text: When a 10-mile stretch of L.A.'s interstate 405 is closed this weekend, there will be only one way to get through the gridlock: Fly over it. WSJ's Tammy Audi takes a ride with Briles Wing & Helicopter. 
   
   LOS ANGELES—To help anxious Angelenos survive this weekend's shutdown of a chunk of one of the nation's busiest freeways, Kim Rodgers is offering to photograph their pets—at a discount. 
   
   "You've got to be crazy to try to drive anywhere," says Ms. Rodgers, co-owner of Bark Pet Photography, which takes pet portraits at customers' homes. "So if you're stuck, why not have your cat or dog photographed?" The Santa Monica company is offering 20% off on account of the planned closure of Interstate 405. The "4-0-fido" deal extends to all pets. 
   
   For 53 hours starting Friday night, the 405 will be closed for a 10-mile stretch through the Sepulveda Pass on the western side of Los Angeles so the California Department of Transportation, or Caltrans, can partially demolish a bridge to create a new lane for high-occupancy vehicles. The project won't be complete until 2013. 
   
   The closure of a major artery already notorious for daily gridlock is expected to produce a traffic jam of epic proportions. Locals have dubbed it "Carmageddon" and "Carpocalypse." 
   
   Officials fear it will bring Los Angeles to a standstill. The 250,000 vehicles that normally use that part of the 405 daily are expected to overwhelm smaller highways and surface streets. 
   
   The ensuing snarl will effectively cut off the San Fernando Valley in the north from shoreline communities like Santa Monica and Venice. 
   
   "It will be an absolute nightmare," Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said at a press conference last month. "Avoid the area, or stay home. Go on vacation that weekend." 
   
   City officials enlisted the help of celebrities to spread the word, tapping "CHiPs" star Erik Estrada ("Ponch") to film a public service announcement. "LAPD asked me 2tweet: 405fwy btwn 10 & 101 will be closed July16-17," actor Ashton Kutcher told his seven million followers on Twitter. "In xchange I would like a free pass on that stoplight tickt IT WAS YELLOW." 
   
   Bark Pet Photography Merchants hope to recover traffic-related lost business. 
   
   Amid the pre-emptive panic, a cluster of Carmageddon capitalists is emerging to combat the shutdown's impact on the local economy. 
   
   Fearful that the traffic will slow business, scores of merchants—from hotels and bars to florists and jewelers—are offering deals to lure spenders from their homes. Those located on shutdown-friendly thoroughfares, or neighborhoods with captive residents, see an opportunity to profit. 
   
   "It's the perfect time to get a tattoo. You can say, 'I got a tattoo the weekend they closed the 405.' It'll make it more special," says Howard Teman, owner of T-Man Tattoo on Ventura Boulevard, which is expected to clog during the 405 closure. 
   
   Mr. Teman is offering 15% off "any piercing or tattoo." He's not only hoping to attract people who live in his neighborhood, but also those stuck in the anticipated traffic crawl outside his location. To lure weary drivers out of their cars, Mr. Teman says he's thinking of hiring a man dressed in a chicken suit to stand on the sidewalk. 
   
   On Wednesday, JetBlue Airways Corp. announced a "Fly Over the 405" deal with a $4 one-way flight from Burbank to Long Beach, 40 miles away. For $150, travelers fearing Carmageddon can fly over the snarl in the same luxury helicopters that ferry celebrities like Will Smith and, most recently, England's William and Catherine, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, during their Los Angeles visit. 
   
   "We're trying to make something good out of this," says Lance Strumpf, the chief pilot of Briles Wing & Helicopter Inc. in Van Nuys. The company usually charges at least $5,000 for a minimum two-hour charter flight in an Agusta copter, which features Italian leather seats, sound-proof interiors and subtle lighting. 
   
   The price gets passengers a 15-minute flight (one-way) from the Van Nuys Airport, in the San Fernando Valley, over the 405 to the Los Angeles International Airport or the Santa Monica Airport. For no extra cost, passengers "can look at all those people stuck in traffic down below," Mr. Strumpf says. 
   
   "Brave the 405 closure with a four-course dinner for $40.05," declares the Wilshire Restaurant on Los Angeles' west side. In Santa Monica, Harvelle's bar is offering $5 for an "Irish Car Bomb" or a "Cadillac Margarita." 
   
   The shutdown has spawned Car-mageddon.com, a website that has become the regional clearinghouse for shutdown events, deals and commentary. It sells T-shirts for $20 that read "My gridlock is bigger than yours." 
   
   On the upside, Angelenos can thank the closure for lowering the price they pay for diamonds. 
   
   Fifth Generation Readers Fine Jewelers is offering 20% off all merchandise except single diamonds over half a carat. 
   
   Avo Guerboian, whose family owns the Santa Monica shop, says he has offered discounts for Rose Bowl games and holidays, but never for a road closure. To distract potential customers from the nonromantic side of combining a gift of jewelry with the freeway shutdown, Mr. Guerboian says he will encourage clients to "Think of it not like 'Oh, the highway is closed, and I got this necklace.' But like 'Oh, you're getting 20% off, why don't you get me the matching earrings?'" 
   
   Many businesses privately are worried the deals won't be enough to pry spenders from home. 
   
   "The idea of the 405 being closed for a critical weekend in the summer is unfortunate timing for us," says Jeff Klocke, marketing director for Pacific Park, the amusement park on the Santa Monica Pier. About 60,000 to 80,000 people visit the pier on a summer weekend day, Mr. Klocke said, most of them from outside Santa Monica. 
   
   The park is offering 53 hours of free rides to anyone with a San Fernando Valley zip code on their driver's license. It also ordered special "traffic-cone orange" cotton candy for the weekend—free with a day pass. Hard pressed to find an orange variety, the park got a local novelty food vendor to whip up the shade on short notice, using a banana-flavored base and experimenting with color and heat. 
   
   The cotton-candy color: "Caltrans Orange." 
   
   Write to Tamara Audi at tammy.audi@wsj.com ||||| The army of men and machines chewed through the Sepulveda Pass, casting aside in a geological blink of an eye what had taken nature millions of years to make. From above, the Santa Monica Mountains, its crest splayed apart, looked as if it was undergoing open heart surgery "This is the toughest highway job I've ever seen," project manager Gordon Bawden said at the time.This weekend's closure of the 405 Freeway, also known as the San Diego Freeway, through the Sepulveda Pass as part of a $1 billion widening project is being foretold as "Carmageddon" — a potential cataclysm that underscores the region's servitude to an overburdened freeway system.But in fact, the corridor has been under renovation for centuries. California's original commuter, Spanish explorer Gaspar de Portola, rode a horse through the area in 1769 following Native American hunting trails. Wagon roads were carved on top of footpaths.The road that prefigured the 405, four-lane Sepulveda Boulevard, opened in 1935 and was hailed in the Los Angeles Times as a "new and wondrous highway" over the mountains, vastly superior to the overcrowded Cahuenga Pass and Laurel Canyon.Sepulveda would become a clogged deathtrap within a few years. It's hairpin curves claimed 65 lives during the 1950s alone in often-spectacular multi-car crashes. More than 40,000 vehicles a day squeezed through a three-lane tunnel at its crest like sausage into a casing. Northbound traffic routinely backed up to Sunset Boulevard."It could take you more than an hour to drive Sepulveda to West L.A. It was a long haul," said Chuck Mathews, 77. As a young man just out of the Air Force, he took a job as a surveyor for the highway department and would work on the corridor's next incarnation.In August 1960, work began on the 405 Freeway connecting western Los Angeles to the San Fernando Valley — part of a 12-mile, $20 million project, then the most expensive California highway project to date.Newspaper accounts marveled at the supersized numbers involved. Eighteen million cubic yards of earth removed! Ninety thousand cubic yards of concrete poured! Six million pounds of steel holding it together! A 30-story building could be hidden within the depths of the so-called Big Cut."Back then it was bang, bang, bang — get them designed and get them built as fast as you can," Mathews said of the heady days when new freeways were embraced as the liberator of an expanding metropolis.Dec. 21, 1962, was a day to celebrate the opening of eight lanes of freeway that flowed through the mountains with the grace of a river.Some 800 people watched Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty cut a ribbon and then fly off in a helicopter, leading a caravan of cars southbound across the Sepulveda Pass.Motorists flooded the northbound lanes above Sunset Boulevard. Traffic backed up for more than a mile, causing the route's first SigAlert.Meantime, in the southbound lanes, police pulled over Ron Tamkin for going 72 mph in a 65 mph zone — the new freeway section's first ticket."I was driving my newborn son, Bobby, home from the hospital," said Tamkin, now 72. "I told my wife not to tell anyone. I was embarrassed. Here I was speeding with a baby in the backseat."The next day's Times reported the incident — and Tamkin's name. Every detail about the new freeway was news. Tamkin clipped the story and put it in Bobby's baby book.The 405 would come to play an integral role in Tamkin's life.He and his business partners profited from land deals that led to new apartment complexes in the now easily accessible western San Fernando Valley. In 1970, Tamkin and his family moved from Mar Vista to a new home in Encino. ||||| Tweet with a location 
   
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target: – LA residents are planning to flee or hunker down this weekend as a 10-mile stretch of the 405, one of the nation's busiest freeways, shuts down for 53 hours. For non-Angelenos: This is a big deal, hence the nicknames "Carmageddon" and "Carpocalypse." Some of the most amusing developments: Some businesses are offering discounts to woo customers tempted to stay home, the Wall Street Journal reports. A pet photog who makes house calls will give you 20% off with her "4-0-fido" deal. A tattoo shop on a sure-to-be-clogged thoroughfare is offering 15% off. One restaurant will serve a $40.05 four-course meal; a bar is offering $5 Irish Car Bombs and Cadillac Margaritas. JetBlue ran a "Fly Over the 405" special—$4 one-way tickets between Burbank and Long Beach, a 40-mile, 20-minute trip. That sold out in less than four hours, the Los Angeles Times notes, but you can still snag a $150 luxury helicopter ride over the traffic snarl, the WSJ adds. Best tweet? @latimestot quotes Jay Leno: "2 days til Carmageddon closes the 405 freeway & u wont be able to go anywhere. As opposed to when the 405 is open & u cant go anywhere." In truth, the Los Angeles Times notes, the 405 has been under construction for centuries, and it traces its evolution dating back to a Spanish explorer who rode through in 1769. Is there mayhem in the works? The LA Weekly seems to think so. One "after-hours bicycle mob" may be planning a "4PACOLYPSE" ride on the empty freeway, while officials are also worried about skateboarders. And one group says it's filming a "top secret" flash mob publicity stunt. That's not all: Watch two of the best viral videos, in the gallery.