Next morning's hike had its own small moment of drama. It was quiet, no one in sight, a soft breeze and then, an unmistakable flap-flap-flap preceded the dip and slow arc of a helicopter coming in to suck up fire fighting water. The whirlybird descended, hovered and lifted back into the blue. With the last flap-flap-flap, it was silent again.
Los Angeles weather is the weather of catastrophe, of apocalypse, and, just as the reliably long and bitter winters of New England determine the way life is lived there, so the violence and the unpredictability of the Santa Ana affect the entire quality of life in Los Angeles, accentuate its impermanence, its unreliability. The winds shows us how close to the edge we are. -- Slouching Towards Bethlehem, 1968