Just my own detailed report of how I escaped through the traffic mess
that closed I-405.  Note that I have intentionally not cross-posted
this to MTR because it has way too much local detail.

I left work (Howard Hughes Center).  Northbound 405 was still moving
so I got on, figuring to bail as soon as it stopped.  Just past
Venice, it stopped.  I took I-10 east to its 1st exit, Overland and
then north on Overland.  Overland was bogged down going straight at
Pico so I turned right.  Pico was soon bogged down too, so I turned
left on Prosser, 2nd Signal. I returned to Overland one block south of
Santa Monica.  I turned right on Santa Monica (Big SM) and left
immediately on Manning.  I jogged over to Westholme and crossed
Wilshire. Westholme got me to Hilgard where I was hoping to cross
Sunset.  Sunset was bogged down in both directions, backing traffic
onto Hilgard.  I took UCLA campus roads around to reach a point where
I could cross Sunset for the price of traveling a few blocks on
Sunset.

The news reports said that Coldwater, Beverly Glen and even Roscomare
were bogged down so I decided to aim for Benedict.  I took Bellagio
Road east, paralleling Sunset.  Finally I took Saint Pierre (near the
old Ronald Reagan place) to Beverly Glen.  St. Pierre is Right Turn
Only at Beverly Glen (you can only go south from there) and then I
went left immediately on Parkwood, taking North Faring, Brooklawn and
Angelo to reach Benedict Canyon via the Bel Air Campus of the Harvard-
Westlake School. Benedict Canyon was crawling along at a decent pace
so I took a left and joined the crowd.  Once on Mulholland, nearly
everyone was waiting for a chance to turn right on Beverly Glen, which
wasn't moving, so I stayed on Mulholland west, eventually turning
right on Woodcliff to reach the Valley floor.  I took Saugus to avoid
the north end of Woodcliff, then jogged over to Noble to cross Ventura
Blvd.  I finally rejoined Sepulveda at Camarillo and got home (near
405/101).

The mistakes: getting stuck in the backup in Hilgard; I needed a
better way to cross Sunset.  In retrospect, Loring to Sunset, force
right for one block and left on Bel Air Road might have worked out
better.

The best part was that I never had to consult a map!  I've been
driving these streets since the '70s.  The first time I looked at a
map of all of this was to fill in some of the street names (like
Parkwood) while writing this.