BAY AREA QUAKE : QUAKE DIARY : Day 2 of Recovery--a Time to Contemplate the Long Run

After the ordeal of survival, disaster serves up the test of character.

On Thursday, Day 2 of earthquake recovery, the character of San Francisco could be gauged by the sometimes unsteady, sometimes resolute reactions of its citizens, institutions, and those who would help. What now? What happens when the adrenaline is gone?

Politicians, government leaders if you prefer, moved to center stage. And they reacted like, well, politicians--both reassuring and maddeningly petty.

Some suburban commuter-business executives reacted like men and women who had gone a day too long without making money. Wearing suits and high heels and lugging briefcases, they hiked up long flights of stairs and brought some buildings stubbornly to life in the name of commerce.

A lot of ordinary people, the lucky ones who were not flattened by the blow, added it up. Yes, there was plenty to be thankful about, much of the city is functioning; so much of it survived. But everyone realized they lost something too. Not the least of which is their peace of mind. And ask those who must pay--what is the high price of that?

In the roller coaster of emotions set off by the 15-second quake, Thursday was a moody day. This followed the first impulsive shock of Tuesday night, death and darkness and sweaty fear. And then by Wednesday, the city psyche had split--a nightmare for those who lost loved ones, limb, home or friend; an almost festive day of relief for the hundreds of thousands more who escaped the sting of the first lashing.

Thursday, though, was a day when you almost had to contemplate the long run. And the long run seemed daunting indeed: more work, more rubble, more taxes, more paper work, more inconvenience and endless gnawing uncertainity.

One of the low points was the protocol broil between Mayor Art Agnos and the White House over Vice President Dan Quayle’s visit one day earlier to the disaster region.

Strip away the unseemly amount of transcontinental rhetoric about the incident and it boiled down to this: Quayle visited the city briefly Wednesday to size up the destruction; Agnos spent the day indefatigably making the mayor’s rounds. Their paths did not cross but their pride did.

Agnos wanted Quayle to come to the city’s command post. Quayle wanted Agnos to drive down to the Marina District and meet him there. Difference in miles: Two.

The White House was furious. “We regret very much that the mayor of San Francisco has decided not to cooperate,” said presidential spokesman Marlin Fitzwater.

Agnos press secretary Scott Shafer said Quayle’s visit was a publicity stunt and that Wednesday’s White House defense of the vice president was an attempt “to cover his tracks, which were very light in San Francisco.”

The mayor said he had been assured that President Bush’s visit to the city today was being arranged with more care.

Is it possible, Agnos was asked, that San Francisco could be snubbed as a result? No, said Agnos. “As a practical matter they wouldn’t dare.”

Late Wednesday, proving it is difficult to pitch hardball against the Leader of the Free World, the White House announced that Bush had changed his plans and would not land in San Francisco during his emergency tour. Logistics, you see. Bush was instead to fly over the city in a helicopter. And Agnos was invited along.

Victims, meanwhile, heard a chorus of welcome promises from government. The governor, legislators, members of Congress and bureaucrats all pledged that little would stand in the way of their determination to ease the suffering.

The state Department of Health waived pre-authorization requirements for Medi-Cal treatments. Gov. George Deukmejian did not flinch at speculation of the need for a state tax increase of some type to rebuild the Bay Area. Assembly Speaker Willie L. Brown Jr. (D-San Francisco) said a special session of the Legislature would be called to speed up assistance. Even the IRS said it was of a sympathetic mind to listen to tax claims for property losses. Hot lines and help lines multiplied like chickens at an egg farm.

Sometimes criticized as obstreperous and intrusive, the press rose manifestly in public esteem. KCBS news radio brought the Bay Area together as if in one giant living room to hear all variety of experts and bulletin-board information.

Yes, there was silly advice: Don’t dial 911 unless you need it. But essential town meetings, traffic, changing road closures flowed smoothly along with advice on how to comfort your children and fight your own fears.

The San Francisco Chronicle and San Francisco Examiner for a second day printed special editions under emergency conditions--papers without advertisements. The papers helped put the sometimes breathless disaster into perspective.

Chronicle columnist Jon Carroll was not unlike tens of thousands of residents. His house undamaged, his friends quickly accounted for. “It was no longer our disaster; it was just a disaster happening within driving distance.” He wrote about going out for dinner after the quake.

But even those who escaped Tuesday will not escape its aftermath. And that is growing increasingly apparent.

Not just the Bay Bridge and the notorious Nimitz were lost, but miles of other freeways and roads. More were closed as time passed. Residents expected the opposite. Hopes for repairs in weeks became admissions that the work would take months in some areas.

The toll not just in lives, but in money and effort ballooned so fast as to numb the mind of everyone except perhaps an astrophysicist or someone else accustomed to large numbers. Agnos said San Francisco suffered $2 billion in damage. A quick guess by Lloyds of London was reported to be $5 billion.

You could buy gasoline and batteries in the city on Thursday after shortages the day before. But could you walk up 44 flights of stairs? Some in the Financial District would have traded either batteries or gas for a working elevator.

Not knowing what to expect as they headed for the city, commuters to this most cosmopolitan of Western cities opted to be safe. BART trains from the suburbs were full of polished shoes, fetching suits and pressed shirts.

There were some special expressions of gratitude. Firefighters thanked the weather. No wind to fan fires. Many thanked the telephone companies, who reported a three-fold increase in calls in the hours after the quake. In some places in the Bay Area, the phones alone among life’s basics worked. Some reporters who had slept only intermittently since Tuesday said their thanks just for a cup of coffee.

This was quite different from conditions described after the great 1906 earthquake. A headline on the special edition of the combined San Francisco papers at that time read: NO HOPE LEFT.

But while there was plenty of hope, there also was an edginess that could not be missed. And experts said emotional strings would stay tight for a few weeks now.

“In a disaster like this, there is an initial utopian feeling among survivors--people direct traffic, drivers avoid collisions, people rise to their highest level,” explained Gilbert Kliman, director of a psychiatric institute in the Bay Area and an expert on crisis reactions.

“That now changes to a more chronic anxiety. People are easily startled, irritable. There will be a long-term intrusion of the earthquake in dreams and people will become hyper-vigilant.”