Whipping winds take toll on the Coachella Valley
For countless travelers, their long-planned long weekend in the Coachella Valley didn’t quite go exactly as planned. The area’s climate took a turn for the, to put it mildly, cold and crisp at the tail end of the weekend, and dozens of artists who traveled to the valley bore the brunt of the bad weather.
Watch Jeremy Chen live, reporting on the cold
“It’s big money for me,” said Nicholas Vicknair, an artist from Bend Oregon, “It’s hard for me to repair mine. You get a tear or rip in your painting, you’re talking 3-4 thousand dollars. It can make your weekend pretty bad.”
About 70 artists traveled to Palm Springs for a weekend art festival that ended up taking quite a bit of wind damage today. Many artists had to shutter their stalls up to five hours earlier than planned to protect their works of art.
“You got a couple hundred thousand dollars worth of art in the booth,” said Ian Ely, an artist from La Jolla. “So the most important thing is to get the art down.”
The wind is taking aim at masterpieces and motorists alike; the Auto Club of Southern California issued an advisory to area drivers to be ready for strong gusts of wind, to keep their distance from larger vehicles, and to always keep their hands firmly on the wheel.
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