Earthquake: The Long Road Back : CSUN President Hopes to Reopen Campus Feb. 7 : Education: Officials must find enough safe classrooms before courses resume. The university at quake’s epicenter suffered tens of millions of dollars in damage.

Cal State Northridge President Blenda J. Wilson said Wednesday that she hopes the campus, which suffered tens of millions of dollars in earthquake damage, can reopen Feb. 7, a week after the scheduled start of the spring semester.

“We just need the earth to stop shaking,” Wilson said during an interview in a canvas field tent that is serving as the school’s administrative headquarters.

However, Wilson’s plan to reopen the campus three weeks after Monday’s devastating Northridge earthquake depends on a host of favorable circumstances, such as finding a large enough number of safe classrooms to accommodate classes for the school’s more than 26,000 students.

“We still don’t know how many classes will be available, but every available space will be used--dorms, conference rooms, athletics, the Student Union,” Wilson said. “If that’s not enough, we’ll rent offices. We’ll find the space.”

The earthquake is the latest setback for Wilson, who came to Northridge in 1992 from the University of Michigan at Dearborn. Since her arrival, the campus has been racked by drastic budget cutbacks and political and racial unrest.

She said her first thought after the quake was: “We’ll never be able to recruit anybody to come to Cal State Northridge.”

It is still unknown how long rebuilding will take and, more important, whether government agencies have the money to pay for it.

Dozens of structural engineers have been surveying school buildings, including those that appear to have sustained the most damage: the school’s 2-year-old, $15-million science complex, the seven-story Sierra Tower and the South Library building.

Scores of other buildings have broken windows, broken fixtures and wall cracks. And there is still no final assessment of the safety of several large buildings that appear to be stable, including the faculty office building and the Student Union.

Wilson said video crews are recording the damage to back up requests for state and federal aid to rebuild.

Asbestos cleanup crews have been working around the clock to remove the material from the school’s engineering building. That part of the cleanup is costing $15,000 a day and is expected to continue through next week.

Hazardous-materials crews from the campus and the Los Angeles County Fire Department on Wednesday worked to clean up chemical and biological materials stored in the school’s new science complex that were spilled during the quake.

“Campus labs have about every kind of material, from the very hazardous to the very safe, said Gerald P. Munoz, a county hazardous-materials specialist who was at the campus. “The chemicals are the worst, but luckily they don’t keep very big quantities.”

A fire on Monday burned the second and third floors of Science Building 2, and the quake appeared to have seriously damaged the outdoor walkways connecting the four buildings in the science complex.

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The South Library building, which also contains the school’s mainframe computers and the bulk of its electronic records, survived the quake.

But aftershocks and an electrical fire that burned Wednesday have left the building’s future in jeopardy.

Lorraine Newlon, the school’s director of admissions and records, said none of the electronic information was lost.

“We have a backup system that had recorded all of the information on Saturday night,” she said.

All but about 6,000 students had completed registration for the spring semester, Newlon said.

The rest will be registered at Northridge with the help of computers at the Cal State Fresno campus, she said.

Once campus officials determine which rooms are safe, students will be mailed schedules showing where they are to report for class.

Cal State Damage

Despite damage estimates in the tens of millions of dollars, campus officials hope to begin the spring semester Feb. 7, only a week later than scheduled.

Engineering building

Damage unknown.

Asbestos cleanup crews required.

Was scheduled for retrofitting.

Delmar T. Oviatt Library

Portions of roof caved in.

$16-million addition appears to have suffered most damage.

Sierra Tower

Closed 7-story building.

Was scheduled for retrofitting.

Library South

Location of computer records and offices.

Aftershocks appeared to have caused extensive damage.

Electrical equipment caught fire early Wednesday.

Science Buildings 1-4

1, 2 and 3 suffered most.

Two floors of Building 2 burned.

Crews cleaning up hazardous materials including chemicals and bacteria.

Parking Lot

$15-million, 4-story parking facility.

Partly collapsed.