Marina del Rey - The LA Flood Project (sitios de interés)
Descripción del sitio
Stage 1
There are signs on the side of the road, even five miles in from the water, that post a Tsunami evacuation notice. And when you see them, you can't help wonder if the civil engineers chose the height of the sign on the pole for a particular reason, having run countless computer simulations, they had determined that this is the height you would float to, swim past on your way back to the city.
But today, the water is coming from the other direction, not from the sea, yet, but from the little creek known as Ballona, which was once tied directly to the heart of the Los Angeles river but was demoted to a creek in the cement days and the grand bypass that prioritized all arteries to the Port of Los Angeles over this little dog leg.
But as a sign of the unflagging memory of geography, the waters have been filling up this little trough for quite some time. Already the conscientious and disciplined pink and teal joggers of Playa Del Rey have fled for fear of soaking their custom orthotic running shoes. Already, the current has begun to grow, and a little dog bobbing in a wheel barrow is the first sign that this channel will be soon be flushing the unsecured matter of the city.
Stage 2.
On an ordinary day in Marina Del Rey, tourists with a craving for some watery delights stroll along the walk beside the bright pink and yellow buildings of Fisherman's Village, scanning the Marina for sea lions, scattering or gathering the gulls, and if they so wish, renting a kayak to paddle through the majestic boats. Feeling very much the Gabrielino Indian, tourists can paddle silently behind the row of restaurants that line Admiralty, Tony P's, the Warehouse, and ending at the Cheese Cake Factory at Mother's Beach.
In the flood of the century, as the news has called it, the flood of the Millennium as it will one day be known, the baseline raises along with the boats.
Now the kayak tour can bring you where the waters have reclaimed the land from the joggers and in and around the high rises, the condos that once promised views from every room.
But of course, there is no room for kayaks today. The boats are now full. Emergency preparations are in order. Travelers are reading their missions either to return to the city and rescue or to evacuate out to Catalina or San Diego or even back up North to the Golden Gateway.
The noise of the motors is deafening, and the smell of diesel deadly. No one will be going anywhere. It is just another LA traffic jam. A sigalert on the waterways.
And amid all these mighty sailing craft, traveling dangerously between them, too close to prow and motor, the makeshift crafts, made of scrap metal, sleds, inflatable mattresses, anything that floats. And bound, at times, literally, here are the Angelinos that will not go down, that will not be taken under the waters that are reclaiming this city.
Stage 3
There’s a scene in a movie, one of the Johnny Depp pirate movies, where the pirate lords gather at their secret hideout, which is depicted as a twisted mass of capsized ships. Hollywood, or so you thought, trades on escape, on vociferous denial of a any earnest conversation, but here in the decimated Marina, laid waste worse than by a thousand Krakens, is a poignancy, a pertinence of this presage, a feeling that scurrilous scoundrel had actually been a faithful friend, followed almost immediately by the stark realization that all the narratives you’ve ever sailed by have been in one canon flash extinguished.
-- MCM
There are signs on the side of the road, even five miles in from the water, that post a Tsunami evacuation notice. And when you see them, you can't help wonder if the civil engineers chose the height of the sign on the pole for a particular reason, having run countless computer simulations, they had determined that this is the height you would float to, swim past on your way back to the city.
But today, the water is coming from the other direction, not from the sea, yet, but from the little creek known as Ballona, which was once tied directly to the heart of the Los Angeles river but was demoted to a creek in the cement days and the grand bypass that prioritized all arteries to the Port of Los Angeles over this little dog leg.
But as a sign of the unflagging memory of geography, the waters have been filling up this little trough for quite some time. Already the conscientious and disciplined pink and teal joggers of Playa Del Rey have fled for fear of soaking their custom orthotic running shoes. Already, the current has begun to grow, and a little dog bobbing in a wheel barrow is the first sign that this channel will be soon be flushing the unsecured matter of the city.
Stage 2.
On an ordinary day in Marina Del Rey, tourists with a craving for some watery delights stroll along the walk beside the bright pink and yellow buildings of Fisherman's Village, scanning the Marina for sea lions, scattering or gathering the gulls, and if they so wish, renting a kayak to paddle through the majestic boats. Feeling very much the Gabrielino Indian, tourists can paddle silently behind the row of restaurants that line Admiralty, Tony P's, the Warehouse, and ending at the Cheese Cake Factory at Mother's Beach.
In the flood of the century, as the news has called it, the flood of the Millennium as it will one day be known, the baseline raises along with the boats.
Now the kayak tour can bring you where the waters have reclaimed the land from the joggers and in and around the high rises, the condos that once promised views from every room.
But of course, there is no room for kayaks today. The boats are now full. Emergency preparations are in order. Travelers are reading their missions either to return to the city and rescue or to evacuate out to Catalina or San Diego or even back up North to the Golden Gateway.
The noise of the motors is deafening, and the smell of diesel deadly. No one will be going anywhere. It is just another LA traffic jam. A sigalert on the waterways.
And amid all these mighty sailing craft, traveling dangerously between them, too close to prow and motor, the makeshift crafts, made of scrap metal, sleds, inflatable mattresses, anything that floats. And bound, at times, literally, here are the Angelinos that will not go down, that will not be taken under the waters that are reclaiming this city.
Stage 3
There’s a scene in a movie, one of the Johnny Depp pirate movies, where the pirate lords gather at their secret hideout, which is depicted as a twisted mass of capsized ships. Hollywood, or so you thought, trades on escape, on vociferous denial of a any earnest conversation, but here in the decimated Marina, laid waste worse than by a thousand Krakens, is a poignancy, a pertinence of this presage, a feeling that scurrilous scoundrel had actually been a faithful friend, followed almost immediately by the stark realization that all the narratives you’ve ever sailed by have been in one canon flash extinguished.
-- MCM