Whittier: Quake Shocks Linger : Demolition Begins as Residents Assess Damage

Clouds of plaster dust filled the air in Whittier on Saturday as wrecking balls and battering rams reduced some of the city’s best-known historical buildings to rubble, and officials announced that work on a master plan to rebuild the quake-ravaged Uptown district will begin this week.

As damaged commercial buildings fell to the groans of a small knot of spectators, the Whittier Community Center, three blocks away, bustled with families seeking psychological counseling and financial advice in the aftermath of the quake.

Bilingual counselors, who are going door to door in neighborhoods near Uptown Village where damage was extensive, say “the fear is only just lifting.”

“The children who have been staying here at the Community Center are finally bouncing back, and on Thursday all of them attended school for the first time,” said Carmen Brenan, community liaison for the Los Angeles County Mental Health Department.

Squeals of Delight

At mid-morning, Ralph’s Grocery Co. delivered a truckload of 4-foot-tall stuffed teddy bears to children at the center, and the high-pitched squeals of delight, Brenan said, “were a very healthy sign.”

Experts say that about 25% of the people living near the epicenter of a major earthquake suffer from seismosophobia, a fear of quakes that ranges from dizziness and worry to panic-attacks and hyperventilation. According to the Phobia Institute in Westwood, others may experience a delayed trauma syndrome a few days, or even several months, after an earthquake, such as the 6.1 temblor that struck Oct. 1.

“My only casualty is my little 5-year-old, who is like a shadow, following close by me everywhere I go,” said Greg Hinman, a Whittier reserve police officer who volunteered to control spectators at the demolition site Saturday.

‘We Feel Truly Injured’

“The first emotion we all had was just anger at being tossed around like a rag doll, but now we look around our city and say, ‘My God, what happened?’ ” Hinman said. “The best way to describe it is that we feel truly injured.”

Damage to Whittier’s attractive Uptown Village, an upgraded area of 1920s and ‘30s commercial buildings and storefronts filled with specialty shops and restaurants, “has been a pure tragedy for the city,” said City Manager Tom Mauk as he watched a battering ram destroy the badly damaged, two-story brick-and-stucco Emporium Building.

Madeleine and Mike Lord, who have operated the Davis Pharmacy in the Emporium Building for the last decade, emptied their store on Friday and told customers that they were reopening several blocks away.

“My husband loved this place,” Madeleine Lord said. “There is just no way to explain the loss.”

Mauk said dozens of businesses around the core of damage have been closed since the city roped off much of Uptown because of fear of falling debris.

Nine buildings, including the St. John’s Building and the Lindley Building--the city’s oldest commercial structure, built in 1888--will be demolished over the next two weeks. Officials expect the demolition to cost about $100,000. Another 30 businesses and homes present no public safety hazards but are not salvageable, Mauk said.

Mauk said the Whittier City Council has waived a city ordinance prohibiting mobile homes, and will encourage shop owners who were shut down by the quake to reopen in mobile homes in the Uptown area.

Within the week, he said, city officials plan to begin a master plan to rebuild the popular shopping district “just like the 1930s village that’s still partly standing here today.”

Brenan said free counseling is still available for adults or children who are suffering from psychological trauma.

Those seeking counseling should contact the Intercommunity Child Guidance Center at 8106 S. Broadway, Whittier; El Camino Mental Health Center, 11721 Telegraph Road, Santa Fe Springs; Rio Hondo Mental Health Center, 17701 Studebaker Road, Cerritos; Community Family Guidance, 10929 South St., Cerritos. Victims are also invited to an earthquake support meeting Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. at St. Matthias Episcopal Church, 7056 S. Washington Ave., Whittier.