Latest Temblor Rattled La Habra Nerves Shaken by Big October Quake

The ceiling still gapes at the La Habra Post Office where the tiles crashed to the floor Oct. 1, but new lighting fixtures hang from wire reinforcements. Still, it’s only a temporary job, and the fixtures look precarious.

So, when Tuesday morning’s earthquake struck, mail clerk Andy Mesa took one quick look at the quavering drop ceiling and joined about 100 other postal employees who scrambled out of the sprawling, 35,000-square-foot building.

“I was scared that the tiles and lights would fall again,” Mesa said. They didn’t, but he and the others waited anxiously in the parking lot for about 20 minutes to make sure. “Since the October quake, we’ve been kind of on edge,” he said.

That quake, centered in south El Monte, registered 5.9 on the Richter scale. In Orange County, it caused one woman to die of a heart attack and dozens of others to suffer minor injuries, and about $7 million in damage, ranging from toppled chimneys to shattered windows. Hardest hit was La Habra, which suffered about $5 million in damage, officials said. The city garage was heavily damaged. About 500 homes and commercial buildings had shattered windows, cracked foundations and walls, and broken chimneys, authorities said.

Two months later, many in the city of 48,000 people are still picking up the pieces.

At the La Habra Post Office, located at Imperial Highway and Idaho Street, where 75% of the ceiling tiles and lights in the mail-sorting area were damaged, Superintendent Norm Stokley said it will be a few more weeks before work begins on a new ceiling that will cost $100,000.

At the Wells Fargo Bank branch in Fashion Square, most of the work to replace damaged ceiling tiles and lighting fixtures, at a cost of $10,000, was completed six weeks ago, said Laura Brill, a bank officer.

But a sign identifying her as a “personal banker,” which once hung from the ceiling above her desk, now leans against the wall on the floor. “I guess they haven’t gotten around to it yet,” Brill said. “They come back every now and then to do little bits and pieces.”

At Paraiso Furniture in La Habra Plaza, owner Richard Smolinisky is still upset about the $3,000 it cost him to replace the 600 square feet of glass that shattered when the Oct. 1 quake hit.

“My insurance company wouldn’t pay for it,” Smolinisky said. “I didn’t have earthquake insurance. But even if I had had it, it wouldn’t have done me any good. . . . The deductible is 10% of the value of the building, so I would have had to have suffered $50,000 in damage before the insurance policy kicked in.”

Smolinisky said it was a month before he could come up with the money to replace the display windows. In the meantime, he made do with plywood.

“When I’d get here in the morning, it was cold as hell,” he recalled. “A couple of times, there was dew on the merchandise.”

When last Tuesday’s quake struck, Smolinisky said, the shaking windows at his home woke him. He hurried to his shop, not sure if he would have to relive his October experience.

“When I drove into the parking lot, I could see that the windows were still up,” he said. “But I had to go up and touch them. . . . I was so relieved.”