Poppy-viewing crowds overwhelm Southern California city
(WorldNews Environment)

Like Dorothy in the `Wizard of Oz,` the Southern California city of Lake Elsinore is being overwhelmed by the power of the poppies. About 150,000 people flocked over the weekend to see this year´s rain-fed flaming orange patches of poppies lighting up the hillsides near the city of about 60,000 residents, about a 90-minute drive from either San Diego or Los Angeles. Interstate 15 was a parking lot. People fainted in the heat; a dog romping through the fields was bitten by a rattlesnake. The city had tried to prepare for the crush of people drawn by the super bloom, a rare occurrence that usually happens about once a decade because it requires a wet winter and warm temperatures that stay...