Hurricane Hilary made landfall in Baja California last month and began to move towards Southern California. It posed a threat to all VHS students and even closed school for a day.

News outlets called the hurricane “catastrophic,” and for some areas it was. But how did it affect the Venice Beach we know and love? 

Some students don’t think that the storm was bad at all. 

“The storm didn’t really affect me, but my plants got a few inches of rain, so that’s pretty cool,” freshman Quade Maiello said. “It wasn’t very impactful honestly—the storm seemed pretty mild.” 

Math teacher Sue Oh had a different experience than Quade.

“One of my really close friends’ apartments got flooded, so I went over to help them move as much of their stuff as possible into a place more dry,” she said. “It was pretty rough.” 

 All types of news stories were published saying the storm would be life-threatening to many in the south LA area, but the impact of the storm was very inconsistent and, beyond Baja, on the mild side.

For a lot of people in Venice, the mosquito increase in the ensuing days was the most abysmal part of the storm. The still water left from the storm paired with the naturally sunny LA region led to the perfect mosquito breeding ground, and only a week after the storm these bugs were everywhere. 

According to freshman Banksy Chen, there was “an infestation of those scamps” in his front yard.

While Hurricane Hilary didn’t necessarily live up to the apocalyptic predictions for Venice Beach, it was a reminder of the power of mother nature and the importance of being prepared for weather events. 

In the end, Venice Beach residents can count themselves lucky that the storm was not as catastrophic as we feared, but it still provided valuable lessons about community resilience and preparedness in the face of natural disasters.