35.77 inches of rain in Los Angeles

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I just read in the San Francisco Chronicle that the total rainfall of 35.77 inches in Los Angeles during the 2004-2005 season makes this the second wettest season on record. The wettest season on record was 1883-1884 when 38.18 inches of rain fell. Only 2.41 inches to go!

I grew up in Seattle, and I used to like the sound of rain on the roof. But after what I've seen this winter in Los Angeles, my opinion of rain has changed a bit. One of my friends lost their entire backyard - it slid down the hill into their neighbors house - she had owned her house for 8 weeks. One of our neighbors down the road from our LV site had the back of their house ripped open by a mudslide. If they would have been in the back bedroom, they would have died.

Our LV site came through relatively unscathed, we had a pretty substantial rockslide, but were able to stabilize things with a couple hundred sandbags and one hundred man hours of work. We paid for our downslope neighbor to move into a hotel for a couple of days during the worst of it.

The bottom line is, this site is in its "natural state", there are no mitigants for severe weather. Our neighbors as well as the City really need us to build this house and provide site infrastructure.

So, sorry for the blog posting drought. We have just been busy with our geotechnical engineers, our civil engineers, Rocio Romero, our arborist, and our local sandbag supplier. We are preparing the permit set, and with any luck, we'll be into the City for permits in the beginning of May and under construction in June.

Hopefully by then this wet winter will have faded from most people's minds. For now, I am listening to the sound of the rain falling on the roof, wondering if we'll break the 1883-1884 record - 2.41 inches and counting...