In the midst of the relentless storm,...

In the midst of the relentless storm, bleary-eyed residents who awoke to the sounds of one all-news station Wednesday morning might have been startled to hear what they thought were references to “Armageddon.”

Actually, it was an interview with the public affairs officer of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers--Bob Armogeda.

Scarcely less comforting was the 40-foot-tall wave that appeared to be washing over the corner of Main and 1st streets near City Hall. It was a piece of billboard art by Linda Levinson, painted from a photo of a flooded L.A. neighborhood of years ago. Just a few days after the billboard appeared in dried-out downtown, the real deluge began.

You just never know whom you’re going to meet when traffic is stuck in rainlock, as Laura Galloway discovered on the Santa Ana Freeway the other night.

“Drivers were rolling down their windows, exchanging conversation and bumming cigarettes,” she said. “I pulled up next to a group of French tourists who spoke to me in French and gave me some French tapes and their phone numbers. A wanna-be rock star from Hollywood swapped CDs with me. And a Rolls-Royce dealer from Texas gave me his phone number and a lecture on driving alone at night. It blew out of my hand when the traffic started to move again.”

And, now, let’s turn to the dry wit of Orange County.

KEZY-FM disc jockey Scott Free had a startling realization the other day: Orange County lacks a slogan. So he asked listeners of the Anaheim-based station to fill the void--a noble service for that deprived region.

How unfortunate, then, that innocent bystander L.A. County would have its name dragged through the smog in the process. Snotty suggestions by local poets included:

* “Whisper or Shout, There’s No Doubt About It--Orange County is Better than L.A. and We’re Proud of It.”

* “Choose the Place L.A. Envies--Choose Orange County.”

And then there was the suggestion by the two poison-pen authors of the Orange County Register’s “Juice” column:

* “Orange County: Not Nearly as Scary as L.A!”

We didn’t have enough pocket change to make a long-distance call, but our entry would have been: “Orange County: The Way L.A. County Was 30 Years Ago!”

Oh, yes. The winning slogan was “Orange County: A Great Place to Visit, a Wonderful Place to Call Home.” It was submitted by Louella Roberts, a resident of La Mirada. That’s in L.A. County, by the way.

While we’re looking south, we’re happy to report that the city of Irvine has agreed to rectify a 20-year-old error on street signs honoring Caltech’s late Nobel Prize winner, Robert Millikan. Or Milliken , as 12 signs say.

At the request of the Caltech Alumni Assn., the council voted to spend $350 to patch “A’s” over the errant vowels near an industrial park where several other scientists are also honored.

“Somebody had good intentions,” said Lee Carleton, 78, a Huntington Beach resident who studied at Caltech while Millikan conducted pioneering research into cosmic rays.

“But,” Carleton added, “not all of us are good spellers.”

miscelLAny:

Earlier this century, radio pioneer KFI called attention to its government-assigned call letters by promoting itself as the station of “Farm Information.”