‘Reservists’ Pitch In After Disasters

Sometimes, life seems like one disaster after another for Wally Murphy.

For the last decade, he’s witnessed the aftermath of some of the nation’s nastiest natural calamities, from hurricanes in Kauai to earthquakes in Idaho, from floods in West Virginia to a volcanic eruption in Washington. The 64-year-old Lawndale resident is one of about 200 part-time federal disaster aid specialists who, in the wake of President Reagan’s declaration Wednesday, will provide help to victims of last week’s earthquake.

Murphy, a retired heavy equipment mechanic, will open an assistance hot line this weekend to provide basic information to victims who may be eligible for housing or low-interest loans.

“We are the other end of the 800 number when they call in,” Murphy said. “We are all things to all people.”

Part-Time Workers

Other part-time Federal Emergency Management Agency employees, several of whom have flown to Los Angeles from as far away as Georgia and Texas, will help staff the seven one-stop assistance offices due to open at 9 a.m. Sunday in Los Angeles, Alhambra, Whittier, Rosemead and La Habra.

The part-timers, known in government lingo as DEA’s (Disaster Assistance Employees) or, more simply, reservists, are an adventurous, close-knit crew whose ranks include retirees, real estate salesmen, lawyers and municipal officeholders.

While they are serious and dedicated workers, they can still joke that it takes a catastrophe to draw them together.

“A lot of these people I see only during disasters . . . but it’s still a wonderful feeling to meet the old friends again and again,” Murphy said. “We’re like an extended family. “

“You . . . develop a whole other cadre of friends,” emphasized another veteran, actress June Taylor of Santa Monica. “Each time, you greet each other like long-lost cousins.”

While most people prefer to forget disasters, the reservists use them as a yardstick of the years: Murphy noted that “1983 was the floods in Los Angeles. . . . We had an earthquake in Idaho in the fall of 1984. . . .”

Without the reservists, who, along with their state counterparts, make up the bulk of the crew at Whittier Quake assistance offices, the emergency agency would likely face catastrophe.

“We’ve depended on them for years and years,” said Joseph del Monte, who runs the quake aid office. “Without them, we’d be in trouble.”

The reservists are paid daily wages and expenses whenever they are called into action--which, on the average, is one to three months a year.

Bill Villa, a Marin County real estate salesman working as a reservist public information officer, said that on an annual basis, he’d make about $25,000 plus expenses.

“I do it because it’s exciting work,” Villa, 41, said. “And most of the time I can work around my regular job because it’s not a nine-to-fiver.”

Need a Declaration

Since they do not go into action until the President has declared a federal disaster, the reservists generally have a few days after each deluge or temblor to get their lives in order before departing for the scene of upheaval.

But they never know for sure. “When Mt. St. Helens blew, they said to catch the next plane,” recalled Murphy, who works despite having suffered a stroke and a heart attack in the last four years.

Last week, as soon as Murphy felt the ground shifting under him, his instinctive reaction was to reach for the soft-sided suitcase that he keeps packed with shaving gear, batteries, a jar of peanut butter, plastic bags and 12 changes of underwear.

Murphy works for the agency’s San Francisco-based Western regional office, which coordinates assistance in California, Nevada, Arizona, Hawaii and South Pacific territories and protectorates of the United States.

Although friends rib the reservists about the allure of their destinations, the rejoinders can be quick.

“People say ‘Look at you, you’re going to Hawaii and the government is paying for it,’ but when you explain the work, they respect that,” said Charles Raudebaugh, a retired San Francisco newsman who works as a public information reservist.

“In Saipan (a 47-square-mile island in the northern Marianas that was hit by a typhoon last December), you couldn’t drink the water. And while you could take a shower, if you did, the water stank.”

Veteran reservists say that their work, which includes processing applications for Small Business Administration loans and housing assistance to those whose shops and residences were destroyed, can be gut-wrenching.

Jerry Bezenek, a former teacher, recalled the aftermath of a West Virginia flood, when residents pleaded for temporary mobile homes to place on their property. “You had to remind them they had no property left--it went down the river.”

The quake aid headquarters in El Monte consists of two floors of a modern office building. However, the office was bare on Thursday until reservists began wheeling in boxes of office supplies and computer equipment from a rental truck. Murphy, meanwhile, lay on the floor, sketching signs that will assist the locally hired workers who will help staff the hot line.

By early Friday afternoon--less than two days before the field offices were scheduled to open--no phones had been installed in the administrative office.

Still, when things work out right, the rewards can be more than ample.

A Helping Hand

“I just basically like to help people,” said Jeanne Saxon of Torrance, a retired Northrop systems analyst. “I get a good feeling by helping somebody I have compassion for.”

“What we do in 72 hours is we set up a multimillion-dollar business office, we run it for a 21-day average and we close it without a fire sale,” said 12-year reservist Emmons Blake, 66, a retired commercial printer and San Luis Obispo city councilman.

What’s more, the adage that disasters pull people together appears particularly apt for the reservists.

While laboring in Saipan for seven months earlier this year, Bezenek met and married a native of the island.

And then there was regional housing officer Frank Kishton, 43, and then-reservist Sally Ziolkowski, at the time a Wisconsin teacher, who met while working on a flood in Ohio.

Now, “many disasters later,” as Kishton puts it, they are married and both work full-time out of the San Francisco office. What’s more, they are parents of a 1-year-old daughter--whom they brought to Los Angeles on Friday to live with them as they work together for the next month or two helping direct the earthquake relief effort.