There we went again

SHERWOOD KIRALY

“May you live in interesting times.”

-- ancient Chinese curse

Certain cities are fixed in the public mind by something in their

history. For years, when a Chicagoan met a European, the European

would nod and mime firing a machine gun. There are other towns that

offer an instant mental image -- Tombstone, Cooperstown, Gettysburg.

For a while last year, while MTV’s Laguna show was taking off, I

figured our image was becoming set as a bland, blond, burnished beach

brochure.

But now we’re back as we were, known as the most accident-prone

town in California. Laguna Beach’s coat of arms should feature a

small town with three helicopters hovering over it.

As I watched the Group 1 evacuees lined up in their cars at the

Bluebird Canyon checkpoint last week, waiting to go visit their

homes, I thought back to my own family’s evacuation.

It seems to be a kind of initiation to have to leave home in a

hurry at least once in your tenure here. In October 1993 Patti Jo and

I pulled out along with just about everyone else when the fire blew

down the canyon. We went to a relative’s house in Brea and called

home at night to hear if the phone had melted. Then we waited to be

allowed back.

On the Thursday following the latest Bluebird Canyon landslides, a

map was unveiled for evacuees showing red properties (no recovery);

red with a blue star (some recovery with escort); yellow (return with

escort but uninhabitable overnight), and surrounding green and brown

neighborhoods.

Patti Jo was at Cedar Creek restaurant that night and heard some

evacuees comparing status. “Are you yellow?” one asked, and was

reassured, “Nah, I’m green, I’m three houses from yellow.”

We live in a , unstable, incendiary, muddy floody town, and we

don’t want to leave. When we have to leave, we come back, unless we

can’t because we’re homeless, or homeless and landless. And

uninsured.

Since it’s essentially impossible to get landslide insurance in a

Laguna homeowner’s policy, Patti Jo asked me the other day why we all

don’t start a community fund to which homeowners could contribute,

say, $100 a year, to help the slide victims of 5, 10 and 20 years

from now. We agreed the idea was probably naive, but we’re too naive

to know why.

Meanwhile, we walk the perimeters of our homes, checking for

erosion and incipient collapse, and hope for a return to stability,

normalcy -- even a little boredom. Better to be on MTV than CNN.

* SHERWOOD KIRALY is a Laguna Beach resident.