California’s Beauty Doesn’t Love You Back
The Stunning Hillside Homes, Epic Mountains, and Gnarly Waves That Draw Us Here Also Threaten Our Existence
Early in the film Chinatown, a Southern California coroner named Morty chuckles after examining the dead body of the city’s water department chief.
“Isn’t that something?” Morty says. “Middle of a drought and the water commissioner drowns. Only in L.A.”
Not just in L.A., of course. All of California has a talent for catastrophic paradox—as this winter is reminding us.
Even as we suffer under a dangerous drought and tough water restrictions, atmospheric rivers flood our communities, force neighborhoods to evacuate, and contribute to dozens of deaths.
We are a state with surpassing wealth, …
