People and Events

Conservative Board of Supervisors Chairman Mike Antonovich was already somewhat unpopular among Los Angeles County employees because of his tough stands during salary negotiations, and his reaction to Thursday morning’s earthquake did little to polish the image.

Evacuated from the Hall of Administration along with everyone else, Antonovich mounted a platform outside and addressed the milling employees.

“This is an emergency situation,” he said, “and I realize many of you are concerned over the welfare of your families. That’s understandable, and anyone who needs to can go home.

“But of course the time off will have to be taken as vacation or personal leave.”

Reactions were predictable.

But Antonovich spokesman Dawson Oppenheimer said he couldn’t see why everyone was so angry at his boss. “You can’t give some employees the day off while others have to work a full day,” he said.

“It just . . . wouldn’t be fair.”

Press agents for MCA/Universal Pictures--the entertainment conglomerate that operates the Universal Studios Tour--seemed to think it was a natural:

Within hours after the real temblor rolled through Los Angeles, studio spokeswoman Joan Bullard announced that anyone who missed the event--or wanted to repeat it--could do so next June when the company opens a brand new, more realistic expanded version of an attraction already familiar to patrons of the regular tram tour.

“We call it ‘The Earthquake Experience,’ ” she said.

Just three weeks before Thursday’s temblor, executives of San Gabriel Valley-based Earthquake Safety Engineering Inc. unveiled a brand new device they expect to be a big seller along the Pacific Rim: Equipped with a seismic trigger, it is intended to shut off gas, water and electric service in your house or place of business when the earth trembles.

“It’s a major advance in safety,” ESE President Paul T. Regan said. “In an earthquake, the major threat to lives and property is not from seismic shaking or ground movement, but from the post-quake effect of gas explosions, fire and flooding.”

Efforts to reach the company Thursday morning were unsuccessful, but during the unveiling Regan admitted that the device did have one little problem.

The system, he said, is too big to run on batteries. It needs 110-115 volt house current. And if the quake should happen to cut off the electricity. . . .

Fire officials said the single-story, turn-of-the century brick auto repair shop that collapsed in Pasadena during Thursday morning’s temblor was undergoing repairs and remodeling at the time . . . to make it earthquake-safe.

You know it’s a serious earthquake when:

- Trading almost comes to a stop for almost a minute at the Pacific Stock Exchange in downtown Los Angeles.

- A radio station traffic-monitor helicopter pilot reports so much dust raised by the earth’s motion that he can’t see the bottom of the gravel pits in Irwindale.

- There’s no smog forecast because the Air Quality Management District had to evacuate its offices.

- You switch your TV set to an educational channel and they’re doing live earthquake coverage instead of “Sesame Street.”

- Freeway traffic is light in Central Los Angeles at 9 a.m.

- The Caltech Seismological Laboratory is getting its information from the National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colo., because its own seismometer went off the scale due to its proximity to the quake.

- And attorney Gloria Allred cancels a press conference she called to announce she is suing the Boy Scouts of America.