Closure

I stood outside the Whole Foods store in Sherman Oaks, surrounded by bins of honeydew melons and blueberries, and a number of fit Angelenos. Looming above us just across Sepulveda Boulevard was the enormous concrete wall of the 405. "Have you heard?" I asked. "Do you know what's coming?" The impending 53-hour closure of the 405 was described this week by assorted officials in the grave, hyperbolic tones usually reserved for floods and fires threatening homes. It's already earned itself an equally grim name: Carmageddon.

General Motors has announced it will close its Van Nuys auto-assembly plant next year. Although drug use and poor-quality workmanship have plagued the Van Nuys plant, GM cited slumping sales for the closure. GM also announced that up to 2,600 workers will receive 95% of their salary for eight months and health benefits for six months after the plant closes. No wonder GM's sales are slipping. The car buyer can no longer afford to absorb the costs of shoddy workmanship and outrageous union benefits.

Point Mugu has been added to the BRAC closure list. It was added based on the Department of Defense's inspector general's report which is a study that is external to the due process certified by the BRAC process. This is a completely illegal study. Why was Point Mugu singled out and put on the list using external date to the BRAC process? I'm sure my representatives (Beilenson, Gallegly, Boxer and Feinstein) would care to know. CHARLES OKONSKI Moorpark

I commend you for your reporting on the status of Orange County's trauma care units and the imminent closure of the Fountain Valley Trauma Center. Your editorial (Sept. 3) should serve as a call to action. Traumatic events don't simply afflict the poor; these events also afflict the middle-class and well-to-do. The first hour after a serious trauma--the "Golden Hour"--is the critical time for medical treatment. It can literally be the difference between life and death. Dr. John West, years ago, demonstrated conclusively that trauma centers have saved many lives that otherwise would have been lost.

Should the Grapevine have been closed for nearly 24 hours because of a snowstorm? That was a question some motorists stranded by the closure of California's main north-south artery were asking Monday. The storm brought inches ? rather than feet ? of snow to Interstate 5. Several motorists noted that the scene seemed tame compared to last month's blizzard that snowed under streets in New York and the Northeast. "In other parts of the country, this is nothing," said Todd Anderson, who was delayed on his way home to Shaver Lake and spent Sunday night at a roadside inn in Castaic.

High tides Wednesday morning again forced closure of one lane along Pacific Coast Highway, the California Highway Patrol said. A 1-mile stretch of the right-hand northbound lane was closed at 8:45 a.m., when about one inch of water lapped onto the edges of the lane between Warner Avenue and Anderson Street, CHP officer John Chilcote said. The lane was reopened at 11 a.m. On Tuesday, high tides coming over the banks of Huntington Harbour forced closure of the same lane for three hours.

The Obama administration plans to appoint veteran diplomat Daniel Fried as special envoy to oversee the closure of the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention camp, two senior U.S. officials told the Associated Press. Fried currently is assistant secretary of State for European and Eurasian affairs.

If "Lost" guaranteed anything with its terrifically moving but mythology-deprived series finale, it's that the show will go on, as fans spend the summer re-watching and analyzing what "The End" offered and what, others argue, it failed to deliver. The finale episode drew a respectable 13.5 million viewers, but by not attracting the huge finale audiences of other classic TV shows, the ABC series cemented itself as a cult phenomenon. In "The End," "Lost" has left behind two islands.

If the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Norco is closed by the Pentagon in November, Patty Pfouts will have a long haul ahead of her. The military has proposed moving the weapons research facility to the Naval Air Weapons Station at Point Mugu in Ventura County, and the 42-year-old Norco native said she can't afford to move her family. So she'll have to commute 230 miles a day. "I just can't afford not to," she says.

Public officials kept to their game plan Thursday and moderated their message to motorists ahead of next month's Carmageddon redux closure of the 405 Freeway, saying that focusing on the possibility of apocalyptic traffic is not the best way to keep drivers off the road. "We can't do what we did last time," said Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. "So this time around, we're not going to say, 'Folks, look, we're going to have the worst traffic ever.' We all know that's possible.