EARTHQUAKE: DISASTER BEFORE DAWN : Federal Officials Gear Up Relief Efforts : Response: Clinton confers with state leaders and signs disaster declaration. He sends aides to Los Angeles but doesn’t plan personal visit yet.

Federal officials Monday cranked up the machinery to pour monetary salve on Southern California’s wounds for the third time in less than two years.

“I ask the American people to remember the people of Los Angeles County in their thoughts and prayers,” said President Clinton, who was informed of the earthquake about half an hour after it struck.

Clinton spent much of the morning meeting with aides and talking on the telephone with Gov. Pete Wilson and Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan. He then dispatched several Cabinet members to Los Angeles to assess damage and plan a response. Shortly after 2 p.m. PST, he signed a formal disaster declaration that will release federal relief funds for the area.

“We intend to do everything we possibly can to help,” Clinton said earlier in the day, before opening a ceremony remembering the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The federal government has $1 billion available in its emergency relief account, and officials said Clinton would ask Congress to appropriate more if necessary. White House officials said, however, they do not expect preliminary cost estimates until today.

Even before Clinton signed the declaration, federal emergency officials began their assistance--from U-2 spy planes flying overhead to look for fires and signs of further movement, to medical and search-and-rescue teams on the ground helping local officials.

“We’ve mobilized about all the resources we can,” said White House Chief of Staff Thomas (Mack) McLarty.

But with Southern California already well prepared for earthquake response, the bulk of the federal effort will come later as Washington tries to help individuals, families, businesses and local governments with recovery.

“The big damage will be the highways,” McLarty said. Transportation Secretary Federico Pena and Federal Highway Administrator Rodney Slater will be among the senior officials traveling to Los Angeles today.

The President said he would like to go to Los Angeles to see the damage personally but doesn’t “want to get in the way.” A presidential visit could compound the already difficult traffic conditions, he noted.

Clinton dispatched White House aide John Emerson, a former deputy city attorney in Los Angeles, to head the federal response. James Lee Witt, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Housing Secretary Henry G. Cisneros and Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy were also en route to California.

In addition to helping pay for highway reconstruction, the federal government will offer low-income loans for homeowners and businesses, housing assistance for up to 18 months for those displaced by the disaster and other forms of emergency aid.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency still has outreach offices open in the Los Angeles area to help victims of last fall’s fires. Additional offices may be opened, with FEMA staff flying in from Denver to assist California-based staff with the effort.

Indeed, the cost of the earthquake to the federal Treasury almost certainly will be far higher than the cost of the fires, not only because of the damage to freeways but also because private insurance generally covers far more of the cost of fire damage than of earthquake losses, officials said.

For now, officials said, no reliable damage estimates are available. “It’s pretty bad, is all I can say,” said FEMA director Witt.

As news of the disaster rolled in throughout the day, White House aides--particularly the many California natives on Clinton’s team--stared at television sets and hoped to hear word from relatives in the region.

Clinton himself, shortly after being told of the earthquake by Housing Secretary Cisneros, called his brother, Roger, who lives in a Los Angeles apartment, to make sure he was all right. He was.

White House Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers had somewhat less luck. She told reporters she had been unable to reach her relatives. Family friends told her that her parents were fine but that the quake noticeably damaged their house, which is not far from where a section of the Antelope Valley Freeway plunged onto the Golden State Freeway.

Others marveled at the string of disasters, both natural and man-made, that have befallen the region lately. The 1993 fires, some of which were deliberately set, came 18 months after the 1992 riots.

“Los Angeles has certainly had more than its share,” McLarty said.

The first signs of more tangible federal assistance were special medical units and urban search-and-rescue teams organized by FEMA. The teams, made up primarily of firefighters from other Western cities, were dispatched early in the day.

FEMA expects to have 1,000 people to help with disaster relief over the next few days, said Richard Krimm, FEMA’s associate director for response and recovery.

“I think all federal agencies will respond to this better than we did in Hurricane Andrew because we’re better prepared,” Krimm said. “We no longer wait for the state to request specific assistance, we go right in.”

Federal disaster assistance teams already in or on their way to the quake-stricken area included four special medical units, several mobile communication systems capable of providing satellite and microwave telephone hookups, and 12 urban search-and-rescue teams, eight of which are based in California and four from other Western states.

The search-and-rescue units include dogs, tunneling experts and listening devices to detect victims who may be buried in collapsed buildings. The medical units are “basically civilian versions of Army M.A.S.H. units” and will set up mobile field hospitals, FEMA spokesman Phil Cogan said.

Krimm said FEMA also expects to send water purification units, firefighting equipment and more mobile communication networks to the Los Angeles area over the next 24 hours. “While we don’t have any assessment of this as yet, we can also set up food kitchens and provide tents if need be.”

Altogether, more than two dozen federal agencies are ready to help state and local disaster programs, Witt said.

Officials of the Army Corps of Engineers were beginning inspections of dams to check for quake-related flaws. The Department of Housing and Urban Development plans to assess longer-term shelter needs, and Transportation Department officials will be joining their state and local counterparts to inspect highways.

Times staff writers Michael Ross and Ray Delgado contributed to this story.