O.C. Is Rattled but Left Relatively Unscathed : Impact: Incidents include power outages, burst waterlines and evacuation of 300 guests at Disneyland Hotel. A visitor dies of heart attack.

Like a prizefighter rolling with the punches, Orange County escaped Sunday’s two powerful earthquakes relatively unscathed, but the temblors still caused widespread power outages, burst waterlines and prompted the brief evacuation of 300 guests at Disneyland Hotel.

A 69-year-old Mississippi woman visiting her daughter in Yorba Linda suffered a heart attack and died during the swarm of aftershocks that rumbled through Southern California, but it remained unclear whether her death was quake-related, authorities said.

About 250,000 Orange County homes and businesses were left without electricity after the first big quake hit at 4:58 a.m. and was followed by a second strong rattler shortly after 8 a.m. By early afternoon, all but about 30,000 customers in Santa Ana, Huntington Beach and Fullerton had power restored, officials said.

Utility companies also reported scattered problems with broken gas lines and disrupted cable television service. Traffic signals scattered across the county were temporarily out of service.

In Lake Forest, chunks of a brick facade at Home Savings Bank fell into the parking lot and stress cracks were reported, but there were no injuries and authorities cordoned off the building and declared it off limits.

Signs fell and many products tumbled off shelves at two stores in the Laguna Hills Mall. According to Capt. Dan Young of the Orange County Fire Department, the stores, Sears and LensCrafters, were closed to the public Sunday pending an inspection.

Several floors at the Orange County Transit terminal in Santa Ana were flooded after a waterline broke. A burst pipe in a Westminster office complex, meanwhile, doused expensive computers and medical files for two hours before it was discovered, authorities said.

But most of the damage was to nerves, as tourists and residents alike experienced a one-two seismic punch rare even in a state famous for its temblors.

“I knew we were in for something when I looked out at the swimming pool and it had white caps on it,” said Joe Gilbreath, 53, of Scottsdale, Ariz., who was at the Newport Bay Inn when the quakes hit. “You could have surfed on it.”

Gilbreath looked out his window in the pre-dawn darkness to see flashes of sparks from the electric transformers on power poles. “It was a nice, beautiful blue light,” he said. “I thought it was the Fourth of July one week early.”

At the Crystal Cathedral, the cavernous Garden Grove church built of steel beams and 10,000 panes of glass, about 100 people were inside when the second earthquake hit just before a planned 8:30 a.m. service.

Panicked people started running outside, including youths in the Strattford Boy Choir, who took off en masse straight down the center aisle running full speed. “I thought all the windows were going to come down,” said Christopher Bos, a choir member.

As the shaking intensified, the fleeing parishioners watched in awe as the seams at the corners of the steel-and-glass structure separated by about half a foot with the force of the rolling and then snapped back together. But the structure, which is designed to absorb the power of earthquakes by flexing, did not sustain damage.

In Anaheim, Richard Tremble, 29, was riding his 10-speed to a 7-Eleven when he was knocked from the bike.

“I felt something wrong like there was a strong wind or something,” Tremble said. “The bike went right out from under me. I landed in some bushes. I’ve lived here all of my life, but this is one of the biggest I’ve felt.”

Heeding warnings from scientists about the prospects of further seismic activity, many residents hedged their bets and stocked the pantry. At a supermarket in Anaheim Hills, the store manager reported a rush of customers buying batteries, flashlights, bottled water and canned goods.

Gerry Zemojtel, 38, of Tacoma, Wash., was on the top floor of the Disneyland Hotel’s 14-story Bonita Tower with his family, including their year-old baby, when the shaking started before dawn.

“It was like being on top of a mast in a sailboat,” Zemojtel said, describing how girders creaked as the building swayed back and forth. “When I went to grab my baby out of the crib, I reached in and he rolled by and I missed him.”

After finally gathering up the child, Zemojtel fled the hotel with other guests, who wandered the lobby and outside in pajamas or swaddled in bedsheets. They were later ushered to a parking lot, where a hotel official reportedly said: “Welcome to California.”

The tower was reopened to guests at about 10 a.m. In the meantime, many flocked to a surreal post-earthquake continental breakfast in a hotel ballroom. Disney characters Minnie Mouse and Pluto walked among pajama-clad guests who sipped juice and ate muffins.

At Anaheim’s Inn at the Park, Eldon Standish of Kansas was comparing his first experience with an earthquake to Midwest disasters.

“Back in Kansas, we at least give you the courtesy when you folks come there to let you know when a tornado is coming,” Standish quipped. “The least you guys could do here is give us the courtesy of when an earthquake is coming.”

In Seal Beach, mirrors and lamps broke, electricity was out for about half an hour and televisions were jolted on by the force of the shaking.

“This was the worst one I’ve ever felt,” said Sharon Wertz, who owns a home where pictures fell off the wall and a mirror broke. “It was like the Whittier quake, but much longer.”

The earthquake hit at the worst possible moment for firefighters battling a blaze at an abandoned tamale factory in Anaheim. Firefighter Jody Ballard was atop an aerial ladder pouring water on the blaze when the ground shook. He was lowered immediately without mishap.

“This thing struck right in the middle of this fire,” said Battalion Chief Benny Ramirez. “It scared the heck out of us. . . . It couldn’t have happened at a worse time.”

“When it started rocking, guys were trying to find cover,” said Firefighter Albert Watson. “Telephones poles were shaking along the street, creating sparks in the air. We thought the things were going to come right down on top of us.”

Meanwhile, a Stanton man suffered serious burns on his legs and feet fleeing a blaze that broke out in his house within hours of the first quake. But authorities said it appeared that the cause of the fire, an electrical short, had nothing to do with the earthquake.

Officials were less certain whether the earthquakes may have played a role in prompting Mississippian Catherine Prostko’s heart attack. The woman had no history of heart ailments and was not taking any medications, said Maria Sabol, an Orange County Fire Department spokeswoman. A daughter, who is a nurse, tried to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation before paramedics took the woman to Placentia-Linda Community Hospital, where she died in the emergency room at about 10:25 a.m.

In Midway City, authorities temporarily evacuated a 16-unit apartment building as a precaution after some power lines fell during the earthquakes.

At Newport Imports, the quakes were what people were talking about as they boarded a bus to attend a meeting of Ferrari owners. Dick Clark, 45, said he was in the shower at his Irvine home when the ground began shaking: “It was like being in a sailboat.”

Orange County’s network of natural gas pipelines came through unscathed. Southern California Gas Co. received more than 100 reports of possible leaks at houses and was dispatching crews to investigate, but there were no major pipeline breaks. There were no house fires caused by gas leaks, said Paul Ramos, a gas company spokesman.

Times staff writers David Avila, Bill Billiter, Kevin Johnson, Len Hall, Janice Jones, Jeffrey A. Perlman, Davan Maharaj, Gebe Martinez, Lynn Smith, Danny Sullivan and correspondent Terry Spencer contributed to this report.