Suddenly, the Good Life Ends in the Marina

y were swarming around a police van waiting for the mayor to speak Thursday when the word went out: “They’re already tearing down buildings.”

If it hadn’t hit home already after Tuesday’s earthquake, it did now as the heavy equipment moved in to take down cracked and askew homes considered too dangerous to leave standing.

The good life was over in the Marina, the tony district of 8,000 residents that suffered the worst quake damage in San Francisco.

All of a sudden the sea breezes so nice to stroll and jog in, the spectacular views of Alcatraz out in the bay, the cheerful bars and restaurants--suddenly the quake’s destruction of all this really sank in.

Everyone knew that the Marina, one of the few flat places in San Francisco, had been built on a landfill.

But was the damage so bad that it was all about to vanish before their eyes? Were they now going to bulldoze it?

With those fears in the air, San Francisco Mayor Art Agnos mounted the van at 12:45 p.m. and tried to talk to the milling, angry crowd of more than 2,000 at Marina Park.

He was greeted with boos and shouts.

“These people are Type A’s, workaholics, people of wealth and they’re stressed out,” said Lorraine Moreno, a data processor who lives near the Marina. “They work in the financial district and they’re not even able to go to work because their businesses are closed.”

Agnos pleaded, “Please understand we are doing our best to respond to the biggest crisis this city has faced since 1906.”

Yes, two buildings had been demolished in an effort to find quake survivors and to remove safety hazards.

Eight others were scheduled to go and 10 more were deemed absolutely unsafe.

In all, city officials were saying, as many as 50 to 100 of the Marina’s structures may have to be torn down.

But Agnos assured the angry residents that the city would demolish no more buildings without first informing the occupants.

More boos.

His words were cold comfort to those who had waited for hours thinking they would soon be allowed back into the eight-square-block area that had been cordoned off.

An elderly couple tried to get past the yellow police barriers surrounding the area and were turned back.

“Don’t take your anger out on me, I’m just doing my job,” said a frustrated police officer.

Scores of people argued with the policemen and Army MPs stationed at the barricades.

“All I want is my wife’s blood pressure medication,” said Soo Hoo, 67, who was trying to get to his home on Cervantes Avenue.

“Maybe I’ll try to run it,” he said. “They can’t shoot me, can they?”

But as Agnos had tried to explain, there was no electricity or natural gas in the Marina, no drinkable water.

The smell of natural gas was rank around some segments of the cordon.

Graceful $1-million houses were off their foundations.

There were three known deaths, and some people were still unaccounted for.

Earlier in the day, 40 structural engineers inspected the Marina District and divided the structures into four categories: Unlimited Entry, No Supervision; Limited Entry, No Supervision, No Occupancy; Supervised Entry, 15-Minute Limit; and Absolutely No Entry.

By late Thursday the city had started issuing color-coded passes to residents that allowed them to go into their residences for varying lengths of time, depending upon the severity of the damage.

Two women suddenly burst into tears--they’d been given the 15-minute passes, which meant it could be a long time before their residences were safe to inhabit.

Nicola Ingarngiola was one of the first to get past the cordon after the pass handouts began.

She returned from her apartment with garbage bags filled with photos, clothes and work documents.

“They tried to stop me at the building,” Ingarngiola said. “They told me I had the wrong pass and that I couldn’t go in because the building is going to be torn down. I said, ‘Like hell, I’m going in.’ It’s your home, it’s where you exist, it’s your vital center.”

Everywhere there was anger and frustration from people who are used to having life on their terms.

“I gotta go to work tomorrow; how long does it take to get me a pass so I can go in and get some underwear?” shouted Abbe Kanarek, an advertising buyer in the nearby financial district.

Agnos had announced that the city may allow residents to enter some buildings deemed unsafe if they will sign a waiver absolving the city of responsibility.

And he’ll probably get a lot of takers because, in a disaster--whether earthquake, hurricane or hillside fire--the urge to stick it out in your domicile, or get back to it, is one of the strongest that people experience.

Carl Puckett, for example, a game 72-year-old resident of the Marina, was holed up in his place throughout quake night and the night after, according to friend Bill Healy.

“I tried to talk him out of there last night,” said Healy, “but he said, ‘Nah, I’m staying.’ ”

That had changed by Thursday, however, when Puckett ran out of food. He gave up the vigil and agreed to evacuate.

Some of the Marina residents’ hardships were almost amusing.

“My husband had to go to work in shorts--and he’s an investment banker,” said Jennette Roylance.

And others were not.

On Chestnut Avenue near the Marina, Steve Lendelli sat drinking a warm beer and describing how most of what he owned was destroyed when his apartment house at Cervantes and Alhambra tumbled down in the quake.

Well, he said, at least his cat pulled through it.

At Daddy Paul’s Bar on Chestnut, the regulars sat by candlelight and recalled how, when the quake hit, not one bottle of booze hit the floor.

“And it’s not because they were glued down or unused,” said Brian Moody with a grin.

Although the wealth in the Marina has created some obvious class differences, Moody said he was hopeful that everybody would pull together, at least for a while.

“I was walking down the street,” he said, “and somebody in an alley said, ‘Hey, come on in and eat something. In the alley were tables covered with plates of spaghetti and bread.”

But there were some reminders of the good life’s perks, too.

When city officials began handing out passes for limited entry to the area late Thursday, some folks drove up in Rolls-Royces.

This story was written by Times staff writers Keith Love in Los Angeles and Louis Sahagun in San Francisco and is based on reporting by Sahagun, Dan Morain and Jack Cheevers in San Francisco.