Tips For Being Safe In And Making The Most Of Canoga Park's Surprise Summer Rainstorm

By Quilt staff

DATELINE: THE RAIN, CANOGA PARK AND OTHER THINGS

Good news, everyone! 

With this mildly severe rainstorm gently pummeling Canoga Park today, the extreme drought affecting Southern California has officially drawn to a close. However, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t take a moment or two to review these helpful rain-related safety and other tips.

In fact, it means you should take a moment or two to review these helpful rain-related safety and other tips issued by Capt. Reed N. Malloy, the LAPD West Valley Bureau’s Topanga Division Traffic & Weather Unit’s Weather & Traffic Support Officer in Charge of Press Releases About Traffic and/or Weather, and Bernice Solverson with the Canoga Park Chamber of Commerce.

• Be extra vigilant while driving in wet weather, paying particular care to the area surrounding your vehicle and its distance from other objects. It could mean the difference between getting well under the drive-through window overhang...or having to really reach out to grab that paper bag — and getting a soaking wet sleeve and a soggy Arby-Q.

• When blowing through red lights in rainy weather, it’s always considerate to lay on the horn while doing so.

• With Canoga Park’s two scrap metal yards each offering $2.58 a pound (current market rate as of this printing), downed power lines are an excellent source of free copper and a fun, easy way to make some extra cash during a severe rainstorm while helping your community by clearing debris. Look for dark neighborhoods or sections of houses or business without power and then canvas the surrounding area in a grid pattern until you find the felled lines. Don’t worry about using clumsy insulated gloves; they’re just going to make cutting the wires that much more difficult.

• Standing water in yards, streets, and alleys is non-potable. Do not use it to cook food in a pot. Probably fine for drinking, though.

• If you're driving towards a flooded street that appears to be too deep, it’s always best to go ahead and slowly crawl through it so as not to impede drivers behind you. Experts recommend briefly stopping at its deepest point and opening your car door a bit to equalize internal and external pressure.

Precipitation or "rain" is what scientists call water in its most common, liquid form
that falls from the sky, here seen pelting a local Canoga Park sidewalk. Staff photo.

• If your driveway or yard is flooded, alleviate the problem by turning on all taps, faucets, dishwashers, washing machines, sprinkler systems, etc., located inside and outside your home until the surplus water has subsided.

• You can save time and effort collecting empty cans and bottles during rainstorms while staying safely off rain-slicked roads: Instead of wandering around with your shopping cart picking them up from the side of the street, simply stake out a good storm drain and let the empties float down to you.

How will your spray paints, paint pens and stickers do when applying them in
the rain?  If you're unsure, test beforehand, or use the time to do other things,
like shoplifting tagging materials for when the weather clears up. Staff photo.

• Is your spray paint water soluble? Do you get good coverage in the rain or on wet surfaces? These are things responsible taggers check before heading out to deface nearby fences, buildings and other public & private property.

• No need to stop harvesting cardboard just because it’s raining: wet cardboard weighs more than dry cardboard and thus will net you a larger profit. Just be sure to throw six or eight inches of dry cardboard on top before you bring it to your local cardboard recyclery, and cover the whole schmear with a tarp. Local cardboard collecting professionals have reported earning up to an extra 23¢ per pickup truck load using this handy method.

There's no better time than now to start thinking about redoing that eyesore called
"your yard" and giving lava rock and hardy succulents the ol' heave-ho. File photo.

• Don’t be embarrassed if you were one of those who got caught up in the frenzy of lawn removal and turned your front yard into a desert wasteland — you're not alone. But with the drought now a thing of the past, grass-seeding services, sodderies and lawn maintenance professionals, or gardeners, will be in high demand again. Best to call now and get your name put on a waiting list; then contract a waste removal firm to get those hideous cacti yanked out and the twelve cubic yards of expensive red lava rock shoveled up and hauled off. Better call a plumber and have the sprinkler system reinstalled, too. The important thing is to get things back to normal.

• You'll want to remove that soaking wet flyer from Champ's Hot Grill from your windshield by hand. Your wipers are just going to make a complete mess of it and then you're going to have to get out and do it by hand anyway — and experts warn that getting shredded wads of wet pulp out of the wiper blades is a real pain-in-the-ass. 

Remember, Canoga Park: Not forgetting to remember these helpful hints as the rain comes down in Canoga Park is everyone's job, here in Canoga Park. Although we imagine some of you have other jobs as well.

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UPDATE:  Nevermind; looks like it stopped raining.

'Ray Donovan' Comes To Canoga Park

By Charlotte Rudnick, Quilt staff.

DATELINE: JORDAN AVENUE

The magic-makers of Hollywood came to Canoga Park this past weekend to shoot (record on film or on digital format) portions of a television program to be called “The Ray Donovan Show” which will be available for viewing to those who subscribe to the cable-television channel “Showtime.”

Residents near the filming on Jordan Avenue at Saticoy Street, in Canoga Park’s starstruck Jordicoy neighborhood were thrilled to play host to the myriad of oversized vehicles, generators, lights, production crew, off-duty policemen, various people wearing windbreakers and milling around with walkie-talkies, unpaid interns, overpaid Teamsters, craft service (food) workers, and even some actors, or cast members.

“I can’t believe it!” gushed Delany Lane resident Joan Mitnick, whose car had been towed to make room for a van delivering cupcakes to the crew. “To think, a TV show made right here in California! I’d heard everything was filmed in North Carolina these days!”

Hooray for Saticoy: Local street hosts a plethora of huge vehicles needed for the making of a television
program, including a fancy four-seat toilet trailer for stars who didn't want to make the trek to El Taco
Llama. At right, one of the filming notices taped to residences and currently going for $0.17 on eBay.

Nicholas Szalay, a location scout with Peppy Pictures — the company making, or producing, the show — noted, “We’re looking to Canoga Park more and more as a viable filming location.  We want to help boost the local economy, especially since the West Valley lost almost all of the lucrative porn industry to Las Vegas after concerned voters decided professional performers voluntarily appearing in fantasy-based adult films must absolutely wear condoms.”  

Says Jeanne Sowell, Studio Outreach Liaison with the Canoga Park Chamber of Commerce, “Canoga Park’s unique topography, culture, and overall vibe naturally lend itself to so many productions. Whether it’s a crime drama, a true-crime reenactment, a 'gangsta' rap video where someone gets shot, a crime thriller, a crime prevention PSA, a crime-themed ABC Afterschool Special, a TV movie based on a specific crime, a crime documentary, a gritty police procedural, or even a comedy with a significant amount of crime central to the plot, Canoga Park is fast becoming the first choice for on-location television and movie productions.”

A Substantial Gift: The title card for Showtime's "The Ray Donovan Hour," which recently filmed
part of the Season 3 episode "The Broken Promise" right here in Canoga Park. Cast & crew members
were each given a souvenir pushcart as a "thank you" for filming here by the Canoga Park Film Board.

For this weekend’s “Ray Donovan & Friends” filming, just a short scene was to be performed as the cameras "rolled" (recorded the action). Production went smoothly and finished, or wrapped, ahead of schedule. 

“In the scene we [filmed], one of the characters fires a gun. And usually, with something like that, you have to make sure when people living nearby hear the gunshot, they don’t frantically start dialing 911 or come running out of their homes all freaked out,” says Szalay.

“I guess that’s why we like Canoga Park —that’s never been a problem here.”