Quake Victims in Big Bear Feel Like Sideshow

If this were a normal July, Jennie Shartle would wave and smile graciously at the camera-toting tourists streaming by her home amid the evergreens of Big Bear City.

But Shartle lost nearly everything she owned in a terrifying earthquake a week ago, and she just was not in the mood for the army of vacationers that invaded the mountain resort on Independence Day.

“I feel like a freak show,” Shartle said as she described the looky-loos who have flooded her neighborhood, eager to glimpse evidence of the quake’s destruction.

“We love tourists, and I understand that they’re what keeps this place alive,” said her husband, Bob, a disabled retiree. “But hey, we’ve been declared a disaster area. . . . If these people want to come up here, why don’t they bring a hammer instead of a camera?”

It is risky to bad-mouth tourists in a tourist town, but the Shartles--and scores of Big Bear residents like them--are mad. It is the city leaders they blame, the Chamber of Commerce types who assured vacationers that all was well in Big Bear when, in fact, things are still very much amiss.

Responding to the message, an estimated 75,000 tourists climbed the San Bernardino Mountains to spend the Fourth of July weekend in the woods. Unperturbed by the crumpled storefronts, boarded-up windows and piles of rubble, the visitors hiked, shopped, and merrily boated on Big Bear Lake as if it were just another summer holiday.

The merchants were happy to see them. But many quake-rattled residents complained that the out-of-towners gobbled up staples in the markets, clogged roads with bumper-to-bumper traffic and stressed the area’s only hospital.

“My daughter just went to the store and the shelves were almost empty,” said Linda Colombano, who lost “everything but two plates” in the quake. “We don’t have anything against tourists, but this is bad timing.”

Yvonne Fitzpatrick, a bartender, agreed: “I don’t think people got the full story before they came up here. We’re still having rockslides and aftershocks. Is it safe for all these people to be here?”

Hans Bandows, mayor of Big Bear Lake, said he sympathizes with the quake victims but believes that “life must go on.”

“Everything is under control,” Bandows said, “and I think we have to put the earthquake behind us and think about something else. The holiday helps us do that.”

The Fourth of July, Bandows said, is one of Big Bear’s busiest weekends, a period business owners look forward to all year. Canceling or postponing the festivities, as some residents suggested, would have been imprudent, Bandows said.

“These merchants need the income so they can repair the damages they had,” the mayor said. “I think we need to move on and not sit around crying over spilled milk.”

The magnitude 6.5 temblor last Sunday, which followed a 7.4 quake centered near Landers, caused at least $56 million in damage in the Big Bear area. About 300 homes and commercial buildings were damaged or destroyed, and hundreds of residents remain in a Red Cross shelter or in tents in their front yards.