The death toll in the La Conchita mudslide has risen to six. A friend of a friend of my Dad’s is among the dead. The rain has stopped. The radar is clear, the stars are out. It’s cold. Tomorrow, the forecast is sunny.

You can’t get here from anywhere else. If you do, the motels are probably all full. The freeways are closed, the back roads are washed out or washed over.

You know the old cliche b-movie line, “I’m afraid no one can leave tonight. The bridge is washed out.” Well, the bridge really is washed out. About a mile from my house, there was a cool little 1927 bridge of green steel, over a trickle of a stream. Really, just a drainage ditch. The bridge looks like somebody very large smashed it with a ballpean hammer. And in betrayal of the implication of that movie line – that the bridge would be fixed the next day – it will be months before it’s replaced.

Typically me, I wonder how bare the shelves are getting at the Vons. And how the heck did the mail get through?

I’m sorry for the six lives lost, and the broken hearts that reality leaves in its wake. I’m afraid that number will get bigger, before this deal goes down.