Skiers Return With the Snows : Tourism: This year’s earthquakes were bad news for Big Bear, but merchants hope recent storms will end that.

A week ago Sunday, worried business leaders at Big Bear Lake huddled in a hastily called meeting, trying to figure out how to lure back the skiers who abandoned the resort area’s slopes after the Nov. 26 tremor that ruined what had promised to be an especially prosperous Thanksgiving weekend.

Then, last Monday, it snowed.

Phones that had been quiet all week rang off the hook at the town’s lodges and hotels. Nearly two feet of snow blanketed the mountain roads by the end of the season’s first big storm on Tuesday morning. And while below-freezing temperatures and another four inches of snow Friday night made for difficult travelling, the weekend turnout at Big Bear’s three major resorts--Bear Mountain, Snow Summit and Snow Valley--was one of the strongest ever this early in the ski season.

“Mother Nature dealt us a bad card a couple of weeks ago and it dealt us a trump card this week,” said Brad Wilson, marketing director at Big Bear. “So I think we’re pretty even.”

But, Wilson conceded, such parity with the forces of nature is ephemeral at best, and being a ski resort in the midst of an earthquake zone doesn’t exactly help maintain a stable balance.

The magnitude 5.4 earthquake that rocked the mountainous region east of San Bernardino last month was the latest in a series of aftershocks that have hit the area since the monster 7.5 magnitude Landers quake last June. And some experts have predicted that there is a strong likelihood a large earthquake will strike the area in the next few years.

That’s bad news for Big Bear business people, many of whose livelihoods depend on the tourism industry that once pumped $2.1 million a year into the local economy. Local merchants said sales dropped as much as 80% in the months following the June quake. Business has gradually picked up, but many are counting on a good winter to set them back on their feet.

“It’s always our highest revenue-generating season,” said Brad Sullivan, director of the Big Bear Chamber of Commerce. “If this were to be a bad season it could be very devastating.”

It’s not shaping up so well for John and Mary Esteves, Cerritos residents who count on the extra income they get each year from renting out their cottage in Sugarloaf, a few miles from Big Bear. After repairing the damage caused by the June quake, they’ve had trouble finding renters all year. And now, the family that has rented it during the Christmas week for several years running is having doubts.

“The girls love it,” Cerritos resident Humberto DeMelo said of his two daughters. “And we can afford it. But in the back of my mind there is the thought that the earth is trembling more up there. Why go to a place where the earth is trembling more?”

But as business owners happily shoveled their walks last week, they expressed firm beliefs that potential customers’ desires to slide downhill at dizzying speeds would outweigh any fears of a little earth-rattling. While attendance at the ski resorts was down 20% earlier last week, many hardened California earthquake veterans went right on skiing during the latest quake, noted Darrell Mulvihill , owner of Taxco Silver, a jewelry-and-gift shop in Big Bear.

Indeed, the ski resorts complain that much of their lost business over the past two weeks was due to exaggerated reports of damage on local TV stations. To prevent such unwarranted bad publicity in the future, Sullivan plans to do some PR of his own with representatives from Southern California stations later this month.

At the meeting last Sunday, local businesses agreed to refer future calls about earthquake damage to the Chamber of Commerce, in hopes of cutting down on the inevitable rumors that circulate after tremors. And Sullivan was delegated to talk to the sheriff’s office, the hospital, and the fire department about devising a system to ensure more accurate dissemination of information.

Still, said Richard Kun, president of Snow Summit, who organized the meeting last week, there is little the town or the resorts can do to allay people’s fears. “There are definitely people out there that are apprehensive about going to Big Bear, and whether they think that’s the way it always is or whether it’s a temporary condition, it certainly is hurting us now,” he said. “But it will pass. There’ll be another earthquake, and people’s attention will be diverted to the next area.”

But for those like Yorba Linda resident Howard Ong, who was thrown out of the bed in his friend’s cabin when the earthquake hit last June and ran outside just in time to see the chimney collapse, such a diversion is not necessary. “We’re making plans to go up again this month,” Ong said. “There’s a lot of snow up there now.”