EARTHQUAKE: THE LONG ROAD BACK : Getting Down to Work : San Fernando Valley Companies Struggle to Get Up and Running

Fitfully, the ruptured lifelines of commerce rumbled back into motion Wednesday in the San Fernando Valley, making patience a necessary virtue as residents sought out necessities and business people struggled to meet customers’ demands.

In the quake-rocked West Valley, most shopping malls remained closed, and people spent hours searching for open gas stations, grocery stores and banks.

Major area employers tried earnestly to get back to business, but much of their work was limited to cleaning up debris, examining damage to buildings and picking up scattered files.

At one especially hard-hit firm, only a hundred of the 3,000 workers at Great Western Financial Corp.’s headquarters in Chatsworth were back on the job, though most of the thrift’s branches were open.

Meanwhile, moving companies throughout the Valley and elsewhere in Greater Los Angeles were overwhelmed by calls from residents and business owners trying to move belongings into storage--hoping, in many cases, to beat condemnation orders that would prohibit movers from entering unsafe structures.

For many Valley residents, the contrast with business as usual was typified by the obsessive hunt for the flexible copper lines that connect water heaters to home plumbing systems. With 37 other people, Lorraine Williams stood in the hot sun Wednesday afternoon outside Larry & Joe’s Plumbing Supply store in Reseda. After being tossed around “like a salad” in Monday’s quake, Williams’ home had electricity and running water again. But those copper tubes in her garage had snapped.

“I drove all around the Valley this morning looking for a store that still had them in stock,” the Northridge woman said. “My husband’s boss told us about this store, and when I got here, the line was already twice as long as now.”

Michele Lewis, a saleswoman at the store, said the iron laws of economics were hard at work. And she warned that Williams and the others might be leaving unsatisfied.

“Copper flex lines are in short supply in the Valley now,” she explained. “Nobody expected the demand for them. We’ve run out and are talking to suppliers in Ventura County. Some suppliers are already beginning to gouge the consumer. Before the quake, suppliers sold us the tubing for about $10 a piece. Some suppliers are now charging retailers $25 a piece. We refuse to be gouged.”

Plumbing stores were not the only Valley businesses with customers spilling out onto sidewalks.

The Albertson’s supermarket at Corbin Avenue and Vanowen Street in Winnetka was one of a handful of food stores in the West Valley open on Wednesday. Employees were allowing two shoppers in at a time; the wait was about 15 minutes.

“It kind of looks like the pictures you see of consumers in communist countries who wait in line for hours to buy a couple of loaves of bread,” said Mike O’Leary, who had driven from Northridge with his girlfriend and was waiting at the end of the line. “I hope they have more than bread. Bologna would be nice.”

Inside, many of the store’s ceiling tiles were missing, but most of the shelves were restocked. Customers were buying meat almost as fast as the butchers could put it in the display cases.

Five miles to the south in Woodland Hills, Sheila Cook sat inside an office of Highland Federal Bank, tending with another employee to the trickle of customers that walked in. Electricity and phone service had been restored Tuesday night. But yellow tape surrounded the bank’s exterior, warning of earthquake damage.

“We’re just taking deposits,” Cook said. “We’ve worked out an agreement with Bank of America next door to cash checks for our customers. If the customer needs extra service, we send them to our next closest office in Burbank.”

At the Arco station at Vanowen Street and Winnetka Avenue, Tomas Davila waited in his new Toyota behind a line of cars that snaked into the street.

“This is ridiculous,” the Panorama City man said. “Every station I went to was either closed or had lines of cars. When will things get back to normal?”

As he talked to a reporter, a silver Honda zipped past the waiting cars toward an island of gas pumps. Davila and other angry motorists jumped out of their cars to yell at the young driver.

“Puhleeese!” she said. “I’m only looking for directions. I don’t want your gas.”

From behind locked doors, employees at shopping malls undertook the arduous process of cleaning up and assessing the impact of the quake. Damage ranged from broken tiles and plaster, toppled merchandise, shattered windows and water stains to utter devastation.

The Glendale Galleria, Panorama Mall in Panorama City and Antelope Valley Mall in Palmdale opened for business. Others--including the Media City Center in Burbank, the Promenade in Woodland Hills, Fallbrook Mall in Canoga Park and the Valencia Town Center--hope to reopen by the weekend.

At the hardest hit shopping center, the Northridge Fashion Center, a collapsed Bullock’s department store has been condemned, and two parking structures will have to be rebuilt.

The fourth floor of the mall’s J.C. Penney store collapsed into the third level; one of the toppled parking structures leans against it. But officials have not determined if the store must be rebuilt, and engineers continued to pick through the Broadway, Sears and other severely damaged stores. It is uncertain when any mall can be reopened, even partially.

From makeshift offices in parking lots, under canopies and in trailers, many big Valley employers operated with skeleton crews, their workday made long and tense by the aftershocks that continued to rattle the region.

Jeff Ornstein, chief financial officer at Superior Industries, the Van Nuys wheel manufacturer, arrived at work carrying a flashlight and clad in jeans and sneakers. Almost all of the company’s 200 white-collar workers were there, too.

“The phone is up, the lights are on,” Ornstein reported jubilantly. “Overall, people are in good spirits.”

But only a fraction of the firm’s 800 blue-collar employees were called back Wednesday. The quake left gaping holes in the factory’s ceiling, knocked big lathes out of position and damaged water pipes. But Ornstein said he remains hopeful full production will resume by the end of next week.

Other major employers aren’t so sure when operations will be in full swing.

At Great Western’s headquarters, department supervisors shuffled in and out of Building 2, the only one of 14 edifices at the thrift’s sprawling headquarters complex that had been cleared by structural engineers. Working from a white trailer equipped with flashlights and walkie-talkies, spokesman Ian Campbell said he has no idea when the rest of the employees will be called back.

Business was brisk, meanwhile, at area moving and storage firms.

“People are calling to get out of their buildings before they are condemned and torn down,” said Tom Smith, president of L.A. Moving & Storage in Arleta. Smith’s company is moving about 30 households a day--mostly apartment dwellers escaping damaged buildings in Northridge, Sherman Oaks and Granada Hills.

“Some people who have long distance moves planned for February, March and April are seeing if they can get it done right now,” Smith said. “I think with the quake and the fires and potential mudslides coming with the next big rain, you will see more people wanting out this summer.”

Paul Bement, national accounts sales manager for Sylmar-based Security Moving & Storage, said the company’s 40 movers are booked through next Monday.

“Every man and every truck that is available is out there working,” he said. “It’s been crazy.”

In some cases, Bement said, the company has turned down work from customers whose damaged homes and businesses it judged unsafe to enter, even if they were not yet condemned.

“We will not risk the safety of our men,” Bement said.

Times staff writers Patrice Apodaca, Don Lee and Jesus Sanchez contributed to this report.