Publisher’s Notebook

• A Bad Case of Santa Anas •

ANNE SOBLE

It’s now Day Six of one of the longest Santa Ana wind events in recent memory, and people are showing the signs of its adverse effects. Red eyes, parched skin, scratchy throats, nosebleeds and general irritability and malaise are just a few of the signs of membership in the society of Santa Ana sufferers. One and two-day bouts of the “devil winds” are bad enough, but a week (or longer) of them may be more than mere mortals can handle.
That the fire danger is as high as it now is means that many of us startle every time we hear a vehicle siren. Some sort of perverse socio-psychological response is involved when one is relieved to learn that the sound was an ambulance checking out a possible cardiac arrest, as opposed to a fire crew heading to the breakout of flames.
The same kind of reflex may be at work when one is rankled by homogenized news readers waxing poetic about the blue skies and record high temperatures we are experiencing. Do these people really not appreciate the reason additional firefighting personnel and equipment have been stationed in and around Malibu? Every time one of the 60-to-70 mile an hour gusts whooshes down a canyon to the sea, the realization of what would happen if it was pushing flying embers ahead of it is sobering.
Malibuites have to live with the paradox that they need the rains to reduce the wildfire danger, but that same rain adds to the potential fuel supply. The good done by the recent rainstorms has already been undone by the winds. Whatever good the storms did for the groundwater supply is irrelevant, if flames break out anywhere in the community.
All we can do until the winds subside is keep our brush cut back, make certain our ornamental landscaping is not fire conducive, use copious amounts of eye drops, and gargle often enough to help protect shredded throat linings from more damage.
The simplest response would be to follow the lead of most cats and dogs and find cool, dark places, indoors or out, to lie low while the winds are at their loudest and strongest. But since most of us have lives that take us outdoors, if only to go from here to there and back, we have to grit our teeth and brave the elements.
Perhaps local boutiques should start featuring the long robes and head scarves of Bedouin nomads as the hot new look for Malibu fashionistas.