San Diego First Born Beware

As actors filed out of the OnStage Playhouse and into a heavy fog Saturday night, there were jokes. We didn’t know at the time that this fog was not a weather phenomenon. Rather, it was part of the plume coming from a burning building about a block away. The house had been vacant for months. Which doesn’t explain how the fire was started. Or why, by Monday, a body had been discovered on the second floor.

San Diego County has been rife with oddities like this one since my arrival here two months ago.

It started with record rainfall. Since records began in 1850, this is the first time that 4 inches or more of rain have fallen in San Diego in 4 separate months in a single season. This season is already the 3rd wettest on record at 21 inches. And it isn’t over yet; the season ends July 1st. With the rains came floods. With the floods came mudslides. By mid-February, the mayor had declared a state emergency.

Next were tornadoes. California tornadoes are infrequent, averaging 14 per year for a US ranking of 32nd in tornado frequency. Since I’ve been here, three touched down in North County (Oceanside, Escondido) on February 19th; another touched down in South County (Chula Vista) early on February 23rd; and meteorologists have just confirmed another which wreaked havoc outside the county, near San Francisco, on Sunday. That’s five in two months. Four in San Diego.

After tornadoes came earthquakes. Minor earthquakes are a daily occurrence in California, but San Diego isn’t near any major seismic fault lines. Earthquakes in the area, when they come, are mild, most with a magnitude of 2.0 or less. Caltech’s Palomar Observatory registered a 3.5 magnitude quake in North County on March 13th.

With fires, floods, tornadoes, and earthquakes under my San Diego belt, I thought I’d best suit up for locusts. Surely, they would be next on the SoCal plague list. A little internet research, however, shows no cicada broods this far west. Unless my visit witnesses the evolution of Brood XIII, we should be safe from cicadas. That is, of course, unless Rodney Crowell reunites with his country-rock band and comes through on tour.

But locusts aren’t the only animals that can swarm an area. No, we won't get cicadas. Instead, we’ve got Giant Squid. Millions of them. It's the first time they've been reported in significant numbers on the Pacific Coast since 1930.

Technically, what I can report in the San Diego area it isn’t a “swarm.” Because they aren’t moving. Not anymore. Hundreds of Giant Squid are washing ashore in North County, on Oceanside beaches. No one knows what is killing them, but they are dotting the beaches at a rate of one “every 25 feet or so.” Most of these are about 3 feet long, averaging 20 pounds, but some top 6 feet and 40 pounds. Anglers near Sacramento are taking home hundreds of pounds of fresh squid from fishing expeditions in the area, but with so many dying of unknown causes in this area – what were they doing so far inland anyway? – I’m not sure I’d want to be chomping down on any thick calamari steaks any time soon.

If frogs are next on the agenda, I’m catching the first plane home.