remote festival site was closed.

'You're going to the desert and you know there's weather to deal with,' he said. 'I guess that's part of being a Burning Man. Don't get stressed about it.'

Dozens of RVs and vans bound for Burning Man were parked at the Wal-Mart at the Three Nations Plaza, and nearly a hundred more across the street by sundown at the Grand Sierra Resort along U.S. Interstate 80 just east of downtown Reno.

The blinking casino lights and video billboards gave off a pink twinkle not unlike the various light shows at the weeklong desert gathering that culminates with the burning of a large wooden effigy the night before Labor Day.

But the yellow stripes on the blacktop pavement with 'Wrong Way' signs weren't exactly what the seekers of paradise on the playa had in mind on their way to soak up the various theme camps, art exhibits, all-night music and guerrilla theater, along with a decent dose of nudity and a bunch of other stuff that's just plain weird.

'We're just trying to stay positive,' said a woman from Oakland, California, who identified herself only as 'Driftwood' while hanging out in the Wal-Mart parking lot with a group of first-timers from Texas.
'Positivity can raise everything up.'

Barbara Quintanilla of Houston said the rain delay was the least of their worries in an RV with friends who didn't initially know whether the camper used diesel or regular gas, made a wrong turn out of Texas and ran over a sign post. Their destination is 'Planet Earth,' she said, 'The Eighties' Camp.'

'My friends believe that making it a longer trip will make you better,' Quintanilla said. 'We have a list of 27 things we need to get at Wal-Mart.'

Traveling companion Bill Sanchez of Houston said the voyage so far 'has been brutal.'

'We made a 2,000-mile trip and none of us had ever driven an RV before. It would only go 35 mph up hills,' he said with a smile at the plaza on land owned by a Nevada tribe.

'But through hard work and dedication, we will achieve our dreams.'

Jahliele Paquin and Jeff Difabrizio were in their third mode of transportation on the way to their first 'Burn' from their home in Canada's Northwest Territories.

They flew from Yellowknife to Regina, Saskatchewan and bought a van they drove to Reno, where it broke down Monday and they rented a car for the rest of the trip.

'We're kind of thinking like we'll get there when we get there,' Paquin said.

Jeff Cross of Orange County, California was in a different group with Texans Adam Baker and Chelsea Coburn making their second trip to the Black Rock and were determined the weather wouldn't deter them.

'It's the best festival in the world,' he said while unloading provisions at their RV outside the Wal-Mart Monday night. 'And there's no cellphones, no internet, no money or corporate sponsors.'

'You have to have a lot of supplies,' Coburn said. 'It's a lot of work, but it makes it more gratifying.

Indeed in recent years, devotees of Burning Man have become irritated with the expansion in popularity of the free-spirited event.

The festival dates back to 1986 and is based on ideals of community and inclusion - but visiting the ad-hoc city that rises from the desert each year has become a status symbol for the tech elite.

The one-upmanship of San Francisco tech nouveau riche, with their luxury accommodations and chef-prepared meals, is at odds with the spirit of the festival, say some longtime 'burners.'

The festival began as a counter-cultural gathering of free spirits on a beach in San Francisco and has evolved into a 10-day phenomenon spread across seven square miles of Nevada's Black Rock Desert.

Participants 'dedicate themselves to the spirit of community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance. They depart one week later, leaving no trace,' the Burning Man website explains.

Nothing but ice and coffee is for sale so attendees must bring enough food and water to sustain themselves.

Tens of thousands of likeminded burners frolic around the temporary city instilled with the principles of Burning Man, which include gifting, decommodification (no advertising or transactions), radical self-reliance and radical inclusion.

Art installations, music, free classes, costumes, sharing of love, opinions, food and discussion is the order of the day at Burning Man.

So it's unsurprising that the new wave of annual attendees from San Francisco with very different ideas about the experience has some devotees up in arms.

A man who attends the festival annually with a group of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs told The New York Times that the camp they establish costs $25,000 per person - but not for the models who are flown in on private jets from New York.

'We have the craziest chefs in the world and people who build yurts for us that have beds and air-conditioning. Yes, air-conditioning in the middle of the desert,' he said.

Regular attendees haul camping gear or drive rented RVs to the desert and pay $300 to camp for 10 days, using portable toilets and freshening up with wet wipes.

And flying in the face of the festival's tenets of 'radical self-reliance,' and 'communal effort,' some camps come complete with 'sherpas,' or hired help.

According to The New York Times, there are up to 30 sherpas waiting on 12 attendees who fly in on private planes and are then driven to their camp in luxury RVs and fed meals prepared by teams of top chefs.

Sherpas handle the rest - costumes, which are a big part of Burning Man life, drugs, and any other whim.

'The tech start-ups now go to Burning Man and eat drugs in search of the next greatest app,' Tyler Hansen, who worked as a sherpa, told The New York Times.

'Burning Man is no longer a counterculture revolution. It's now become a mirror of society.'

Elon Musk, a founder of PayPal, recently said that Burning Man 'is Silicon Valley' and that creator of the HBO show 'Silicon Valley' Mike Judge couldn't possibly understand the tech world because he hadn't been.

It's not only tech types - DuJour reports that socialites, heirs and heiresses and Hollywood starlets have also been attending in style, including Lady Victoria Hervey, shipping heir Stavros Niarchos, Alexandra von Furstenberg and Francesca Versace and a New York Wall Street tycoon who spent $1 million on a custom RV.

Money-making endeavors at the festival are also on the rise, with concierge companies offering packages including flights, transfers, food, camps with electricity, food, water and wifi, private toilets and even a 'customized art car' for wealthy burners.

This year's festival sold out within an hour.

After it moved from San Francisco's Baker Beach, the inaugural Burning Man in Nevada drew some 80 people in 1990.

The first 1,000-plus crowd was in 1993, and attendance doubled each of the next three years before reaching 23,000 in 1999. The crowd was capped at 50,000 under a five-year permit that expired in 2010.

Water Extremes: Too Little; Too Much; Too Slow; Too Fast

High & Dry

Thunderstorm Gathering at Sunset - Infrared Exposure - Trona, CA - 2010 (photographer about to get drenched) | Photo: Osceola Refetoff

By Christoper Langley
www.kcet.org

The marks of water, and its absence shape the story of human presence in the desert. I have lived in the desert for more than forty years, having been converted to desiccation.

In the desert I suffer from "rain hunger" nearly all the time. When a moisture-laden front makes it over the mountains, it is a gift from the gods, a time for a celebratory walk through puddles. In the Iranian desert, the Sarhad, where my Peace Corps site of Khash is located, it rained once in two years while I was there. It was not much but all the children had umbrellas, which immediately appeared for the short downpour.

The desert suffers from extremes: too little; too much; too slow; too fast. In my hometown of Lone Pine, the summer forecast is hot day after day. The rainiest month is in the winter, often February. However the most exciting rains come in August, or sometimes July, when the monsoonal flows out of Mexico sweep across the dry valleys, filling the air with moisture. We wait for the giant thunderheads, glowing and pulsing with electricity like great translucent jellyfish in the ancient seas that once covered these lands. They pulse and glow over the Inyo Mountains to the east towards Death Valley and the high desert beyond.

The towering cumulonimbus move in, first with the cold winds that sweep down in front of the storm, then with intensifying thunder and finally a downpour that comes in sheets of driving rain. All hell breaks loose in a release from the persistent waiting for the rains that have taken several summer months to arrive.

The thunder shakes everything in front of it. The rain pounds like a stampede of racing feet ever harder and faster. I rush out to see the storm, feel the icy rain on my face. Quickly I am soaked to the skin. Later I stand mesmerized at the front window as the storm obscures the landscape to the east in veils of rain.

Slowly the storm abates. The land falls into a satiated peace. Now the land smells sweet and perfumed, by the wet sage and the more bitter rabbit brush, and invasive Russian thistle. The air has cooled significantly, and there will be a good night's sleep.

Two storms from the past come to mind. First there was the microburst that came on a July afternoon. It had been sultry all day, pregnant with promise, yet still as death. The sky darkened and the heavens let loose an explosion of water for half an hour. Three inches of rain, more than half a year's worth, fell in that thirty minutes. The paved areas gave up the rush. Patios regurgitated water though sliding doors into living rooms. Desert highways flooded with brown water. Large arroyos were cut across the desert as water flowed downhill picking through the hillocks. Those marks are still there. The highway gagged and choked, and silt and boulders were left behind. These are called "debris flows."

What was startling was that if you went a mile north or south of town, it was more like half an inch of rain. Go further and it was dry.

One time a woman drove on the dry Highway 395 as a flash flood built up in the canyons above. The debris flow swept across the pavement without warning. They found her car rolled over and over about 400 hundred feet beyond the pavement, her drowned and abraded body even further away on dry sand.

The desert here suffers from flash brush fires that sweep across the land burning the resin ripe desert plants with brilliant heat. Just after the 4th of July, the Inyo County seat of Independence suffered from one of these fires. Driven by the winds, desultory in their direction, what appeared a controlled fire suddenly raced drunkenly across the landscape. The result was a barren land burned to black ash, hidden roots, and unanchored sandy soil. Add a summer downpour high in the Sierra and it is a recipe for disaster.

A year later, almost to the day, a microburst of clouds shedding tropical water became trapped in a canyon of the Sierra just west of town. A giant wall of water, dirt and boulders rushed down Ask Creek where there were many cabins and houses. Fifteen houses disappeared or were filled with silt waist high. No one drowned although one resident was rolled a while in the cavorting water. The scars remain still from the flash flood that swept across the highway.

Matching the rain that vents its anger against the desert landscape is the rain that doesn't fall to earth. This is virga. It is rain falling in sheets or lines that evaporate before hitting the surface of the earth. Above the virga there is a dark bellied cumulus cloud. Rolling thunder and a flash of lightning announces the forming of virga, but it also comes without a grand entrance.

Virga has a cold heart, often beginning at high altitudes as ice crystals. The falling to earth begins slowly as these crystals slide into thickening air. Compression heating of the air first melts the ice crystals then evaporates them into vapor.

Desert water has many secrets. Most people who die in the desert suffer and die of dehydration. That is the harsh story of the desert water, and its absence. Mary Austin wrote, "To underestimate one's thirst, to pass a given landmark to the right or left, to find a dry spring where one looked for running water - there is no help for any of these things."

We'll tell that tale another day.

High & Dry surveys the legacy of human enterprise in the California desert. Together, writer/historian Christopher Langley and photographer Osceola Refetoff document human activity, past and present, in the context of future development.

Heavy rains bring false spring to Anza-Borrego desert

Desert Hibiscus found near Glorietta Canyon on September 29, 2013 (Anza-Borrego Desert Natural History Association)

By Ernie Cowan
San Diego Union-Tribune

Mother Nature might know what is going on, but I’m confused.

Wildflowers and butterflies are something you find in the desert in the spring. Recent heavy rains have turned the desert into a green carpet of grass and produced a rare fall bloom of scattered wildflowers along with an invasion of colorful caterpillars and butterflies.

In July and August there was more than 4 inches of rain recorded in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. Summer monsoons swept up from the Gulf of California bringing more than three quarters of the normal rainfall for a full year.

Initially there was some significant flash flooding, but in this arid land, plants that see little water anytime are opportunists that quickly respond when rain does fall.

When driving into Borrego Springs along S-22, visitors frequently stop at the Crawford Overlook to enjoy the expansive view across the Borrego Valley into the Badlands and to the Salton Sea in the hazy distance.

The visitor now notices a green tinge to the desert floor because of the carpet of grass that has sprung up.

You first notice the large white Jimson Weed blossoms as you enter the park and the road breaks off, dropping into the desert and leaving Ranchita behind. Soon you spot prickly poppies dotting a landscape that was burned in a wildfire a year or so ago.

The careful observer will notice clouds of California Patch butterflies darting about and flocking around the bright yellow blossoms of blooming brittlebush. Brightly colored and striped green worms march across the landscape feeding on the abundant new growth.

The desert is happy.

By late summer many native plants have normally shriveled from blistering heat and the lack of water. This year the drenching rains have revived them and they stand fresh and strong from the unseasonal nourishment. It brings a smile to this leathered desert rat that revels in the anomaly.

As the highway makes the wide, sweeping turn through Culp Valley, there are more butterflies and green hornworms thriving in the new growth. Soon the big caterpillars will mature and bury themselves in the sand as they begin a transformation into a Sphinx moth.

Once on the desert floor you notice a forest of ocotillo covered with thick green leaves. Normally this time of year they look like dead tentacles covered in angry spines. The heavy foliage adds to the green hue, now the prime desert color.

A few cholla cacti are budding and some are in bloom. A hike up a desert wash will reveal beautiful red California fuchsia in bloom and clumps of yellow chinch weed like small buttons on a carpet of green.

Swallowtail butterflies flitter in the abundant fields and the mild temperatures of late summer are kind and embracing to the wilderness hiker.

Canyons that were once familiar to the frequent visitor are now strange places. Flash floods a month ago sculptured the land into different forms. Roads were eliminated, boulders moved, and a new landscape was created to explore.

There is another joy to this wonder of nature.

Some jeep trails are still impassable because of huge gouges cut in the sand or boulders that were moved and now block old routes. Hikes exploring canyons on the western edge of the desert may put the first footprints into the new sand deposited by the flash floods. The landscape has changed.

Spring wildflowers bring the most visitors to California’s largest state park, but the beauty of this false spring has yet to be discovered by most nature lovers. It won’t last long as the monsoon rains sink deeper into thirsty desert sands and the brown hues of fall once again return.

Until then, there is silent beauty awaiting the desert explorer.

Weekend Storms Close Park Roads in Joshua Tree and Mojave Preserve

Pinto Basin Road washed out in Joshua Tree National Park | Photo: NPS | Lacy Ditto

by Chris Clarke
KCET.org

Torrential rains that pushed into the California desert over the weekend washed out a number of main roads in Mojave National Preserve, as well as a major thoroughfare connecting the east and west sections of Joshua Tree National Park.

The storms, which dumped as much as 7 or 8 inches of rain in some parts of the desert on Sunday, washed out Pinto Basin Road in Joshua Tree National Park on Sunday. That road is closed for at least two weeks, as are the Cottonwood Campground and nearby visitor center that are accessible only by way of the closed road.

Farther north in the Mojave Preserve, which has been getting hit hard by rain over the last few days, a Sunday thunderstorm badly damaged the roads to the Preserve's formal campgrounds. Essex and Black Canyon roads, which are the only paved routes to the Preserve's popular Hole In The Wall Campground, are both closed.

Veteran preserve visitors who might be tempted to reach Hole In The Wall or the nearby Mid Hills Campground the back way, via the dirt section of Black Canyon Road via Cedar Canyon Road, will be disapponted as well: the National Park Service says travel on those well-loved backcountry roads is "not recommended." The same goes for the paved and dirt sections of Ivanpah and Lanfair roads, the 4WD-only Mojave Road, and Wildhorse Canyon Road. In general, though some dirt roads such as the popular Aiken Mine road remain open, the Park Service is officially advising people avoid traveling on the Preserve's back roads.

Despite those warnings, both the Hole In The Wall and Mid-Hills campgrounds remain open.

The Preserve's main paved through-routes also remain open, but the Park Service advises that San Bernardino County road crews will conducting emergency repairs to storm damage on Kelbaker and Kelso-Cima roads. Travelers routinely use those roads as high-speed shortcuts to Baker or Las Vegas; use extra caution this week and slow down for the sake of those crews.

Travelers who plan a visit to the Preserve can get updates on road conditions via the Preserve's website or by calling (760) 252-6108. Joshua Tree National Park is asking potential visitors to check that park's website for updates.

This weekend's storms passed by Death Valley National Park, and travelers may be tempted to head in that direction instead. But many of that park's roads remain closed after storms last month, and the tropical storm systems off the Baja coast will be sending storms our way for much of the next week, so be sure to check with the Park Service before you commit. Death Valley's Morning Report is a good source of recent updates to road conditions throughout that park.

Stinky L.A. smell tied to dead fish in the Salton Sea, officials say

Dead fish along the Salton Sea shoreline in southern California. The South Coast Air Quality Management District acknowledged the possibility that dead fish at the Salton Sea are partially to blame for the rotten-egg smell reported all day Monday. (AP Photo/Nick Ut)

Los Angeles Times

Regional air-quality managers on Tuesday said that the rotten egg odor that hit Southern California on Monday came from dead fish in the Salton Sea.

Air samples collected in the Coachella Valley, near the Salton Sea and elsewhere clinched inspectors’ suspicions of the 376-square mile, murky body of water as the source of the pervasive smell. Atwood said AQMD inspectors collected air samples which contained hydrogen sulfide.

Inspectors found concentrations of the gas, a product of organic decaying matter, heaviest close to the Salton Sea, with a pattern of decreasing concentration farther away.

“We now have solid evidence that clearly points to the Salton Sea as the source of a very large and unusual odor event,” said Barry Wallerstein, executive officer of the South Coast Air Quality Management District.

How unusual? As late as Monday night, AQMD officials weren’t even sure it was scientifically possible for a malodorous scent to trek the distance the Salton Sea’s fumes did. So they asked an air-quality modeler to use sophisticated computer modeling to find out if it was “theoretically possible” for a stench to travel that far.

“I think we’ve shown it was theoretically possible,” said Sam Atwood, a spokesman for the AQMD. “But this is just something we did not expect.”

Inspectors ruled out landfills, oil refineries and a natural springs site as possible sources.

“The air samples were the final piece of the puzzle,” Atwood said. “Our inspectors did go out to the Salton Sea and did smell some very strong odors at the sea, as well as at the locations leading up to it.”

But it took the might of a powerful storm blowing from the southeast to bring the stench of the Salton Sea to L.A. All in all though, L.A. got lucky, compared with the town of Mecca, just north of the Salton Sea, and Indio, which received larger doses of the gaseous, funky odor.

“The storm originated in the Gulf of California and the Sea of Cortez and hit the Imperial Valley and Salton Sea,” said Tim Krantz, a professor of environmental studies at the University of Redlands. “We had huge squalls and pretty heavy winds in the Coachella Valley. The winds pull the surface layers of the sea off from the southeast to northwest, and that surface water is replaced from the depth.”

And those depths are all kinds of stinky.

Experts said the winds from the Sunday night storm unsettled the fetid layers of water near the bottom of the sea, bringing them to the surface.

Andrew Schlange, general manager of the Salton Sea Authority, said that in the last week, a large number of fish died in the body of water, likely exacerbating the problem. But he said the fish die-off, which is a normal occurrence, was not significant enough on its own to explain the well-traveled odor.

Rather, he said, the storm upset an anaerobic—or oxygen-deprived—lower layer of the sea, where organic material lays decomposing, releasing the noxious hydrogen sulfide gas, with its distinct rotten egg smell.

The good news was that by Tuesday the odor had greatly diminished. As of about 5:30 p.m. Monday, there had been 235 complaints about the smell, Atwood said. Since then, there have been less than 10, though the “sulfur-type” odor still lingered in some parts of the region.

Atwood said a meteorologist for the AQMD has looked at the thunderstorm reports, and that along with wind-measuring instruments in the Coachella Valley, they determined that winds of more than 60 mph blowing from the southeast probably blew the rank odor to the L.A. Basin.

“That’s unusual because usually the winds are blowing in the opposite direction,” he said.

The Salton Sea has lost much of its depth. It's about 50 feet at its deepest point, with an average depth of about 30 feet, Schlange said. That means it doesn’t take as potent a weather event as it did in the past to cause an upswell that sends the water near the bottom to the top.

Schlange said the Salton Sea is losing much more water through evaporation than is being replenished through agricultural runoff and other sources. If water wasn’t flowing into the sea, it would lose a depth of about 4 to 6 feet a year through evaporation.

If something isn’t done to better replenish the Salton Sea, Schlange said issues with far-flung odors could be more common in the future. He said there’s a plan to do mitigation work on the sea, but money to fund it is lacking.

“All of a sudden Sunday evening, we had all these conditions that came together to allow something like this to occur,” Schlange said. “It’s occurred before, but not at this magnitude.”

Storms flood parts of Vegas, Navajo land, Calif. desert communities, Utah town

University of Nevada students Ryan Klorman, left, and Markus Adams relax on inflatable pool toys in floodwater in a parking lot at UNLV in Las Vegas on Tuesday. (John Locher / Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP)

By NBC News
wire services

Residents in four Southwest states were drying out Wednesday after thunderstorms flooded Las Vegas streets, stranded Navajo families in northern Arizona, left two mobile home communities in Southern California deep in water and caused a dike to fail in a Utah town.

In the Las Vegas area, the Tuesday storms delayed flights, snarled traffic and prompted helicopter rescues of stranded motorists. A golf course worker was reported missing and a search for the man resumed Wednesday, NBC affiliate KSNV-TV reported.

Television news video showed school buses inching along roads after school east of downtown Las Vegas, and muddy water up to the lower sills of windows of stucco homes in other neighborhoods.

In southeast Las Vegas, authorities urged the residents of about 45 homes damaged by flooding to leave in case electrical fires are sparked.

Dozens of cars were swamped by water up to their headlights in a parking lot outside the Thomas & Mack sports arena at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Firefighters responded to more than 20 calls about people in stalled cars .

A Las Vegas police helicopter was dispatched during the height of the storm to pluck several people from swamped vehicles on roadways.

More than 1.75 inches of rain were reported in downtown Las Vegas. The rainfall amounts put the region on pace to exceed the 4.5 inches of rain it normally gets in a year.

Tuesday was also the wettest September day on record in Las Vegas, weather.com meteorologist Nick Wiltgen reported.

Calif. mobile home parks hit hard

In California's Coachella Valley, a thunderstorm on Tuesday dropped more than the average annual rainfall there in one night alone, settling for six to eight hours over Mecca and Thermal, desert towns 150 miles southeast of Los Angeles.

In Thermal, the downpour flooded the Desert Mobile Home Park better known as Duroville, a community of mostly migrant workers with about 1,500 people, including 900 children, that has long been the subject of legal fights as Riverside County officials attempt to relocate residents.

More than a foot of water stood in the southern end of the park, knocking out power to about 800 people for much of the day.

"None of us had ever been through anything like this," said Tom Flynn, the court-appointed receiver for Duroville. "That much water in a dilapidated mobile home park was something to see."

The lack of power knocked out electric motors on both of the park's wells, leaving no fresh water until one was revived and county workers brought several tons of bottled water.

The park has no paved streets or drainage, and health officials were concerned about overflow from two ponds that serve as the community's sewers.

Between 60 and 80 people had evacuated from the park and were spending the night at a high school. "The poorest of the poor were hit the hardest," Flynn said.

St. Anthony's Mobile Home Park in Mecca also was affected, but fared better than Duroville. Video clips showed residents wading through knee-high water and cars creeping through flooded residential streets.

The storm dropped 5.51 inches of rain near Mecca and 3.23 inches of rain near Thermal, meteorologist Mark Moede said. The average annual rainfall in arid Thermal is just shy of 3 inches, he said.

"That's an amazing amount of rain," Moede said. "It's unusual anywhere to get a storm that sits stationary for five to eight hours."

Arizona and Utah flooding

On the Navajo Nation reservation in northeastern Arizona, many of Tuba City's roads were underwater and residents stuck in their homes. State Route 264, one of two main arteries in and out of town, was closed after a bridge washed out about a mile outside of the community, Tuba City Chapter Manager Benjamin Davis said.

Flooding was reported in some homes but no residents were displaced, Davis said.

Meanwhile, a dike that broke during heavy morning rain flooded nearly four square blocks in the southern Utah city of Santa Clara. More than 30 homes and business were evacuated after the break.

City Manager Edward Dickie said the dike along a retention pond sent a deluge of water into downtown.

"It didn't just breach. It broke. It's gone," he said, adding that the flooding quickly receded as water drained into rivers and creeks.

Such a wide area across the Southwest was hit, Wiltgen told NBCNews.com, because moist, unstable air interacted with a disturbance in the upper atmosphere.

"The disturbance helped to trigger the scattered thunderstorms that popped up across a broad swath of the Southwest," he said, "and these storms translated that very moist air into flooding downpours."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Mudslide Clean-Up Continues; Highway 395 Open

Thunderstorm-caused mudslide at Dunmovin, California, pushes a big rig off the northbound U. S. Highway 395 and into a culvert on Thursday, August 26, 2010. Video captured by Jeff Bradshaw of Laguna Niguel shows mud flowing from the southbound lanes and across the divided highway.

Written by Benett Kessler
Sierra Wave

After last Thursday's horrendous flood and mudslide across Highway 395 south of Olancha, Caltrans and others have worked constantly to clear the highway and now to free a big rig that was pushed down into a culvert by the flood.

Susan Lent, PIO of Caltrans, said that the roads are open, but there is a lot of clean-up to do. Intermittent lane closures continue as crews work to clean things up.

Lent said that an Incident Command meeting would take place at the mudslide site on Tuesday among representatives of Caltrans, the CHP, BLM, the Forest Service and DWP. Officials planned to discuss completing clean-up and removal of the big rig which is blocking a culvert.

The initial mudslide had caused complete closure of Highway 395 for several hours. Some motorists headed back to Ridgecrest and detoured through Death Valley although initially Highway 190 was closed due to flooding.

Crews were able to restore northbound and southbound traffic flow, although restricted, by Friday.

Rain too late for wildflowers

BY JOHN VAUGHN, BAJO EL SOL EDITOR
Yuma Sun

You may have been hoping that this week's forecasted rains would produce a bounty of colorful wildflowers in the Yuma area this spring.

But, alas, you'll have to wait until at least a year from now.

The rain will no doubt benefit the area's native trees and cactuses, say U.S. Bureau of Land Management officials. But it comes too late for the wildflowers that, in wetter years, blanket the desert and even pockets of Yuma in hues of purple, pink, yellow and white.

"We have to have rain in the fall and early winter to germinate the (wildflower) seeds, and it's been drought conditions," said Lori Cook, spokeswoman for the BLM's Yuma Field Office.

Rain is forecast in the area Wednesday and Thursday as a Pacific storm moves from California into Arizona.

Wildflower seeds stored in the soil begin germinating in the fall and need periodic rain from then through winter to blossom early in the new year, said Karen Reichhardt, a BLM botanist in Yuma.

"It's just like if you plant a garden. You have to water pretty regularly for the plants to grow."

In wet years, commonly seen wildflowers in the desert and in Yuma include the desert sand verbena, a low-growing plant with small lavender flowers; the desert sunflower, sporting large white flowers; and dune primrose, a tall purplish grass that grows in bunches at roadside and in disturbed soil.

In early 2009, the Yuma area had a good season for wildflowers on the heels of a wet winter that included heavy rains over the previous Thanksgiving holiday.

But this week's rain is not all wasted. Cook said it will benefit the area's native mesquite, cottonwood, willow and ironwood trees as well cactuses.

"They'll take it anytime they can get it."

And in the short term, she added, the rain will forestall dry conditions that can lead to wildland fires, which are not uncommon in Yuma County even in January and February.

Reichhardt said hikers and other outdoor enthusiasts who venture into the desert in the weeks and months ahead will still be able to see color. In bloom will be the area's hummingbird bushes, also know as chuparorsas; brittle bushes, palo verde and ironwood trees and cactuses.

"We just won't have the carpets of wildflowers."

Unusual snowstorm closes three major Southern California freeways

Snow covers Joshua trees in the Antelope Valley desert Monday afternoon.
I-5, I-15 and the Antelope Valley Freeway are shut down, stranding thousands of motorists. Some try to catch Metrolink trains and others bed down in motels. The storm is blamed for at least one death.

By Alexandra Zavis and Jennifer Oldham
Los Angeles Times

An unusually strong arctic blast dumped snow over a large swath of Southern California mountains and high deserts Wednesday, shutting down some of the state's busiest freeways, stranding thousands of motorists and cutting off several communities.

The storm's combination of frigid air, powerful winds and heavy precipitation dropped the snow level to an unusually low 2,000 feet, with at least 20 inches of snow in Wrightwood, 5 inches in the hills above Malibu and 6 inches or more in Palmdale, where all major routes from Los Angeles were blocked.

Forecasters expect the cold temperatures to continue today as the storm moves out, and another storm is expected to hit the region Sunday night.

Snow and ice shut down three of the region's key north-south routes -- Interstate 5, Interstate 15 and the 14 Freeway -- along with numerous mountain roads and desert highways.

The closures caused traffic nightmares for drivers trying to get in or out of Southern California. The severity of the storm caught many by surprise, leaving them stranded on the side of freeways, at rest stops and trying to stay warm inside their cars along snow-packed roads around Big Bear.

It had already started to rain when Garcia Ignacio of Lancaster drove off early Wednesday with his wife, Hortencia, to a kitchen remodeling job in Woodland Hills. But he never expected the drops to turn into sheets of snow. The couple spent the rest of the day trying to find a way home as authorities shut down one freeway after another. They finally gave up and checked into a La Quinta Inn in Santa Clarita.

"My 20-year-old and my 16-year-old are stuck home in Lancaster, and my wife and I are stuck here in a hotel," said Ignacio, who owns Aaron's Construction in Lancaster. "But I'm not worried about them, though. I called them already, and they were playing in the snow."

The storms brought steady rain to many parts of the Los Angeles Basin, and major street flooding was reported in Palm Springs. The opening night of the 100th annual Newport Beach Christmas Boat Parade was called off by organizers because of choppy seas caused by the storm.

Forecasters said the Las Vegas Strip could receive 3 inches of snow overnight. The weather caused some flight delays at the city's McCarren International Airport, which doesn't have snowplows.

The storm was blamed for at least one death, which occurred when a helicopter installing power lines crashed near Bouquet Canyon in Santa Clarita, killing a mechanic on the ground. The cause of the crash is under investigation, but it's believed a strong gust of wind hit the aircraft as it hovered just after liftoff, said Ian Gregor of the Federal Aviation Administration. The craft's tail broke off and a rotor blade struck the man on the ground, he said. The pilot suffered minor injuries but refused medical treatment, said Inspector Ron Haralson of the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

By about 1:30 p.m., traffic had ground to a halt along the northbound 14 at Sand Canyon Road as frustrated motorists tried to exit the shuttered freeway or pull onto the shoulder. Palm trees were doubled over in the lashing winds, and drivers wrestled to keep their vehicles in lanes.

A cluster of nearby restaurants and gas stations was jammed with people trying to figure out whether to wait out the storm or abandon their vehicles in the parking lot and take a train home. Some fretted about pets left outside in the cold. Others said they could not understand why the roads were closed, when they had stayed open in worse storms in the past.

Littlerock resident Deborah Deckert left her job at Warner Bros. in Burbank at 9:30 a.m. hoping to beat the freeway closures. Sitting at a Bergie's steakhouse, where high desert residents stood watching weather reports on big-screen TVs, she said it took her three hours to travel several miles on the 14 between the Sand Canyon and Soledad Canyon Road exits. She tried back roads as well but was forced to turn around. By the time she got off the 14 and pulled up in front of the restaurant, she was almost out of gas.

"I drive a clutch," she said. "I kept thinking to myself, as I was stuck in my car, 'At least this is good for my calves.' "

Stranded commuters jammed train stations, trying to get home. Metrolink agreed to honor bus passes from the Antelope Valley and Santa Clarita through this morning. But trains were running up to an hour late because of snow on the lines and poor visibility that made signals hard to see from the Via Princessa station in Santa Clarita to Lancaster, said Metrolink spokesman Francisco Oaxaca.

Motorists searched in vain for a parking spot at the Via Princessa station as the northbound 4:30 p.m. train approached. Lines at the ticket machines were at least 50 deep, and dozens more waited in rows alongside the tracks.

"Santa and all the nurses had to leave the Christmas party early," joked Debbie Ramirez, a nurse at Facey Medical Center in Santa Clarita, as she stood next to a passenger in a Santa suit. She rarely takes the train and had to ask other passengers which direction it came from.

Some commuters told of waiting in the freezing rain for 2 1/2 hours to buy a train ticket and then enduring another hour wait on the platform because the train was late.

Others took the weather in stride. A steady fall of big, wet flakes in the Antelope Valley community of Quartz Hill meant one thing to Kevin Vogel: snow day. He called a buddy and they made plans to go four-by-fouring in the fresh-fallen snow.

"It will be like a little sleigh ride out there," Vogel said.

His only concern was for his 8- and 9-year-old children, staying with grandparents in Las Vegas, who could get stranded as they try to make their way home today. "I wish they were here," he said. "I want to make a snowman, and for once they are not here."

Some businesses saw opportunity in the lack of bus service caused by the snow. Keith Bastedo, owner of Palmdale's High Desert Taxi Transportation, said business was up 100%, largely from commuters stranded at bus and train stations. Workers at two Palmdale tow-truck companies said they were too busy even to talk on the phone.

The Hampton Inn and Suites in Palmdale was sold out by 2 p.m. "This is usually our slow week, because of the holidays next week," said assistant manager Melissa Magallenos, one of two hotel administrators on duty when the deluge of customers began about noon.

The rain caused accidents and slow traffic on freeways around Southern California. In Palm Springs, Whitewater Wash overflowed, sending the runoff into the streets. San Diego firefighters and lifeguards evacuated 21 people along the overflowing Tijuana River. About 50 horses were also evacuated, but three others drowned and one was euthanized after tripping on barbed wire.

Steven Van Horn, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard, said the combination of moisture swept in off the coast and cold temperatures made this storm unusually snowy.

"Moisture has been pumping into the Antelope Valley all day and the temperatures have been cold enough, so we are getting a lot of snow," he said. "This is a fairly unusual storm. We don't usually get a cold storm like this until January. But this is our cold, rainy season so every once in a while you can get a storm like this."

The snowfall is expected to ease overnight, but frigid temperatures are predicted into today.

Another storm could strike as soon as Sunday night or Monday morning, Van Horn said. But it is not expected to bring as much cold or snow.

Woman killed in flash flood in San Bernardino County identified

by Richard Brooks
Press-Enterprise

The motorist killed during last night's flash flooding near the Colorado River was a 51-year-old woman from Big River, according to San Bernardino County coroner's officials.

Rosemary Sebring Genc was pronounced dead soon after being pulled from her 1990 gold Honda Accord. A county road worker said he saw her drive into a flooded area at 9:15 p.m. Monday near Rio Vista Road and Tenaya Court. The water pushed the car to the edge of the roadway where it overturned in a wash, trapping the woman underwater, coroner's investigators said.

Flash flooding in the same general region also closed portions of Highway 95 from Vidal Junction south to Interstate 10 in Blythe. At 3 a.m., heavy rain had limited visibility to 20 feet in some places, according to the California Highway Patrol website.

With forecasts of possible thunderstorms and flash flooding through this weekend, officials point to the apparent drowning death as an example of the dangers of driving through floodwaters.

"Turn around. Don't drown," says the written warning issued Tuesday.

"Despite repeated warnings, some people continue to risk their lives by driving through running water," county analyst Roni Edis said in a written statement. "Be aware of flood hazards, no matter where you live."

It Was 'Crazy' Out There

Storm left stores flooded, drivers stranded, mother and son hurt by lightning

By MAGGIE LILLIS
Las Vegas REVIEW-JOURNAL

Boys play in floodwaters Thursday after a storm dumped varying amounts of rain over the southern valley.

After weeks of do-nothing clouds and teasing humidity, the valley was pounded by a storm cell Thursday that forced road closures, stranded motorists and left a Henderson boy and his mother injured by a lightning strike.

More than 3 inches of rain fell in some mountain areas, but only about 0.16 inches accumulated within the valley, the National Weather Service in Las Vegas reported.

Meteorologists at the weather service's offices experienced the brunt of the storm without some of their radar equipment, which was struck by lightning during the action.

But the heavy rain added only a few drops to the annual total, which now stands at 1.04 inches.

"Normally at this time of year we are at 2.92 inches. We are definitely below the average," said meteorologist Edan Lindamen.

The powerful storm swept across the southern part of the valley, flooding businesses and creating swift-water rescue situations for emergency responders in Henderson and elsewhere.

State Route 160 was closed for about an hour after 3.05 inches of rain fell near Mountain Springs. Backups also occurred on U.S. Highway 95 and on Boulder Highway, where some spots were under 2 feet of water and stranded motorists had to be rescued.

The storm didn't just make its mark with rising floodwaters and muddy debris.

A lightning strike in Henderson knocked a 4-year-old boy unconscious and left his mother with temporary numbness on one side of her body.

Henderson Deputy Fire Chief Steve Goble said the woman and her son were watching the rain from the front lawn of their home near Green Valley Parkway and Warm Springs Road when lightning struck nearby about 3:20 p.m.

Goble said the "ground surge" apparently knocked the boy out and caused the woman to experience some paralysis on one side of her body. But both of them "came out of it" as they were treated at the scene by paramedics, he said.

They were sent to the hospital for observation.

Henderson firefighters also rescued a 12-year-old boy from a wash near Patrick Lane and Stephanie Road. Goble said the boy was pulled from the water unharmed.

"The report was he was skateboarding down there," Goble said. "He was having a good old time, until the water came."

The Henderson Fire Department received several other reports of people in the water, but no other rescues were needed.

The storm also brought a flurry of reports of fallen trees, electrical fires and "four or five dozen stranded vehicles," Goble said. "It's been crazy."

Businesses also got caught up in the storm.

The Circle K convenience store and gas station near Tropicana Avenue and Andover Drive closed for a few hours when an inch of water crept inside. Employees said this has happened five or six times in the past as they swept about a foot of cloudy water around racks of potato chips and newspapers.

Officials with the Clark County Regional Flood Control District said their gauges reported almost 2 inches of rain falling within 30 to 40 minutes in areas near Henderson.

The weather service in Las Vegas said more storms are possible today. Conditions will start to dry out by the weekend, it said.

Wind rips off roof

By Jimmy Biggerstaff
Hi-Desert Star






MORONGO BASIN — Heavy rain in Twentynine Palms and the Joshua Tree National Park Monday caused road closures, washouts and wind damage to several structures.

A powerful and well-formed dust devil took the roof off a house on Ocotillo Road in Johnson Valley about 2 p.m. Monday, including plywood and cross members on one side. The home’s carport also was damaged.

John Jones, a local emergency medical services volunteer, was about a mile away from the meteorological oddity, and confirmed it was not a tornado. Jones described the funnel as about 250 feet high and 300 feet wide.

The thermal originated from the ground, not from clouds, Jones said.

Johnson Valley’s fire station sustained damage to a light fixture and television antenna.

Megan Blaney, a public information officer with the San Bernardino County Fire Department, said the emergency operations center [EOC] in Rialto was activated in response to an emergency declaration by the City of Twentynine Palms.

The EOC was still active Tuesday afternoon.

Robert Eland, the field representative for county supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt, was at work in Twentynine Palms Tuesday assessing damage to help determine how San Bernardino County could best help Twentynine Palms with clean-up and recovery efforts.

Park closes road, camps

Strong thunderstorms across the north central area of Joshua Tree National Park damaged a number of park facilities. The storm forced park officials to temporarily close a number of park facilities. Roads and camping areas affected by the closures are open to day-use hiking.

Due to flash flood damage, the following park facilities are closed until further notice:

The Indian Cove Area, including;

• Indian Cove Road south of Indian Cove Ranger Station


• Indian Cove Campground


• Indian Cove group campsites


• Rattlesnake Canyon Day Use Area

Additionally, Park Route 12 is closed from the park’s North Entrance south five miles to the Pinto Wye Junction.

While 0.77 inches of rain were recorded at park headquarters in Twentynine Palms, rangers estimate that storm-affected areas in the park may have received from 3 to 5 inches of rain

Torrential floodwaters were observed crossing one section of park road just south of the North Entrance, resulting in the complete loss of 30 feet of roadway, according to Joe Zarki, the park’s public information officer.

The North Entrance Road will be closed for about 48 hours while temporary repairs are made, Zarki wrote in an e-mail Tuesday.

In the Indian Cove area, floodwaters scoured steep drop-offs along the edges of about one-third of the road leading to Indian Cove Campground and significant flood damage occurred in portions of the campground as well.

Park service officials estimate it will take about two weeks to make the necessary repairs before the Indian Cove Campground and Indian Cove Road can be reopened for public use.

The park’s other main entrances, the West Entrance, five miles south of the community of Joshua Tree, and South Entrance, near Interstate 10, remain open for public use.

Park trails are open, but hikers and equestrians should exercise caution as many trails have not yet been assessed for flood damage.

“Please observe all road closures,” Zarki said. “These have been put in place for your safety.”