‘Just have to wake up earlier’: Angelenos blasé about traffic after highway fire

After initial concern when fire engulfed Los Angeles interstate, residents set their alarms and got to work ... early

When the news broke that a weekend fire had damaged a mile of one of the most heavily trafficked freeways in Los Angeles, the reaction across much of the country was alarm.

Los Angeles is a city defined by its car culture, and officials estimated that 300,000 cars a day had traveled along the now shut-down stretch of Interstate 10. How would Los Angeles function, for an unknown amount of time, without a key piece of its highway?