A Rainy Day, but Nothing Like Yesteryear

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — It may have been wet today, but it’s nothing compared to this date in 1949, when Downtown received 1.92 inches of rainfall. A Times article from the following day quotes Miss Mary McArdle, a dispatcher at the Georgia Street Receiving Hospital as saying that many of the victims admitted that day and night were pedestrians who had fallen on dangerously rain-slicked streets and sidewalks.

From 1927 to 1957 the Georgia Street Receiving Hospital was the intake point for all emergency cases in the area. Located south of Pico on a site that today sits underneath the Convention Center, the Hospital occupied the third floor of the Georgia Street Police Station.

Just for comparison, the current reading for today’s Downtown rainfall is a meager 0.40. The official record for rainfall on this date was set in 1938, when the L.A. station recorded 2.18 inches of precipitation.

Update (9:15pm): Another rainy December 18th was that of 1940, when Downtown got 0.8 inches of rain in just three hours, sending water above the curb at the corner of 8th and Broadway during the heart of Christmas shopping.