Carmageddon

I think it's a great name. A little exaggeration, but who knows?

LA's main north-south route, the 405, will be closed this weekend in both directions so that the Mulholland Bridge, which crosses the freeway, can be rebuilt. They can't work on it with traffic whizzing by under it -- too dangerous.

But, the result could be chaos. Those LA residents living north of the closure who want to cool down at the beach, must take surface streets. Ditto for the other direction.

There are actually two traffic worries. I heard last night that authorities fear a 50 mile long traffic jam on the freeway, backing up to the last exit before the road closes. Yikes.

The other problem could be that the quiet, residential side streets meandering though some of LA's most pricey communities (Bel Air, Brentwood, Beverly Hills) will be clogged with people trying to get to their destinations via these alternate routes.

People, for some reason, are stocking up (hoarding) food, as if a natural disaster is on the way.

Even though it's the height of Summer, many people plan to stay home.

We stay home anyway, so it's not a big worry for us. We can watch it all on TV. They will have helicopters overhead, monitoring and reporting on it all.

For awhile, LA planners were worried that this project would catch people by surprise. A massive communications campaign, using every kind of media has been underway for weeks. I think it's worked.

Carmageddon was reported on both the national news channels last night and also on the french news. We're famous, again.