THE BIG ONE

Imagine that you are safely settled in a comfortable chair, about to read a national news magazine. Imagine also that the cover stories report the occurance of what scientists have long predicted--a major earthquake in Southern California.

What follows is the kind of narrative that would likely appear. It is a look into the future, based on opinions from more than 20 industry and government experts and findings from a recent state geological report that bears this disturbing conclusion--a major quake along a lesser-known fault stretching from Orange County to Los Angeles would cause more damage and loss of life than an even greater quake on the San Andreas. Such strong, prolonged shaking in such a densely populated area, the report warns, “poses one of the greatest hazards to lives and property in the nation.”

But once the shaking stops, what will Orange County look like? This account by Times staff writer Steve Emmons opens on the third day after the disaster that we all hope never happens--but quite possibly will.

Imagine that you are safely settled in a comfortable chair, about to read a national news magazine. Imagine also that the cover stories report the occurance of what scientists have long predicted--a major earthquake in Southern California.

What follows is the kind of narrative that would likely appear. It is a look into the future, based on opinions from more than 20 industry and government experts and findings from a recent state geological report that bears this disturbing conclusion--a major quake along a lesser-known fault stretching from Orange County to Los Angeles would cause more damage and loss of life than an even greater quake on the San Andreas. Such strong, prolonged shaking in such a densely populated area, the report warns, “poses one of the greatest hazards to lives and property in the nation.”

But once the shaking stops, what will Orange County look like? This account by Times staff writer Steve Emmons opens on the third day after the disaster that we all hope never happens--but quite possibly will.

EARTHQUAKE

Death Toll Hits 300; Damage at $20 Billion

By STEVE EMMONS

TIMES STAFF WRITER

SANTA ANA--Three days after the most destructive earthquake in United States history, authorities in Orange County were only beginning to gain ground in a recovery effort that could extend for months--or years.

So far, more than 300 dead have been recorded. But the total could reach 400 if many of the critically injured survivors of an industrial chlorine spill die as expected.

Rescue workers said they could only guess at the numbers of injured who have walked, driven or been brought to hospitals and open-air clinics set up in parks and on golf courses. Some have already been airlifted to medical centers throughout the Southwest. The injured will probably number in the tens of thousands, one spokeswoman said.

Property damage in Orange County alone is expected to approach $20 billion. To the north in Los Angeles County, where the average age of buildings is greater, damage was estimated at nearly $40 billion, and officials expected the death toll there to reach as high as 4,400.

Even seasoned emergency workers expressed astonishment at the scale of the disaster. The tone was somber at staging areas where they returned from the field.

“We’ve never had to deal with anything of this magnitude,” said one high-level planner. “It’s bigger than anything anyone has had to deal with.”

The approximately 7.3-magnitude quake, which struck at 7:41 a.m. Monday, shook for 25 seconds and was followed by a brief but powerful aftershock at 12:22 p.m. Seismologists say more potentially destructive aftershocks are expected, perhaps for a month.

Emanating from the Newport-Inglewood fault that runs near the Pacific coast from Newport Beach north to Beverly Hills, the quake concentrated its worst destruction in multimillion-dollar residential and business districts close to shore.

Coastal cities from Newport Beach to Seal Beach, virtually isolated since the quake struck, are just now starting to receive scattered telephone service and trucked-in water and food. But the problems of raw sewage bubbling up in streets and the lack of running water and electricity is likely to persist for days, authorities said. The lack of natural gas, which must be restored particularly carefully, could extend for weeks.

The consensus of relief officials was that about half the people in hard-hit areas were coping well with the trauma, a fourth remained in a daze of disbelief and another fourth seemed emotionally crippled by shock.

Authorities said the disaster has been particularly hard on emotions because it hit at a time when many families had separated for the day. Orange County’s freeways were jammed with commuters, some children were on their way to school and some people were still at home when the quake’s first jolt was felt. Within a few minutes, attempts to phone family members overloaded and shut down the telephone system in Orange and Los Angeles counties.

For those nearest the fault, the quake came without the slightest warning. Witnesses said it seemed to explode with a tremendous thump. A resident of Leisure World in Seal Beach said she thought something at the neighboring Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station had exploded.

In fact, several of the station’s older buildings were heavily damaged and its railroad tracks were severely deformed, but the ammunition bunkers held.

“There is quite a mess inside, but there was no failure of any bunker and no explosion. The bunkers are designed to withstand a 7.5 quake,” a Navy spokesman said.

The quake’s first shock, called the primary or P wave by seismologists, immediately felled unreinforced exterior brick walls of several old buildings in Seal Beach, Huntington Beach and Newport Beach even before the shaking began.

The shaking that followed was so severe at the fault that most people panicked, but few could keep on their feet to flee. Heavy furniture skidded and toppled, lighter objects flew, reinforced masonry buildings cracked and gave way in some parts, and some wood-frame houses, especially older ones built up off the ground, were shaken partially off their foundations. All or parts of chimneys fell, sometimes through roofs. And even chimneys left standing were ominously cracked.

In some places, the ground buckled and rent, leaving gaps in the pavement. That, combined with trees and building debris fallen onto streets, made driving almost impossible.

The rending of the earth opened water, natural gas and sewer pipes. Water and raw sewage began to flow almost immediately in street gutters, heading for storm drains, then the beach and ocean. People who smelled escaping gas tried to flee, many in automobiles that wound up igniting the gas. The result was a series of spectacular 15-foot towers of flame burning, relatively harmlessly, in streets and parkways.

Surprisingly few fires erupted in homes and businesses, officials said, and a number were extinguished by their occupants. But several blazes burned their structures to the ground, either because fire trucks could not get there in time or firefighters simply ran out of water when they found hydrants inoperable.

“We had to write some structures off as losses because we couldn’t get to them,” said Christine Boyd, manager of the county’s emergency management division. “They just burned.”

The shaking was sharp and rapid near the fault but became slower and rolling as it spread inland. Oddly, this caused great damage in high-rise buildings far from the fault, and some smaller buildings collapsed as far away as Buena Park, 10 miles to the northeast.

Along the coast, the shaking was too quick to set tall structures swaying. But at distances as far as 20 miles, the slow ground motion matched some buildings’ vibration characteristics and started them swaying violently. None collapsed, but the damage inside was extraordinarily severe.

In some buildings containing extensive computer systems and valuable databases, the destruction to contents was more than the buildings were worth. Expensive desktop terminals in office after office went smashing to the floor because they had not been anchored. The vast majority of computer systems in Orange County were out indefinitely.

The shaking also forced ground water up to the surface of the sandy soil, lubricating it in a way that made the shaking even harder--a phenomenon called liquefaction. The liquefaction allowed the ground to sink in spots, sometimes as much as a foot, thereby pulling the support away from bridge abutments, collapsing sections of roads approaching bridges and breaking freeway pavement.

Significant liquefaction occurred as far north as Fullerton and as far east as Tustin, but was scattered widely and haphazardly. On one street, a two-story apartment building was left twisted and leaning while its twin next door was upright and nearly undamaged.

In Orange County’s flatlands and valleys, relatively few structures were left unharmed, but fewer were destroyed. Some hillside structures were toppled in Laguna Beach and San Clemente when land slid out from under them.

By and large, low, wood-frame structures such as houses survived well, even those close to the fault. Their interiors, however, were in shambles, with much damage to walls, furnishings and other belongings. In one Los Alamitos home, shelves of crystal drinking glasses and china plates flew from kitchen cabinets just moments after the family’s two children finished breakfast at a table below.

Deaths typically came from falling or flying objects. One Huntington Beach woman was killed when struck in the head by a hanging potted plant swinging on its hook. A man in Newport Beach was struck in the forehead and killed by a video recorder that flew at him from a living room shelf.

One man was killed when he panicked, ran onto his apartment balcony and was thrown three stories onto the parking lot. Another man, also panicked by the shaking, simply jumped out his apartment window and died from the fall.

Others were killed after they ran outside and objects fell on them. Some of the most common falling objects were palm trees, which seemed particularly vulnerable to the shaking.

But it was the partial or total collapse of a few large, 1950s concrete buildings that sent the death toll soaring, authorities said.

Rescue workers--some still arriving from as far away as Florida and Quebec--so far have found more than 250 dead in the wreckage of two parking garages, an eight-story office building and a 10-story tourist hotel. All of the structures were of reinforced concrete, constructed in the 1960s before building codes were strengthened.

No survivors have been found in the rubble since the second day, and rescuers said they are pessimistic about finding more. Still, the search effort, aided by trained dogs, is expected to continue for another week, with specialized rescue teams arriving from Europe and Asia to join in.

County government authorities, gathered in their emergency command post in a basement of the Santa Ana Civic Center, were trying to coordinate the various recovery efforts. After three days, few officials had slept more than a two or three hours.

“We want to show some structure and order as soon as possible,” said Marilee Miller, a senior coordinator for the emergency management division. “People have to be reassured that normal social controls are still in place.”

Miller made no mention of looting, and so far that seems appropriate. Police and firefighters have reported that neighborhoods seem relatively orderly. Many residents have banded together to set up front-yard camps and improvised rescue teams. Some nearly abandoned streets were being patrolled by neighbors, many of them armed, officials said.

Most large commercial areas had been roped off and their boundaries were being patrolled by reserve police and police cadets. Business was at a standstill and not likely to resume for weeks.

In Sacramento, workers in the state’s Office of Emergency Services knew of the catastrophe almost immediately when the earthquake alert board, connected to seismographs statewide, began to flicker. Lights indicated a huge earthquake in Southern California, and telephone calls soon revealed that the phone systems were out in Los Angeles and Orange counties.

State emergency coordinators were already on their way to the service’s regional office in Ontario, where the quake had been strongly felt. Radio communication determined that the service’s disaster communications center at the Los Alamitos Armed Forces Reserve Center probably could not function for 24 hours because of damage at the base, and the service instead opened a command center at the Ontario International Airport.

U.S. Geological Survey stations in Menlo Park, Calif., and Golden, Colo., called state officials within 15 minutes to confirm an approximately 7.5-magnitude quake along the Newport-Inglewood fault. Officials later revised that estimate to a magnitude of about 7.3.

Local police agencies and public utilities put their helicopters into the air almost immediately and began to transmit reports of damage. Emergency vehicles still able to move were put into the field for a closer look, although their progress through littered and broken streets was slow.

Police and firefighters dispatched solely to inventory the damage reported anger and disbelief from residents who were frustrated by not being able to telephone for emergency assistance, then seeing police and fire vehicles appear only to keep going. “We couldn’t stop and help,” said one fire captain. “It was hard to just pass by, but we had to. A lot of them couldn’t understand that they were on their own. Nobody was going to come for a while.”

The damage information was relayed by county authorities to the Ontario command center and from there to Sacramento. Though these initial damage estimates were vague, confused, contradictory and, as it turned out, much too conservative, they were alarming enough. Within the first hour, both the governor and the President had declared the two counties a disaster area.

Late in the first day, the extent of the disaster came into focus:

* Hospitals evacuated their patients and staff as soon as the shaking stopped. At the 12 hospitals within five miles of the fault, most buildings survived, but interior damage was so severe that authorities ordered the seriously sick and injured flown to medical centers out of the region as soon as possible. Hospitals that remained open--mostly those considerably inland--reported they could operate, but at reduced levels because of damage to equipment and supplies. A roll call of hospitals in Los Angeles and Orange counties indicated that use of about 14,000 hospital beds had been lost, about a third of the region’s hospital capacity.

* Sewage treatment plants along the Santa Ana River in Fountain Valley and Huntington Beach--facilities that pump 260 million gallons a day and serve 1.8 million of the county’s 2.1-million residents--were severely damaged and likely to remain that way for weeks. Loss of power stopped pumps, and raw sewage began to overflow into low-lying residential neighborhoods almost immediately. Broken underground sewer pipes sent effluent flowing onto street gutters at many locations near the fault and a few locations farther away.

* Electrical power was out in large areas, due mostly to severe damage in three substations in Anaheim and Huntington Beach. Generating plants in Huntington Beach and Seal Beach were damaged and shut down, but the San Onofre nuclear power station, a few miles south of the San Clemente in San Diego County, continued uninterrupted with only minor damage. Officials said the nuclear reactors were unaffected and there was no leakage of radiation.

* Thousands of underground natural gas connections near the fault were damaged and leaking, and many of the leaks in streets had been ignited. Some house fires started after water heaters tipped over. Gas service to large sections of the county was cut off as a precaution. A 34-inch-wide high-pressure line to the Huntington Beach plant ruptured where it crosses marshlands east of Bolsa Chica Beach State Park.

* Water lines and pumping stations were damaged near the fault, isolating some of the coastal communities from imported water piped in from outside the Los Angeles Basin. A major drinking water pipeline snapped when the ground around it failed near where the line crosses Fullerton Creek in Buena Park. And there was fear that the escape of raw sewage might foul wells that areas such as Huntington Beach depend on for much of their water supply.

* Petroleum pipelines also ruptured in Huntington Beach, mostly between Edwards Street and Newland Avenue. A second line to the Huntington Beach power plant was damaged, while in Seal Beach storage tanks began spilling fuel into Alamitos Bay. Refineries throughout the region were shut down for inspection but expected to return in a week to 75% of normal production. Because of power outages, service station gasoline pumps in many areas were rendered useless.

* Telephone switching centers suffered damage from falling debris but kept operating. The entire system failed, however, when hundreds of thousands of telephone receivers were shaken or lifted from their cradles, overloading switching equipment programmed to protect itself by automatically shutting down. Within minutes, the region’s vast telephone network was dead and not likely to be revived for days. Though the vast majority of phone lines were intact, there was no way to get a call through.

* Airports shut down, but El Toro Marine Corps Air Station resumed operations within six hours after confirming that its runways were undamaged. At the Los Alamitos reserve base and at John Wayne Airport, runways were damaged by ground settlement. However, both reopened on Day 2 to military transports able to land and take off from the shortened runways.

* Major sections of freeways and highways were closed due to broken and settled pavement. The 10-lane San Diego Freeway suffered most; damaged overpasses and buckled pavement from Long Beach to Irvine trapped thousands of motorists bumper-to-bumper with no way to drive onto surface streets. A 15-mile stretch of the freeway was closed from the Garden Grove Freeway south to San Diego Creek, near the Irvine Business Complex. Workers were expected to open some sections by this morning--72 hours after the quake. But officials had no idea when they could open even a single lane of the stretch through Costa Mesa and Irvine.

Pacific Coast Highway from Long Beach to Corona del Mar and the Costa Mesa Freeway from Costa Mesa to Santa Ana were also closed due to pavement breaks and settlements. Damage to interchanges on the Garden Grove and Costa Mesa freeways made detours necessary and travel tortuously slow.

Highway Patrol officers reported that trapped freeway motorists left their cars and headed for call boxes, which were not working. A few drivers with car phones got through at first, but within minutes the cellular system shut down along with the regular telephone network.

By and large, most motorists resorted to listening to their car radios and rendering first aid. When the enormity of the disaster became apparent, many abandoned their cars and started to walk, some wearing shoes that assured they would be hobbling within a mile. Days later their cars were bulldozed onto freeway shoulders to make way for emergency traffic.

Drivers on surface streets found it difficult or impossible to proceed. Some roads were passable, but only for short distances. Like rats in a maze, many traveled down one street, found it blocked, returned and tried another, looking for an open route home. Some eventually succeeded by day’s end, others by the following day after spending the night in their cars. Most did not make it until open routes were determined and announced by county officials.

Those already at work first tried to telephone, then drive home, but many returned to work when they found the freeways and roads hopelessly choked. Some companies had stockpiled water, food, bedding and other supplies for their employees, but many had not.

The quake struck at a time when most students were on their way to school. Authorities said students in buses remained there, and drivers were able to deliver them to designated school shelters by late in the day.

But most students who were bicycling or walking were panicked by the quake. Those not injured by falling objects turned toward home, where in most cases no one was waiting for them. Authorities reported that in the typical case, neighbors or strangers took children in, but there also were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of terrified youngsters wandering in search of a parent.

Radio broadcasts directed thousands of survivors to parks where paramedics had set up first-aid centers. Broadcasters appealed for calm and self-reliance and assured listeners that more help was being organized.

“We don’t expect anything from the outside until the fourth day,” one official said.

By Day 2, rescue crews began looking for survivors in collapsed structures. Power company crews, assigned water facilities as their top priority, started restoring electricity to some water pumping stations. Some emergency water lines had been laid, but trucks were supplying most of what little water was reaching the areas, officials said.

About half of all emergency telephone lines had been restored and perhaps 10% of other lines, mainly pay phones. Long-distance calls were still very difficult to get through.

After working 24 hours to cut a notch in the Santa Ana River levee, workers at the Fountain Valley sewage treatment plant used emergency generators to start pumping emergency-treated sewage into the river and out to sea. Sewage was also being pumped to the ocean through an outfall pipe, which had broken close to shore. The result is certain to be serious contamination of the ocean and beaches, officials said.

Spontaneous, unofficial shelters sprang up at public parks. American Red Cross officials began setting up shelters in schools. Their locations were broadcast, and toward the end of the day streams of people began arriving.

Those who had stockpiled emergency earthquake stores tended to remain at home, many camping in their yards. Police reported seeing neighbors forming common food stores and helping one another clean up damage.

“Some that had food were sharing with some that didn’t,” said a Costa Mesa officer. “They seemed in pretty high spirits. I hope that lasts long enough for us to get the grocery stores open again.”

Grocery stores, particularly hard hit because their goods are kept on open shelves, were closed and locked, and some effort was being made by employees to clean them up and reopen for business. The American Red Cross said it was rushing to open “feeding stations” but volunteers did not think any would be ready until Friday.

Grocery chain executives said they would sell food out of truck trailers if necessary as soon as they could get their trucks through police lines and past the rubble. They said they were being hampered by traffic congestion along designated emergency routes and by the difficulty in replacing truck tires torn by road debris.

One store manager, finding that his meat and fresh vegetables were about to spoil without power to run refrigerators, sold them cash-and-carry from crates in his parking lot. Many families discovered then that their checkbooks and credit cards were temporarily useless.

Several banks announced they would open temporary branches as soon as possible, allowing their customers to cash up to a $200 check. Electronic teller machines still intact are expected to be back in operation as soon as the telephone lines are restored. Authorities estimated that might occur on Day 4.

On Day 3 authorities were broadcasting news that military field hospitals were about to arrive and be set up at several golf courses, where there was room for helicopters to land.

Power had been restored to all critical facilities--hospitals, water districts, sewer plants, police and fire departments, emergency broadcasters and the like, and some residential power had been restored. It may take close to two weeks to restore the last of the hard-hit areas, a spokesman said.

Sewer workers started the laborious task of finding their line leaks and making quick, temporary repairs. Three days of raw sewage running in the open had presented the greatest health risk after the shaking stopped, but health officials said no serious outbreaks of disease had been detected so far.

A spokesman said the sewage plants would have to dump inadequately treated waste water into the river and ocean for up to two months.

A gas company spokesman said crews would begin repairing broken lines and restoring neighborhood service, a process that is expected to take “several weeks.”

“We’ve had few critical shortages of anything, but we’re continuing to have great difficulties delivering it to where it’s needed,” said Richard Andrews, deputy director of the state Office of Emergency Services, who is in charge of the Ontario command center.

Jeffrey T. Mitchell, a University of Maryland psychologist who specializes in post-disaster emotional disorders, arrived in Orange County on Day 3 to counsel rescue workers. He said the great emotional impact of the quake lies in the future for most people.

“Our research shows that communities restore themselves, but individuals continue to suffer. It’s like in Vietnam: post-traumatic stress disorder. Personality changes, depression, morose, suicide for some. They’re crushed: ‘We lost so much, grandmother’s clock, my jazz record collection,’ things that mean a lot to them.

“You get marital discord, physical illness. Reconstruction can take months or years, and if it’s dragged out with bureaucratic garbage, it can make it a lot worse. Some have told us that dealing with the bureaucracy was in many ways worse than the trauma itself.”

Weeks may pass before all basic services are restored. The struggle for normalcy will rely on makeshift telephone, gas and electrical equipment. Temporary water and sewer hookups will be commonplace in hard-hit areas. And businesses, large and small, will reopen slowly, having lost days of production and millions of dollars in revenue.

Andrews, of state emergency services, said it could take four to five years to return life in Orange County to the way it was before Monday.

“Some people think that three, four, five months down the line, they’ll be given a check and it will all go away,” Andrews said with a pained smile.

Among those who assisted in the preparation of this report were: Alan Ahern, project manager, Southern California Gas Co. Richard Andrews, deputy director, California Office of Emergency Services R.A. Ashworth, customer service manager, Southern California Gas Co. Christine Boyd, manager, Emergency Management Division, Orange County Fire Department. Dale Brown, emergency preparedness coordinator, McDonnell Douglas Space Systems Co. Gordon Brown, director of disaster emergency services, American Red Cross, Orange County chapter. Tom Capra, news director, KNBC-TV. Dr. Raquel Cohen, psychiatrist, University of Miami School of Medicine. James F. Davis, supervising geologist, California Division of Mines and Geology. Thomas M. Dawes, director of engineering, Orange County Sanitation Districts. R.V. Gray, division superintendent, Southern California Gas Co. Bill Gudelman, general manager, KORG radio. Barry Himel, vice president of security, Security Pacific National Bank. Steven Koss, president, Southern California Grocers Assn. Gary Lynch, vice president, administration, Hoag Hospital. Mary McAboy, director of corporate communications, Vons Companies Inc. Marilee Miller, senior coordinator, Emergency Management Division, Orange County Fire Department. Jeffrey T. Mitchell, psychologist, Department of Emergency Health Services, University of Maryland. Martha Katherine Moore, director of risk management, Newport-Mesa Unified School District. Dennis Ostrom, consulting engineer, Southern California Edison Co. Maj. Michael W. Ritz, deputy chief of public affairs, California National Guard. Karl Seckel, assistant manager and district engineer, Municipal Water District of Orange County. Tom Thomas, public affairs officer, Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station. Kathleen M. Williams, district manager, Pacific Bell.