She blew the rain clouds away with fierce, gale-force winds that blasted through the city, ripping trees out of the ground, tearing off roofs, severing power lines, and smashing in plate-glass windows. People on the street, who were still recovering from five days of pounding rain, were caught by surprise and were tossed around like leaves by their wind-opened umbrellas. Tourists must have thought they were watching a sadistic Mary Poppins sequel in the making. The merciless weather, along with a merciless editor, kept Jessica Mordente away from her desk at the Los Angeles Times and out on the street for most of the day. Her Thomas Brothers street map was her bible as she raced around the city interviewing the victims of Mother Nature's wrath. She talked to an irate starlet in Beverly Hills whose pink Rolls-Royce was crushed by a tree. Then Mordente sped west to the Santa Monica Pier, where the wind had kicked one of the city's notorious vagrants into the sea.
