LA tries to cope with rain in a place where rain is rare

LOS ANGELES (AP) — When it rains in Los Angeles, the hardest thing to find can often be an umbrella.

Those who own one can’t remember where they put it, and stores quickly see their stocks cleared out.

This week’s El Nino-triggered storms have brought welcome rain — too much of it in some places.

They also have created the usual angst among a population more used to greeting each day with sunglasses.

On Hollywood Boulevard, actors dressed as Superman did vanishing acts when the first raindrops fell. Bullets may bounce off Superman but apparently raindrops do not.

Others chose to simply stay inside watching TV until the sun returns.

Morana Mendez, whose convenience store sold out of umbrellas almost immediately, says locals are never ready for rain. Even when they know it’s coming.