EARTHQUAKE / THE LONG ROAD BACK : Santa Monica Rolls With the Punches : Resilience: The city suffered severe damage; homes and businesses were destroyed. But life goes on and the civic spirit endures.

Santa Monica never was eager to relinquish its claim to paradise.

Whenever adversity tampered with its image as a progressive haven of hipness--when its bay grew poisoned or sympathy for the homeless wore thin--residents did not flee for more pristine sands. They debated, they reflected, then got back to life at the edge of the sea.

So when Monday’s temblor delivered a surprisingly fierce blow to this rent-controlled enclave, claiming three heart attack victims, seriously damaging more than 400 structures and snapping its namesake freeway, there was plenty of soul-searching and grief. But by Thursday, after work crews had steam-cleaned the trendy Third Street Promenade, many beachfront denizens already were displaying their resilience--smartly dressed professionals sipping cafe au lait, senior citizens on Ocean Avenue relishing the fresh air, even panhandlers exulting over a generous spurt of donations.

“There’s something about the spirit of the people here that creates a real conviviality,” said Denny Zane, an environmental activist and former mayor, whose kitchen floor was turned into a stew of olive oil, maple syrup, vinegar and broken glass. “The quake may stay in our minds for a long time to come . . . but I don’t think it will change Santa Monica’s sense of connectedness, of being a real welcoming place.”

To be sure, the earthquake has upended life for hundreds of residents, many of whom have been on edge since a string of smaller temblors began rattling Santa Monica more than a week ago. As of Thursday, 139 structures had been condemned and 272 were deemed to have major damage. Several buildings collapsed, while at least a dozen burst into flames. The Sea Castle apartments--a local landmark whose tenants have included folk singer Joan Baez--suffered a partially caved-in roof. At the city’s Woodlawn Cemetery, life-size statues of the Virgin Mary toppled to the ground.

Outside her 4th Street apartment, Kimberly Rogers was stuffing what was left of her belongings into plastic bags. The quake’s violent shaking had peeled away the facade of the building like a doll house, revealing the interiors of four debris-strewn rooms.

When the quake struck Monday, Rogers already had been awake for half an hour curling her hair, a chore for which she now feels grateful. “I would have been killed if I had stayed in bed,” she said, looking at the pile of red bricks not far from her pillow. “Vanity saved my life.”

Gawkers and amateur photographers also have been streaming through the city, tying up traffic while they pass along word of the most sensational destruction. “Have you seen the Pep Boys?” asks one. Demolished. “Have you been to St. Monica’s Church?” asks another. A precariously cracked tower.

“This is the untold story,” Robin Hutton, a 35-year-old writer from Brentwood, said as she aimed her video camera at a Mazda showroom on Santa Monica Boulevard, where the roof had caved in on a dozen high-priced sports cars. “The devastation is unbelievable, just unbelievable.”

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Given a brief audience Wednesday with President Clinton, Santa Monica Mayor Judy Abdo reiterated that point. “Los Angeles is the generic term for where the problem is,” she told the President in an airplane hangar at Burbank Airport. “But Santa Monica has an enormous amount of damage that is not being talked about.”

Still, there is something about Santa Monica that not even a magnitude 6.6 earthquake is going to change. Maybe it’s the buoyant spirit that so many communities dig down to discover after a disaster. Or maybe it’s something unique to a town that was known for a time as the People’s Republic of Santa Monica, where choice rent-controlled apartments go for less than $500 and the City Council fired the city attorney after he resisted efforts to crack down on the homeless.

“The earthquake is tragic, but not something that transforms life,” said Steve Cancian, assistant coordinator of the city’s weekly farmer’s market, which was canceled Wednesday because of damage at several nearby parking structures. “The uncertainty of it all is actually part of the mystique, part of the slightly unreal nature of this place.”

While nearby cleanup crews hauled off bricks and boarded up windows, Johnny Rockets reopened its doors, even though its normal burger and fries menu was reduced to tuna salad, egg salad and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

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Valentino, the haute Italian restaurant, also was back in business, albeit minus about 30,000 shattered bottles from owner Piero Selvaggio’s prized wine cellar. At the Reel Inn, a seafood restaurant on the Promenade, a plywood board covering the front window had been converted into an idyllic seaside scene with painted palms, waves and a sweltering sun.

“It could be snowing,” the sign reminded.

“In a sense, people in Santa Monica live almost on an island,” said Michael Bolger, 31, manager of Big Dogs sportswear shop a few doors away. “Ultimately, their problems just go poof and they go back to living the great California Dream.”

For Capucine Castets, however, the problems have just begun. Along with her husband and infant child, she has been living on 5th Street all week in an old Ford camper, forced outside by two chimneys that collapsed into her rented home.

“People who haven’t had the damage think that you’re overreacting,” the 39-year-old modeling agent said as she watched workers shovel debris into a giant dumpster on her front lawn. “My boss basically told me to call a doctor and get some Valium.”

If it weren’t bad enough that her residence of 14 years may soon be condemned, Castets was facing the grim prospect of being squeezed out of town altogether. As a renter in vacancy-scarce Santa Monica--a community people wait to join, not flee--she feared it would be impossible to find another place.

“We’re seriously considering just leaving California,” she said. “I’m certainly not going to live in Hollywood or Burbank or something. Santa Monica is the whole reason you can endure L.A.”