Earthquake: The Long Road Back : Assessing the Damage and Danger : Fillmore: Temblor moves the city’s refurbishing efforts ‘back to square one.’ Hundreds wait to see if or when they can return to their homes.

Building inspectors on Tuesday canvassed Fillmore’s historic business district, stepping over heaps of rubble and shards of broken glass to determine the structural safety of red brick and masonry shops built around the turn of the century.

As shopkeepers waited nervously behind yellow police tape, inspectors concluded each tour by placing a tag on the building. A green tag meant the structure was safe. A red tag signified significant structural damage that needs immediate repair.

Grocer Jesse Segovia stood stunned outside Segovia’s Fillmore Market--red tags taped to its windows. “We all have to make a living out of here,” said Segovia, who heads the family-owned market. “This store has been around for 100 years and hopefully it will be around for another 100 years.”

No city in Ventura County was shaken more violently than Fillmore, which sits astride the Oak Ridge Fault responsible for Monday’s quake. More than 50 people were injured during the temblor that caused an estimated $200 million in damage to the small town that has worked hard at maintaining its rural identity.

“We like to call Fillmore the last, best small town in Southern California,” said City Manager Roy Payne, noting that city leaders have poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into refurbishing the downtown district.

“We had a very optimistic view of what we would accomplish this year,” Payne said. “We’ve been working very diligently on bringing the downtown back to life. Now we’re back to square one.”

In other parts of a 40-square-block area crippled by the quake, hundreds of newly homeless residents waited for word on whether they would be allowed to return to their homes.

Building inspectors closed indefinitely a 40-unit apartment complex and a two-story residential hotel that was home to more than 100 fieldworkers.

The walls of the 65-year-old Fillmore Hotel crumbled and collapsed Monday, crushing a row of cars along Fillmore Street and leaving the one- and two-bedroom apartments exposed.

Many of the laborers displaced by the earthquake spent Monday night in emergency shelters set up in Fillmore. More than 350 people spent the night at two shelters.

Pedro Barajas, 53, and his eight children lived in an apartment at the Fillmore Hotel. When the quake hit, they escaped partially dressed with only their lives. Sheriff’s deputies will not allow them to return to the building.

“We didn’t get anything--not even shoes,” he said while surrounded by his children at a shelter set up by the Red Cross at San Cayetano Elementary School.

During the earthquake, Barajas and his family huddled in the kitchen as the hotel walls peeled away. “We made sure we had the little ones,” Barajas said. “Then we got out.”

Throughout Fillmore, families spent the night outside, sleeping in tents or simply laying mattresses on their front lawns. Many homes throughout the city were left listing or knocked off their foundations.

“We’re still nervous,” said Leticia Quezada, 22, who spent the night on her mother’s front lawn with her brother, sister and mother. The family had set up a barbecue grill and a table where they ate lunch and dinner on Tuesday.

“We probably will stay out here tonight as well,” Quezada said.

Down the block, the Wertz family had set up two pup tents and two living room chairs on the front lawn.

“It’s just a mess in there, everything is on the floor, and besides the youngest one is terrified,” said Mary Jo Wertz, cradling her 6-year-old Jeanie.

On California 126, on the eastern edge of Fillmore, highway construction crews Tuesday were beginning work to patch a giant crater created by the explosion of a natural gas line near a mobile home park that was home to more than 500 senior citizens.

The explosion ripped a 10-foot-wide crater in the highway, shooting a ball of fire into the sky.

The fireball, in turn, ignited a blaze at a nearby mobile home park. One mobile home burned to the ground. Two adjacent trailers were badly damaged by fire. Several others were shaken from their foundations during the quake.

Many of the mobile home residents spent the night at the emergency shelters.

“Yes, we want to move back in as soon as it’s livable,” said Carol Dorman, who runs Dino’s drive-through in Fillmore and who lives in the park.

Meanwhile, merchants met with city officials at a spirited meeting Tuesday morning, telling them they were anxious to start rebuilding. But city officials said merchants would not be allowed to return to their shops until today at the earliest.

Building inspectors Tuesday continued a door-to-door survey of all houses and buildings throughout the city.

Much of that effort focused on Fillmore’s showcase business district where the quake fractured about 60 historic buildings along the city’s main thoroughfare and sent brick and masonry crashing to the ground.

Many of the downtown buildings are made of unreinforced masonry and considered unsafe during a major earthquake.

“It’s like most places,” said Donald Jephcott, an Orange County structural engineer brought in to help determine whether downtown building were safe to re-enter. “These old buildings all come apart when they are shaken.”