Survivors of 1987 Quake Still Jumpy, Study Finds

Nearly two years after the Whittier Narrows earthquake caused $60 million in damage to homes and businesses in that town, some Whittier residents who were shaken by the Oct. 1, 1987, temblor are still jumpy, depressed and anxious, disaster researchers say.

“I think there is still a heightened level of anxiety here,” said Helaine Prince-Aubrey, a New Mexico State University researcher who is studying the lasting effects the earthquake has had on survivors’ emotions and behavior.

“Some people say they are irritable but for no special reason,” she said. “Loud noises are making people jumpy, more so than before. All those kinds of things are going on.”

Time and time again, Prince-Aubrey said, researchers encountered the same results during the last two weeks as they interviewed about 70 Uptown Whittier residents in the first phase of a two-year project funded by a $70,000 grant from the National Science Foundation.

Track Lasting Effects

The researchers hope to track the quake’s lasting effects on a total of 120 Whittier residents by conducting periodic follow-up interviews over the next two years.

One reason residents may have difficulty forgetting the temblor is that many are still coping with unpaid bills from rebuilding homes that were damaged by the 5.9-magnitude earthquake, Prince-Aubrey said.

The earthquake also resulted in the deaths of three people--a 23-year-old Cal State Los Angeles student killed by a collapsed wall; a 41-year-old construction worker killed in a tunnel landslide, and a 32-year-old man who died after falling out of a second-story window--and caused $368 million in damage in 55 cities in Los Angeles and Orange counties.

And with each smaller earthquake that occurs, the jitters are reawakened.

Garrett Nanninga, the assistant manager of the Whittier chapter of the American Red Cross, said his counselors noticed that after the June 12 Montebello-centered quake, with a magnitude of 4.5, more Whittier residents appeared to be suffering from emotional distress.

Counseling Needs

Staff members at the Red Cross chapter in Whittier typically meet with three or four people a week for private counseling, Nanninga said. But within 48 hours of the Montebello quake, between 20 and 30 Whittier area residents called for help.

“About the time people start to feel comfortable, another quake hits,” Nanninga said. “People are not allowed to completely relax.”

And residents who are not paying bills or feeling anxious still have plenty of other reminders of the October, 1987, earthquake. They are surrounded by damaged buildings in various stages of repair.

“People are saying they don’t think things will be back to normal until the construction is over,” Prince-Aubrey said.

Whittier city officials said it could take years to rebuild all the damaged structures.

5,100 Buildings Damaged

Richard Hubinger, director of the city’s Building and Safety Department, said 5,100 buildings in Whittier were damaged by the quake. Of those, about 200 were deemed unsafe.

At least a dozen buildings still are being rebuilt, Hubinger said. Two dozen lots, where earthquake-gutted buildings once stood, are empty.

Robert Bolin, coordinator of the two-year study and chairman of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at New Mexico State University, said researchers also will interview government and social service workers who provided assistance after the quake.

In addition to studying long-term psychological effects of the quake, researchers will study how the community was changed by decisions made after the disaster, Bolin said. The results of the study will be used by social service workers and decision-makers devising disaster plans.

Interview Residents

In a separate, shorter-term research effort, Bolin and Prince-Aubrey interviewed 200 Uptown Whittier residents about six months after the Whittier Narrows temblor.

That study, unlike the one just getting under way, was intended to identify immediate psychological responses to the disaster, not the lasting effects. Bolin said the earlier study found:

* Forty-one percent of residents interviewed six months after the quake said they were experiencing stress. About 30% of those residents said they sought professional counseling to help cope with their anxieties.

* Divorced people and single parents were among the hardest hit emotionally by the quake. When asked six months later if they had recovered, 75% of the single parents and divorcees answered, “No.” That compared to 39% of married respondents answering negatively.

* Respondents 60 years of age and over had best handled emotional stress after the quake. “The elders have had a lifetime of coping with critical events,” Bolin said. “They have developed better coping strategies.”

* Nearly half of the parents interviewed said their children appeared to be upset by the earthquake. About 46% said their children were afraid to leave home for a time. Prince-Aubrey said parents now are telling researchers that their children appear to have adjusted. “One woman said that her kids are doing better than she is,” she said.