BAY AREA QUAKE : L.A. Residents Feel the Shaking and Show Concern for Victims

Los Angeles residents, some saying they actually felt the Bay Area earthquake in swaying high-rise buildings here, responded to news of the Northern California disaster with an outpouring of concern, offers of help and determined efforts to contact relatives.

Worried family members encountered jammed telephone lines, and air travelers bound for the Bay Area were left stranded at Southern California airports.

In Whittier, which suffered a 5.9 magnitude earthquake on Oct. 1, 1987, the City Council planned Tuesday night to send building and safety department members to the Bay Area to help with applying for disaster recovery loans, spotting fraudulent contractors and dealing with details that come with rebuilding.

They also decided to donate $20,000 to $30,000 to the San Francisco-Oakland area, saying they wanted to repay the favors of cash and assistance the Whittier-Narrows quake generated from other cities.

“We want to help as much as we can,” said Mayor Victor Lopez. “This is terrible, terrible. You have to go through it to really know what it feels like.”

Two local American Red Cross catering trucks left Los Angeles for the Bay Area shortly after the quake occurred. Volunteers were to arrive by morning and hoped to help feed breakfast to victims, fire fighters and police officers, said Barbara Wilks, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles chapter.

At the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, officials said they offered to assist Pacific Gas & Electric and the state Office of Emergency Services.

Meanwhile, flights heading for the Bay Area were diverted to airports in Sacramento, Reno, Los Angeles, Burbank and Ontario, said FAA spokeswoman Barbara Abels. Abels said she did not know how many flights or passengers were affected.

At Burbank Airport, a stunned shock settled over those who saw the first televised reports of the damage after hearing their flights to the Bay Area were canceled.

“When they saw the destruction, they understood,” said Bob Benson, manager of Burbank operations for U.S. Air, which canceled five flights.

Shirlee Berman, of Belmont, south of San Francisco, headed straight for a Burbank Airport pay phone to try to find out about her two sons.

“I probably tried 30 times and I keep getting a recording saying all circuits are busy,” Berman said. “I’m terrified.”

Telephone company officials were urging people to refrain from calling the Bay Area, said Lissa Zanville, a Pacific Bell spokeswoman. She said lines might be open today.

Later this week, the Red Cross will establish a phone line for Los Angeles residents to trace their relatives in the Bay Area, Wilks said.

Some people were not content to wait for phone lines to clear. They rented cars to drive to San Francisco, and some who arrived in the Los Angeles area from the Bay Area rented cars to drive right back, said Rick Espinoza, manager of the Hertz counter at Burbank Airport.

“We could have had more but we ran out of cars,” he said.

The Bay Area temblor was felt as far south as the high-rises in the Los Angeles area, although police said they received only a handful of calls from people locally.

“I felt something strange. I heard a lot of creaking noises and it felt like the building was swaying back and forth,” said attorney Douglas E. Klein, who was in his office on the seventh floor of a Century City high-rise.

Attorney John Dewell said he felt a rolling motion in his office on the 30th floor of the 40-story AT&T; Center at 6th and Hope streets downtown.

“We definitely felt it,” he said. “The building was just shifting and rolling and creaking.”

At Northridge Hospital Medical Center in the San Fernando Valley, “The IV bottles were swaying,” nursing supervisor Anne Lipman said.

The San Francisco quake also heightened awareness in Los Angeles of the importance of being prepared for a similar disaster here. “We’ve been getting calls . . . suddenly, everyone wants to plan ahead” for the much-predicted “Big One,” said Alan Barrios, a Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman.

Barrios said people should contact the public safety division of the department during business hours at 213-485-PREP.

Times staff writers Tina Daunt, Philipp Gollner, Nieson Himmel, Tracey Kaplan, Amy Louise Kazmin and Myron Levin contributed to this report.