TWIN TEMBLORS: THE LANDERS AND BIG BEAR QUAKES : Crews on Alert but Others Are Laid-Back : Response: L.A. fire, police and utility personnel step up activity in case of a major emergency. But many residents try not to let quakes ruin a sunny Sunday.

At city Fire Station 29 in the Mid-Wilshire district, the crew did not need warnings of a “major earthquake sequence” to switch to emergency mode. Within a minute of the first shaker, the three trucks and an ambulance had been moved outside the station, a precaution against collapse. And with billboards still swaying atop the high-rises around them, the 10 firefighters soon were off patrolling Wilshire Boulevard and the surrounding streets.

It was much the same at Los Angeles’ 102 other fire stations, where personnel are trained to view any substantial seismic activity as “a possible foreshock to a massive earthquake,” department spokesman Jim Wells said.

Yet even as the emergency crews were in high gear, many residents ignored the warning that California’s strongest quake in 40 years could be a harbinger of worse to come. As the sun rose over a brilliant summer day, they disregarded pleas that they stay off the freeways and flocked to beaches, the annual Gay and Lesbian Pride Parade and a Dodgers game.

While attendance at the afternoon baseball game was the lowest of the season, 26,972, Bob Schaefer of Huntington Beach was among those who were not about to stay home because of the gloomy forecasts of a few scientists.

“I figured we would be out in the middle of the stadium, so it would be just as safe as anyplace,” he said. “Besides, the traffic would be light since they told everyone to stay off the roads. It only took us 40 minutes to get here.”

Venice Beach was its usual zoo of humanity by afternoon.

“Maybe it’s because of the good weather,” said Los Angeles County lifeguard Lt. Ira Gruber. “But it could be people just wanted to get away from their homes . . . (and) this is the safest place.”

It turned out that almost anyplace in Los Angeles was a safe place.

Despite scattered fires and power failures, by 1:30 p.m. Mayor Tom Bradley declared “there was little damage in the city. . . . I think it was a near-miracle that only one death was reported and a modest number of injuries . . . literally none in this area.”

Hours before the governor’s Office of Emergency Services issued its warning of “a damaging aftershock,” local authorities had instituted precautionary measures. The Los Angeles Police Department and Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department opened their emergency operations centers. Sheriff’s officials held over a shift of deputies, normally scheduled to go home at 6 a.m., until it was clear there was no major damage or mutual aide requests from harder-hit counties.

By early afternoon, police and fire crews and other city agencies were delivering the data that would lead Bradley to declare the “near-miracle”:

* About 51,000 houses had lost power, in most cases restored within hours.

* Twenty-one structure fires were reported, all put out quickly, and only 100 natural gas leaks were called in. There were 37 reports of quake-related building damage. In several cases, structures damaged in the recent riots also suffered some quake damage.

* All told, the Fire Department fielded 850 calls--ranging from calls to 911 emergency lines to inquiries about what to do in a quake--in the six hours after Sunday’s first temblor. That is an unusually high number, according to fire officials, who get about 1,000 calls during a normal 24-hour period.

For the Mid-Wilshire firefighters at Station 29, the closest thing to a crisis was a man stuck in a high-rise elevator.

By noon, the county was winding down its emergency operations, sending home extra personnel at the sheriff’s bunkerlike communications center in East Los Angeles.

By then, Randy Witt of Reseda was headed to Dodger Stadium to catch early batting practice after team officials had surveyed the stadium, found no damage and announced that the game would be played. “I wondered about the situation a little,” Witt said, “but I figured it’s not the first earthquake and it certainly won’t be the last.”

Also by then, the beaches were getting crowded with a mix of locals and tourists--the out-of-towners far more shaken over the morning’s events than the natives.

“Stay indoors, on a day like today? No way!” said Linda Barling, 45, of Brentwood, who said she has “a tendency to be real calm” about earthquakes.

“It’s like it never happened. . . . It’s not like it did a lot of damage,” said 37-year-old Robert Neaman, who had driven in from Lancaster.

“If anything, maybe it’s good for you to get out and get your mind off it.”

But East Coast visitors Talia Bahr, 19, and Chuck Goldfarb, 21, who arrived for a vacation Friday, found it hard to understand such nonchalance.

“It’s kind of weird that so many people are out here,” said Bahr, a student at Williams College in Massachusetts.

“I couldn’t live out here,” said Goldfarb, who is about to enter medical school at the University of Alabama. “I think something happened. I’m not so at ease.”

Of course, not all Southern Californians were at ease, either.

Peter and Tobi VanDolah of Ventura decided to skip church services on Sunday morning to stock up on food and water, heading to a Vons grocery with their year-old daughter.

“We just want to cover our bases,” Peter said. “We’ve said we were going to get things together for an earthquake for a long time. After the second earthquake, we decided to shine-on church and get food.”

And Gary Baer of Los Feliz, an avid surfer, canceled his beach plans--worried not about himself, but his new puppy, Griffith.

“I heard the surf was great,” he said. “But I didn’t want to leave the dog home alone.”

Times staff writers George Ramos and Maryann Hudson contributed to this story.