I’ve been meaning to write about an outstanding website called “8763 Wonderland.” If that address doesn’t mean anything to you then at least rent the Val Kilmer movie which I thought did a decent job of covering one of the more notorious murders in Los Angeles’s history from which the site takes its name.

8763 Wonderland is indispensable for postings on LA murders (and not just the Laurel Canyon killings) and other current events as well as web site operator’s own fiction. I’m going to leave the rest until I get around to reviewing the site. I’m giving this advance peak because they have just put up a post on what Hurricane Katrina has done to New Orleans, and unless Elmore Leonard decides to blog on Katrina then this is going to be the best writing you will read on the subject.

Am I exaggerating? Decide for yourself:

Watching the news footage unreel on CNN and Fox this afternoon, I was reminded of the collapse of the St. Francis Dam in L.A. on March 12, 1958. William Mulholland (fictionalized as Noah Cross in the classic film “Chinatown”) was the chief engineer of the dam that failed and sent 12.5 billion gallons of water rushing into the Santa Clara Valley, north of Los Angeles. The town of Santa Paula was smothered in 20 feet of mud. In the end, the final death toll stood at 450, including 42 elementary school children. At his inquest, Mulholland — who assumed full responsibility for the disaster — said, resignedly, “I envy the dead.”

While there are a few things that we might quibble, for example, we believe that the St. Francis Dam disaster was an act of God having been built on an ancient slide that was undetectable with the technology of the day and we feel the same way about Katrina. However, these are small issues and there is no denying with the brilliance of the writing or the impeccable choice of references, quotes, and stories.

technorati: st. francis damn mulholland katrina New Orleans

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 31st, 2005 at 12:47 am by Insider and is filed under Brilliant, but uncategorizable. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.