EARTHQUAKE: DISASTER BEFORE DAWN : Voices

“The bottom line is, no matter what anyone says, we cannot predict earthquakes. They come when they are ready.”

--Waverly Person of the National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colo.

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“It felt like Godzilla had picked our building up, shook it, couldn’t find a toy and threw it back down on the ground.”

--Bryan Watson, 30, a resident of the collapsed Northridge Meadows apartments, where at least 15 people were killed

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“Ma’am, listen to me. Your son, how old is your son? This son is dead, ma’am. He is dead.”

--Paramedic Dave Thompson to another resident of the Northridge complex

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“Come down and pray with me, come down and pray.”

--The janitor trapped for more than seven hours under tons of concrete in a garage at Northridge Fashion Center before he was saved

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“Right when the big moment comes, another big moment came.”

--Eddie Gonzales, 35, whose wife, Wendy, was giving birth to a daughter at Torrance Memorial Medical Center, the top of the baby’s head showing, when the delivery room began shaking

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“I thought he was playing around. I said: ‘Stop it. Drive right.’ ”

--Patricia Reynoso, who with her husband and 2-year-old son nearly drove off the collapsed section of the Santa Monica Freeway

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“I came over here and I thought maybe I could open up and, you know, help some people. Give them bottled water, batteries, flashlights. But we can’t even walk around in there. We can’t get to the stuff.”

--The manager of a damaged Thrifty store in Sylmar, which closed shortly after opening

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“Just when we’ve rebuilt it, we’ve had to declare it a disaster area.”

--Roy Payne, city manager in the Ventura County community of Fillmore, whose downtown business district had undergone extensive renovation over the past three years

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“I now have a north house and a south house.”

--Los Angeles’ new chief federal prosecutor, U.S. Atty. Nora M. Manella, on the serious damage to her Studio City townhouse.

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“She’s just glad to be alive and to have her cat.”

--The granddaughter-in-law of an 81-year-old woman who was awakened when the sun porch of her Pacific Palisades house collapsed down a hill above Pacific Coast Highway

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“I have a national treasure that I need to put in the safe.”

--Catharine Byl, rushing to the front desk at a Ventura County Sheriff’s station with a collection of moon rocks on loan from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration

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“My mom said when she first tried to call me there was a recording on saying, ‘Due to an earthquake, the circuits are busy.’ We were joking that they should just keep part of that recording blank and insert whatever they need. Pestilence is probably next.”

--Janet Mullens, 32, of Malibu

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“Everything was flying all over. I felt glass on top of me. I grabbed my daughter Amber and I said ‘Dear God, let us live through this and we’re going back to New York.’ ”

--Diane Kelly of Van Nuys

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“It’s too bad this wasn’t the Big One. I was hoping this was the Big One because we’re in pretty good shape. But I guess not.”

--Forrest Fields, a Thousand Oaks planning commissioner