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To hear Angelenos talk about the news, you'd think we were bracing for the Big One. Or maybe preparing for something worse than the dire stretch of earthquakes, floods, fires and riots that hit us in the 1990s. Celebrities in Los Angeles are tweeting about the calamity; hospitals are up in arms about it; local news channels are calling it "Carmageddon." What could cause so much panic? If you live in L.A. and you don't know what I'm referring to, the next sentence may lead to more stress in your life. It's the 53-hour-long shutdown of part of the 405 freeway from the evening of July 15 through July 17.

A road closure? On a weekend? All this distress over that? Well, it's not just any road. It's the 10-mile (16 km) stretch of concrete that connects the west side to the San Fernando Valley. It usually carries half a million people on the weekend, making it one of the busiest sections of one of the most dreaded roadways in L.A., home to the U.S.'s worst traffic.

The anxiety this is causing around Los Angeles is a reflection of the intimate, love-hate relationship we have with our freeways. People love their cars in this spread-out metropolis. Public transportation, carpooling and walking are often shunned, which makes the freeways a central part of Angelenos' lives. Ginger Chan, a traffic reporter for the local television station KTLA, says she even flirted with someone in bumper-to-bumper traffic once. "I have had that happen to me, where some guy is trying to get my attention and we're both smiling at each other," she says.

At times, to hear us talk about the freeways, you'd think they were our most prized possession. A friend who recently moved to L.A. from the East Coast noted that if he's at a loss for words at a party, he can always strike up a conversation about traffic. If you want to do this and you're from out of town, some important points. First, they're "freeways," not "highways" or "toll roads," as they are in other parts of the country. Second, L.A. lingo dictates that a freeway must be referred to with the article the preceding it. You don't take "10 West" or "Interstate 10"; you take "the 10." Another friend from the East thinks the implication with this is that L.A.'s freeway is the only one, or at least the most important one; as if "the 10" that goes through L.A. is more special than the rest of Interstate 10 that stretches across the country.

Our traffic lingo doesn't stop there. We also have the SigAlert. According to the California Department of Transportation, or Caltrans, the term came about in the 1940s when police became accustomed to notifying local radio reporter Loyd Sigmon about car accidents in the city. Caltrans adopted the term to mean a wreck that ties up two or more lanes of a freeway. Today the term is so common, you can go to sigalert.com to check the status of the freeways.

That brings me to the hate part of the relationship. We know traffic is inevitable, but we abhor it anyway — and can't stop complaining about it. An Angeleno trapped on a freeway by a SigAlert is likely to compare his fate to a human-rights violation. Check out sigalert.com on a given Friday afternoon: you'll see a lot of red lines. Those freeways are jammed. We pray for some yellow. Green would be an absolute miracle. Chan at KTLA likens the freeways to Murphy's Law, the adage that if anything can go wrong, it will. They're "the only way to get to certain places, so they're always jammed," says Chan, whose husband pilots the station's traffic helicopter. "I rarely get stuck, because I can't stand it. It's like pouring acid on me. I always say, I will drive in bad neighborhoods, I will cut you off, but I will not get stuck in traffic."

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Detroit may be the Motor City, but with more than 26 million registered vehicles, Los Angeles is the undisputed car capital of the country.

Since the 1920s, Angelenos have eschewed public transportation in favor of private automobiles, the quintessential symbol of freedom and independence.

“Los Angeles practically invented the Space Age, and while it did not invent automobiles, it was the first global metropolis to fully adopt the automobile as a way of life,” said USC College history and political science professor Phil Ethington.

The gridlock of vehicles that greets today’s drivers is not dissimilar to that experienced by postwar Angelenos. The prosperity of the 1940s and ’50s allowed many L.A. residents to buy the latest in automotive design, including the Chrysler Windsor, the Ford Mystre and the Chevrolet Corvette.

Many of these cars were commonly witnessed cruising on the streets of Los Angeles. In fact, “cruising” in hot rods and low-riders became so popular that numerous municipalities across the Southland — citing concerns about juvenile delinquency and traffic congestion — outlawed the pastime that was documented in filmmaker George Lucas’ American Graffiti.

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Although the real test of midday traffic was a few hours away, Los Angeles commuters Saturday were either avoiding or successfully navigating roads near a closed stretch of Interstate 405, traffic maps indicated.

But the quiet conditions allowed Metro officials to cancel several late-night trains that were specially added for the weekend, CNN affiliate KTLA reported.

The closure of the 405 is being deemed such a potentially calamitous event that locals are calling it the "Carmaggedon."

That's because southern California is notorious for its love affair with the automobile and its reluctance to embrace public transportation. One of the busiest freeways in the country, the 405 is one of two mountain passes in the heart of Los Angeles and is the major coastal artery connecting southern California with the rest of the state.

"We are the car capital of the United States of America and the single-passenger car capital," Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa told CNN.

Los Angeles International Airport is urging travelers to get there by public transit, especially rail, or to stay at nearby hotels for early morning flights.

The Los Angeles Fire Department is adding 200 firefighters so it can quickly respond to 911 calls in the areas affected by the closure, CNN L.A. affiliate KABC reported.

Villaraigosa said officials carried out "an unprecedented" public awareness campaign urging motorists to stay off the road or use public transportation.

"It doesn't have to be 'Carmageddon.' That's why we have done so much outreach to the public," the mayor said.

Whether it has been overdramatized by locals in the nation's entertainment capital, the project has brought countdown clocks, traffic apps, detour maps and warnings to stay away or enjoy the weekend on the couch. Amtrak and JetBlue are offering specials to get away from it all.

"Severe traffic conditions are anticipated in local and regional areas during the weekend of the full freeway closure," Metro warned on its website.

The four-mile southbound section is closed between U.S. 101 and Getty Center Drive ramps. The 10-mile northbound section is closed between U.S. 101 and Interstate 10.

There is an app, or several, for "Carmageddon."

KABC has partnered with Waze to help navigate the traffic. "The app provides free turn-by-turn GPS navigation based on the live conditions of the road," the station said.

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Will the closure of the Interstate 405 in Los Angeles hurt small businesses?

The forecasts of gridlock have been alarming, but as a 10-mile stretch of the 405 closes for 53 hours this weekend, businesses say there is a lot more than a traffic jam at stake.

"They are making it out to be a nuclear event," hairdresser Jon Condon said.

He said city officials have frightened drivers with dire predictions of 50-mile traffic jams. He is closing his Brentwood Village shop this weekend and believes Los Angeles residents will be hunkered down in their homes.

"It's just too much," he said, "too much of a hassle getting here."

Across town, Adrineh Khechadorian is already lamenting lost business. She operates a party rental service with lots of customers in the west side of Los Angeles, the area most affected by the planned 405 closure.

"We've had two major parties canceled this week," Khechadorian told CNN. The hosts, she said, believed their guests would not be willing to brave the traffic

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Covering "Carmageddon" is driving some local television and radio stations a bit crazy.

One news director bluntly told the traffic reporter not to expect much sleep for the next two days. A news crew from another station will be living in a recreational vehicle near the 405 freeway. Still another station is avoiding using the "C" word in its coverage, hoping that the dire predictions for gridlock will not materialize.

Although varied in their approaches, local news stations uniformly are increasing staff, planning live cut-ins and using real-time driving reports and social networking to keep viewers abreast of the impact of the weekend closure. Much of the coverage launched Friday with live footage of the shutdown of the freeway ramps and is expected to continue until Monday morning when the critical roadway artery is slated to reopen.

"We take what's going to happen very seriously," said KABC President and General Manager Arnie Kleiner. "We're going into this expecting the worst, then we'll adjust, hoping for the best."

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that it wasn't worse is at least partially attributable to the fact that there WAS so much publicity and advance warning of it, so that people WERE staying away, staying home, or staying local.

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