A SPECIAL MISSION : LATINO STATIONS FIGHT QUAKE MEMORIES

Besides getting out the latest news and information, Spanish-language radio and television stations believe they have a special role to play when covering an earthquake like the one that struck Thursday.

“Our mission is to allay fears,” summed up Alberto Aguilar, news and public affairs director at KALI-AM (1430).

Spanish-language broadcasters know that for much of their audience, earthquakes here dredge up memories of killer quakes in Latin America.

“Many have lived through or lost family in the quakes in El Salvador, Mexico City, Guatemala and Nicaragua,” said Enrique Gratas, news director at KVEA-TV Channel 52. “So a quake here has a large psychological impact on them. Ninety percent of our population was probably scared to death.”

Many fled outdoors and spent the night in parks and open fields, afraid to sleep inside.

“We knew they would go to parks because that’s what they do in Central America,” Gratas said. “And the truth is that some of the buildings that they live in probably could not withstand another quake.”

KVEA spent a good part of its air time Thursday and Friday reassuring viewers that most structures were probably safe and urging them to check with their building supervisor about whether their dwelling was inhabitable. Once they are reassured, Gratas said, most of these people will return to their homes.

But Aguilar, whose station was knocked off the air for 30 minutes by the quake, said that no one can convince many of these people to return to their homes until they are ready.

“People learn from pictures of the earthquakes in their home countries and they think that the streets are the safest place to be,” he said. “We are here to try to reassure them, not to tell them to go back inside. We just keep telling them that this is California, not El Salvador or Mexico.”

Aguilar believes that the Latino community needs to be encouraged to prepare for the next earthquake on a very basic level. The man (identified as Juan Herrera from Guatemala) who reportedly jumped out of a second-story window trying to get out of his building during Thursday’s temblor, Aguilar said, was representative of the attitude many people bring from their experience with earthquakes in Latin America.

So KALI spent Thursday and Friday broadcasting lists of things to do before the next quake hits, and what to do once an emergency begins. “We tell them that if we’re prepared, we’ll be OK,” Aguilar said. “And if there are no more aftershocks, people will regain confidence and go back home. They are not fanatics.”

Pete Moraga, news director at KMEX-TV Channel 34, agreed: “In the ’71 earthquake, you had Anglos in the Valley who were sleeping out in their front yards. It’s a natural reaction.”

KMEX went on the air five minutes after the quake hit, deploying reporters all over the city, and ran updates continuously throughout the day. Because the epicenter of the quake was located in a heavily Latino area, Moraga insisted that the Spanish media’s primary responsibility was to provide quick and accurate information about what their audiences should do and where they could turn if they needed help.

“We do everything the other stations do,” Moraga said. “But we do it in Spanish.”

Spanish-speaking people who want to assure relatives in Mexico that they made it through Thursday’s quake unscathed can turn to a 150,000-watt Mexican radio station on the Texas border for help. Both Thursday and Friday, XEROK-AM (800), which can be heard all the way from Chicago to Mexico City after dark, broadcast messages, free of charge, from Los Angeles listeners to their relatives in Mexico, according to station spokesman Mike Edwards.

The station will take calls again today from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. PDT, Edwards said. On Thursday, more than 100 Los Angeles-area residents called late-night deejay Ismael (El Profe) Dominguez, who put them on the air between songs to let their families know that they were safe.

Edwards said that Dominguez’s “hotline” telephone number is 011-521-617-8021.