Forecasters say Southern California could experience the worst winds this week since 2011, when a massive storm carved a path of destruction in Pasadena and other parts of the San Gabriel Valley.
Offshore winds will be dry, unpredictable and strong, potentially reaching up to 160 mph in some areas of Los Angeles and Ventura counties. The worst of the storm is expected Tuesday through Wednesday.
Here’s what happened in 2011 from the pages of the Times.
amazing toll
San Gabriel Valley residents have forgotten what happened in late November and early December 2011, when high winds knocked out power to 400,000 residents, toppled thousands of trees, and damaged more than 200 homes and buildings. There are probably very few people. Traffic was backed up because so many traffic lights were out of power. The roof shingles were peeling off and the garage door was askew.
Authorities took the unusual step of temporarily closing Griffith Park due to the high winds, fearing that fallen power lines could ignite fires amid piles of dried and shattered tree branches.
“No one in our department has ever seen such widespread damage. No one has,” John Kirk Mukuri, general manager of the Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Department, told the Times at the time.
unusual storm
The winds were caused by two different weather systems that brought cold air from the north into the Los Angeles area.
A clockwise high pressure system rested over Northern California and the Great Basin, and a counterclockwise low pressure system rested over Arizona.
The system focused the wind like two giant gears turning in opposite directions.
“We saw wind gusts exceeding hurricane strength in some places, which doesn’t normally happen in the southwest of the country,” AccuWeather.com meteorologist Brian Edwards told the Times at the time. Ta.
aftermath
Ultimately, the storm caused $40 million in damage. Pasadena was the worst hit city, with damage reaching $20 million.
Residents expressed frustration with how long it took for local power companies to restore power to some areas.
One of the biggest headaches was removing the large number of fallen trees, a task that took several weeks.
Walter Wariner, a Santa Monica arborist, told the Times that many trees had been cut at the base to make way for sidewalk and road repairs, leaving them without anchors to hold them in place during extremely high winds.
“There’s an urban legend that what you see above ground is reflected below,” he says. “Nothing could be further from the truth.”
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