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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
LAKE COUNTY – Snowy weather continued around Lake County on Monday, with the white fluffy stuff – reportedly falling from Lakeport to Cobb to Clearlake – proving a danger for drivers traversing icy road.
The National Weather Service is reporting that snow could continue through Tuesday, and several days and nights of below-freezing temperatures are predicted.
California Highway Patrol Officer Adam Garcia reported that CHP received numerous calls of stranded vehicles and snow-related collisions on Sunday and Monday.
Garcia said CHP officers responded to three stranded motorists and six collisions resulting in property damage. By noon on Monday there were more reports, this time relating to six stranded motorists, four property damage collisions and one collision with injuries. He added that those were just the collisions reported to CHP.
The tricky driving conditions would lead to continued reports throughout the rest of the day, with more vehicles reported in ditches and a vehicle rollover occurring on Soda Bay Road.
Icy conditions caused problems on 11th Street in Lakeport later in the evening. Lakeport city workers were called to the scene to try to address the problems.
County Road Superintendent Steve Stangland said members of his road crew were out all night on Sunday and early Monday morning plowing and sanding county roads.
While the road department does much of its work in the day, Stangland said they were splitting up shifts in order to be out again all night on Monday so they could to keep the roads clear.
“We had snow all the way down to the lake by the Riviera,” he said.
He warned that, no matter how many people they have working the department's 10 snow plows, they can't be everywhere. Stangland's department is responsible for 612 miles of county roads.
Stangland said some drivers seemed to forget how to drive safely in the first snow of the winter season. “Some of our plow trucks were getting passed,” he said, with his staff reporting “crazy” driving by some members of the public.
He said if you have to be on the roads, it's important to drive slowly.
Stangland warned that shadowed areas on roads and highways can be expected to have more ice, and it's important to slow down, especially on corners.
“A good rule of thumb, anywhere you see a guard rail, it's a good place to slow down. That guard rail is there for a reason,” he said.
The road department issued a road advisory Monday that calls for chains in all areas of Cobb, and on Socrates Mine, Seigler Canyon, Elk Mountain and Bartlett Springs roads. Stangland said they leave the chain restrictions in place until the storms have passed.
Like Stangland, Garcia said it's important to slow down, because many crashes are caused by driving too fast for current conditions.
For that reason, it's important to prepare in advance for traveling by leaving early and allowing yourself plenty of time to get where you're going, Garcia said.
He said not to forget that the law requires you have your headlights on any time you have your windshield wipers on continuously.
CHP offers winter driving tips at its Web site, www.chp.ca.gov.
For current road conditions, call the Caltrans Road Conditions Hotline at 1-800-427-ROAD (7623) or visit the agency's Web site at www.dot.ca.gov.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
LAKE COUNTY – Followers are mourning the death of a spiritual leader who founded a religious practice and several religious sanctuaries around the world, including one on Cobb Mountain.
Adi Da Samraj, 69, died Nov. 27 at his hermitage in Naitauba, Fiji, according to a statement from his organization, Adidam.
Adi Da was a spiritual master for 2,000 devotees worldwide, said Bill Dunkelberger, a spokesman for Adidam.
The man known to many followers simply as "Beloved" died of natural causes while in his art studio surrounded by devotees, said Dunkelberger.
"This was a sudden, unexpected event," Dunkelberger said.
Although a precise cause of death was not given, Dunkelberger said Adi Da often had told his followers that one day his spirit would "outshine" the body. Adi Da's physicians said his heart simply stopped.
Dunkelberger said Adi Da's body was interred at his Fijian ashram. It's not yet known if he left a parting message for his followers.
Born Franklin Albert Jones in Long Island, New York, on Nov. 3, 1939, he graduated from Columbia University in 1961 with a bachelor's degree in philosophy from one of the university's undergraduate schools, and received a master's degree in English literature from Stanford University in 1966.
He studied with a succession of spiritual masters in the United States and India in 1964. In 1970, according to an account of his life by Adidam.org, "after a final period of intense spiritual endeavor, Adi Da spontaneously became re-established in the continuous state of illumination that was his unique condition at birth."
Adi Da was known by a number of names over the years, which are reported to have marked changes in his teaching work. Variously he went by the names Dhyanananda, Bubba Free John, Da Free John, Da Love-Ananda, Da Avadhoota, Da Kalki, Da Avabhasa and Dau Loloma, before taking the name Adi Da Samraj in the 1990s. The name, in Sanskrit, means “the radiant avatar, primordial giver, universal ruler.”
He created the religious practice he called "Adidam," and published more than 60 books, including a trilogy, “The Orpheum,” and an annotated bibliography of the world's religious traditions titled “The Basket of Tolerance.” Before his death, Adi Da completed "The Aletheon," which he designated his most important work, which Dunkelberger said is scheduled for publication in 2009.
In addition to writing, Adi Da also was a prolific artist, creating more than 100,000 works, some of which can be viewed at www.adidabiennale.org and www.daplastique.com.
Dunkelberger said the sanctuaries he established included the hermitage in Fiji, and others in Kauai, Hawaii; Trinidad, Calif.; and Cobb Mountain's Mountain of Attention Sanctuary, housed on about 700 acres in the Cobb area.
The Mountain of Attention Sanctuary also is home to Adi Da's Fear-No-More Zoo, a sanctuary for a variety of animals including turtles, horses, birds, emus and many other creatures, said Dunkelberger.
During the 1980s, Adi Da – then known as Da Free John – was the focus of intense nationwide media coverage over allegations made by former followers involving, among other things, drug use, fraud, and financial and sexually abusive practices.
Lawsuits were filed, including countersuits by the Johannine Daist Communion, the previous name for the fellowship of Adidam, which claimed the lawsuits were attempts at extortion.
One of the lawsuits against the fellowship was thrown out, but another brought in 1986 by former devotee Mark Miller was reportedly settled out of court with nondisclosure agreements. A call to Miller's attorney, Ford Greene, was not immediately returned.
Adi Da's followers continue to maintain that mainstream media distorted the case, but Miller and others remain critical of the religious group and its leader, and steadfast in their assertions.
At the time of the allegations, the self-proclaimed avatar was said to have 1,000 followers. Despite the controversy about him and his teachings – which continues in some circles – his following has grown. Today, the group has grown to about 2,000 "formal" followers and thousands more who read his teachings and come to public events, said Dunkelberger.
Membership in Adidam requires devotees go through a process that includes being fully vetted and informed of their responsibilities, said Dunkelberger. "Then they make their free choice."
Responsibilities include practices of meditation and study, service to the group and a requirement to tithe 10 percent of their income, Dunkelberger said.
Adi Da's devotees live around the world, but Dunkelberger said the majority are in the United States, particularly Hawaii and California.
Those living with Adi Da were the more advanced practitioners, said Dunkelberger. He added that the Fijian ashram is open to all devotees who wish to come for a spiritual retreat.
Dunkelberger, a retired US Army lieutenant colonel, became a follower in 1996 after being introduced to Adi Da's work by a friend whose daughter also was a devotee.
At the time he was 65 years old and a very "worldly" man who had served a tour of duty in Vietnam. But it was Adi Da's writing about love that affected Dunkelberger so deeply – he can remember the day, time and place where he was when he read it – that he and his wife joined Adidam and moved from their home in Vermont to Cobb.
"I thought to myself, whoever wrote this, must be the divine," said Dunkelberger.
By the time Dunkelberger joined Adidam, the controversy had passed.
"The community has long moved past that period," he said. "If there is any residual effect it's an effect among people who are not in the community."
He added, "This is not even spoken about any more."
Dunkelberger, who had international relations experience thanks to his military career, served Adi Da personally, and found that the allegations against him didn't resonate with the person he came to know, a man he called "the most loving, compassionate entity that I have ever encountered."
On a daily basis Dunkelberger gave Adi Da summaries of world news and issues. He said Adi Da was interested in everything when it came to understanding the world.
"He blessed the world daily," Dunkelberger said.
The initial reaction by followers to Adi Da's sudden death is grieving but, beyond that, Dunkelberger said they're devoted to carrying on the work he established over the last 36 years of his life.
He said no successor has been named, but a “sacred cultural authority” of Adi Da's closest followers is expected to help guide Adidam.
Dunkelberger said he believes Adi Da's greatest impact is the teaching "that love was the most powerful, indestructible force in this world."
In addition to his followers around the world, Adi Da Samraj is survived by a sister and four daughters.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
LAKE COUNTY – Areas of Lake County got their first snow of the winter season on Sunday, which caused headaches and dangers for local drivers.
The CHP reported at about 8:30 a.m. Sunday snow was falling in the Kelseyville area but not yet sticking. By Sunday afternoon, snow could be seen along the hills that edge Clear Lake's Northshore.
The Cobb area, in particular, got a healthy dose of snow, which began shortly before 8:35 a.m., according to Roger Kinney, whose home is located in an area of Cobb at an elevation of around 3,000 feet.
He said fat, light snowflakes began to fall, with 1 inch of snow accumulating within 25 minutes.
The snow later stopped but started again at about 11:30 a.m., and continued until 3:45 p.m., during which time Kinney said another 2 inches of snow fell. Snow continued later in the day, he said.
The winter weather played havoc for some drivers.
Throughout the afternoon and evening, the California Highway Patrol reported responding to vehicles off the road and in ditches or otherwise stuck in the snow in the Adam Springs area, Bottle Rock and Red Hills roads, on Highway 29 near Diener Road and in the area of the Glasgow Grade near Lower Lake.
Calls were put out to Caltrans to plow and sand Highway 29 from Lower Lake to north of the Glasgow Grade, according to radio reports. The Lake County Road Department, which works to clear county roads in winter weather, also was called out in response to the weather conditions.
Kinney ventured out for a trip to Clearlake in the early afternoon, and said he encountered snow falling in the Siegler Canyon Road area not far off of Highway 29, as well as three cars pulled off the road at the Middletown turnoff.
Between Loch Lomond and Cobb he said there were at least five additional vehicles that had spun out and were either being helped or waiting for assistance.
Just after 8:30 p.m. Sunday CHP reported snow was appearing in the Blue Lakes area. Snow also was reported to be falling in areas of Mendocino County.
Caltrans and CHP reported late Sunday that area roads remained open.
To keep safe on area roads, the CHP instructs drivers to slow down and give themselves extra time to travel. When encountering fog, slow down and use low beams.
Drivers also should make sure their headlights and windshield wipers are in good condition, and to remember to keep vehicle’s headlights on anytime windshield wipers are on continuously, because it’s the law.
CHP urges drivers to travel with a cell phone and backup power source, tire chains and tighteners, flashlight and batteries, flares, small shovel, windshield scraper, waterproof clothing that’s warm, blankets, snacks and drinking water.
Taking care in winter weather is critical. CHP reported that last year in California 106 people were killed in collisions that occurred either in rainy, snowy or foggy conditions. More than 7,696 people were injured in crashes under similar weather conditions.
The National Weather Services has issued a winter weather advisory for the Lake County area that warns of snow. The advisory remains in effect until 4 p.m. Monday.
The forecast predicts 3 to 6 inches of snow above 1,500 feet, with snow also possible down to the 1,000-foot elevation mark. Winds from the southwest also are expected.
For the latest road conditions call the Caltrans Road Conditions Hotline at 1-800-427-ROAD (1-800-427-7623) or visit them online at www.dot.ca.gov.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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The 3.1-magnitude earthquake occurred at 8:24 p.m. at a depth of 1.4 miles, as was centered two miles north of The Geysers, four miles west of Cobb and seven miles west northwest of Anderson Springs, according to the US Geological Survey.
A second earthquake, measuring 2.6 in magnitude, occurred 25 seconds later, to be followed by a third 10 seconds later that measured 1.8, US Geological Survey records showed.
Cobb resident Roger Kinney reported that the second earthquake felt near as big as the first and lasted longer.
Three more small quakes, two measuring 1.1 and one measuring 1.3, followed over the following three minutes. In all, 16 shakers followed the main one between 8:24 p.m. and midnight.
Besides several Cobb, the US Geological Survey reported that the 3.1-magnitude earthquake was reportedly felt in Kelseyville and as far away as Cloverdale.
Kinney said earthquakes in the seismically active area usually drop off in November and pick up again in April, so the quakes were a surprise, especially coming as closely apart as they did.
The last earthquake measuring 3.0 or above reported in Cobb, The Geysers or Anderson Springs took place Dec. 1 and measured 3.2 in magnitude.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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