We've all seen in recent weeks the cruelty of hurricanes uprooting houses as easily as trees, tossing cars into fields and reducing farms to rubbish heaps. Tropical storms go where they want, and anything less than monolithic masonry is a goner. Even with the damage they bring, however, hurricanes are kinder than freeways.

Only two exceptions are available to alter the impact of freeways: In the case of elevated roadways, we can take them down, as San Francisco did with the Embarcadero Freeway along the waterfront. And in the case of corridors located in trenches, we can build above them.

It may not be the parting of the Red Sea, but the Los Angeles River Revitalization Master Plan is miracle enough. Sponsored by the Los Angeles River Committee of the Los Angeles City Council, the revitalization master plan may be the corner-turning event that actually kicks off the process of making a depressing culvert into a riparian green belt, studded with neighborhood parks, including several in the city's poorest neighborhoods.