My first experience with the Santa Ana winds was on my first day in Southern California. Driving a rental out of Ontario airport and up the 15 Freeway was challenging, with the winds making the small car shimmy like a hula dancer. The winds were whistling past so loudly, it seemed certain one of the doors was ajar and would soon be torn from its hinges and flung over Fontana. Just as common colds get elevated to the flu, I suspect ordinary wind is sometimes promoted to Santa Ana status to sound more impressive.
Southern California Edison workers look at a power pole and tree that blew over from gusty winds near the block of N. A crew cuts up a tree that had fallen onto Arrow Blvd. Strong winds started overnight in the Inland Empire and continued throughout the day.
A tree fell outside a residential home in Rancho Cucamonga on Monday, October 15, Wind-whipped palm trees backdrop a Tustin police cruiser on Monday, October 15, Courtesy of Tim and Anita Schoen. Still, Monday was officially a Santa Ana. Nobody really likes the Santa Anas except writers.
They employ the winds as portents of evil, comic description or a sign of imminent societal collapse. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Anything can happen.
You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge. Back in I presented that and other references in a column. In the decade since, three further examples have come my way and were carefully put aside for a time when an authentic Santa Ana came along, I recognized it as such and no other news interfered. The heat rose out of the haze and my nostrils breathed it. Over the city spread a white murkiness like fog. But it was not the fog: it was the desert heat, the great blasts from the Mojave and Santa Ana, the pale white fingers of the wasteland, ever reaching out to claim its captured child.
