Earthquake: The Long Road Back : Some Comfort Found in Numbers : Refuge: For the second night, about 70 Simi Valley residents seek relief in the Red Cross facility at Royal High School.

Still shaken from Monday’s earthquake, Simi Valley residents Venetta and Herman McIlwin spent Tuesday sorting through broken belongings and bolting bookshelves to walls as they tried to reorder their lives.

But as darkness fell and the aftershocks continued, the McIlwins took their two small children and left the privacy of their home on the hard-hit east end of town.

For the second night, the McIlwins and about 70 other Simi Valley residents sought refuge in the perceived safety of the Red Cross Emergency Shelter in the Royal High School gymnasium.

“We just aren’t ready to go back yet,” Venetta McIlwin said. “My daughter won’t even go into the house.”

Some of those at the shelter were there because their homes were uninhabitable. Others came because their gas and water were shut off, flocking to the center for meals, water and comfort.

Mary and Fred Homsy decided to go to the shelter instead of staying with their son, who also lives in Simi Valley.

“My son called and said, ‘Come on over,’ and I said ‘no way,’ ” Mary Homsy, 78, said. “He just built a Jacuzzi and when those aftershocks hit I don’t want to end up under water.”

Shelter-seekers did not seem to mind waiting in line for cold pizza and warm sodas, or curling up on narrow cots lining the gymnasium floor.

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“If someone is already under a lot of stress, and then this happens, it can feel like the end of the world,” said Robert Ortiz, a therapist with the county’s Health Care Agency who spent two days at the shelter. “A hot cup of coffee and a good night’s sleep can do wonders.”

As cheerful high school students made sandwiches and coffee through the night, a volunteer fed and watered pet dogs and cats, and a nurse kept tabs on an elderly man with diabetes and a young boy who was suffering a mild asthmatic attack.

In a makeshift shelter office, shelter manager Lisa Lawrence answered the endlessly ringing phone, ordered medication for an ill shelter-seeker and talked to a distressed mother about her 9-year-old daughter’s odd behavior since the quake.

The mother said her daughter kept disappearing at the shelter and would show up again in tears, refusing to say where she had been or what the problem was. Lawrence told her to bring the girl to her for a talk about what might be troubling her.

“It’s just crazy around here, but we’re glad we can offer these services,” Lawrence said. “We’ve got people all over the place who didn’t go to work who are popping up to volunteer.”

Even some shelter-seekers got into the act.

“I felt guilty just sitting around,” said Jennifer Faulconer, 17. “So I just started helping out.”

Others, such as Delores Pacheco, were just beginning to come to grips with the damage.

“I didn’t want to come here, but I spent the day at the house trying to clean up and it really got me down,” said Pacheco, 43. “Then I came here and I realized I hadn’t had anything to eat or drink for a long time.”

Pacheco’s neighbor, Denni Duskin, came to the shelter with her five children. Duskin, 37, said she was waiting for a building inspector to examine the crumbled fireplace in her two-story house in the Oak Tree neighborhood.

“I’m hoping they say, ‘It looks terrible, but its all OK,’ ” Duskin said. “Then we’ll just patch it up and make it look good again.”

As Sylvia Milian, 28, pushed together a long row of cots, she said all her belongings were destroyed in the house on Tapo Street where she lives with 13 relatives.

“We’re moving out of here before this can happen again,” said Milian, who works as a medical assistant. “We moved here to start a new life after we lost everything in a fire in Chicago and now we have to start all over again.”

Sitting on a cot nearby, Frances Echterling, 60, and Christine Fridd, 35, talked about the damage to their home.

Shortly after the earthquake damaged their house, their garage burst into flames when a gas line ruptured. Fearful that flying embers would allow the blaze to spread, firefighters flooded the house with water.

“It’s unbearable,” Echterling said. “There are holes in the roof and I don’t even know if it’s safe to go in and I can’t even begin to think about what it’s going to cost to get everything fixed.”

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The pair lives on Echterling’s wages as a supermarket demonstrator and on Fridd’s disability income for back injuries.

Still smelling of smoke, Echterling sat on a green canvas cot and offered her daughter a foil-covered turkey sandwich.

“You really need to eat,” Echterling said. But Fridd just sat, looking sad and worried.

“It’s my cat, Baby,” Fridd said. “She disappeared and we can’t find her anywhere.”

A volunteer tried to cheer her up. “My cats were gone for two days before we found them,” he said. “So don’t worry, Baby will come back.”