Widow Demands Quake Investigation : Disaster: The wife of a man killed in the Nimitz Freeway collapse is forming a watchdog committee. She wants to ensure that state officials probe the disaster.

Saying she was “in pain and very angry,” the widow of a man killed in the earthquake collapse of the Nimitz Freeway called on the state Tuesday to “honestly and openly” investigate the disaster and prevent it from happening again.

Tamara Holmes, in a Los Angeles press conference in the hallway of the State Building, announced plans to form a citizens’ watchdog committee that will pressure state officials to find out why the Cypress Street Viaduct, a section of the Nimitz Freeway in Oakland, could not withstand the Bay Area’s Oct. 17 quake.

“My husband and I were married 22 years, and in 15 seconds I lost my whole life. . . ,” Holmes said. “The goal is for change. The goal is to make freeways safe. . . . People have a right to safe passage.”

Holmes’ husband, Ray, a 50-year-old structural engineer, was killed as he drove from his office in Oakland to his home in Mill Valley on the day of the quake. He was one of 41 people killed when the 7.1 temblor caused the upper level of the Cypress viaduct to collapse onto the lower lanes of traffic.

On Tuesday, Tamara Holmes had flown to Los Angeles to appear before the State Board of Control, the agency charged with dispersing an initial $30-million portion of the state’s disaster relief money. But her appearance was frustrated when she entered the board’s meeting well after the board had discussed quake relief.

The board approved several of the steps that quake victims will be required to follow to apply for emergency relief from the state. Nimitz victims or their survivors, for instance, may be eligible for an emergency $200,000-per-family payment. They would not waive their right to sue later, but if they do pursue a lawsuit they would first have to participate in settlement talks with the state.

Holmes is one of 35 people who were injured or lost relatives in the Nimitz disaster who are being represented by the San Francisco law firm of Melvin Belli. Attorney Richard E. Brown, of the Belli firm, said he filed a $3-million wrongful-death claim on behalf of Holmes and her three children, and he predicted all Nimitz claims will top $100 million.

While conceding that she has yet to speak to any other survivors of the Nimitz collapse, Holmes said her goal is to form a group that will demand a thorough investigation into why the Cypress viaduct had not been retrofitted to make it quake-safe.

“I would like some answers why it (the freeway) wasn’t updated,” Holmes said. “I want my children, and my children’s children, to be able to go out on a highway and not have it collapse on them.”

In San Francisco, meanwhile, the reopening of the Bay Bridge has been pushed back a day to Saturday, but a celebration marking repair of the section that collapsed during the earthquake will go on Thursday as planned.

Damp weather has caused new concrete to take longer to set on the refitted 50-foot section that gave way, Caltrans spokesman Bob Halligan said Wednesday. Additionally, guardrails on the sides of the bridge will not be in place before Saturday.

Halligan added that although work remains to be done, as many as 40,000 people will be allowed to walk on the span for Thursday’s celebration. But he said that because of the unfinished work, pedestrians will not be allowed to walk on the section of the upper deck that collapsed in the earthquake.