Earthquake: The Long Road Back : Jobless Claims Double at Simi Office : Impact: Many applicants are commuters laid off by San Fernando Valley businesses that were badly damaged.

Jobless claims doubled this week at the state unemployment office in Simi Valley as earthquake-damaged businesses began laying off employees, officials said Friday.

Since Tuesday, about 500 eastern Ventura County residents who are out of work because of the quake filed claims at the state Employment Development Department’s office in Simi Valley, bringing total applications this week to about 800, twice the usual number.

The state jobless office in Ventura reported 50 to 100 quake-related applications this week.

Larry Kennedy, manager of the Simi Valley unemployment office, said the number of applications was highest on Friday, perhaps because people spent the first part of the week cleaning up after the disaster.

“The first two or three days they were putting their houses together,” Kennedy said.

But the cleanup job wasn’t over for many Simi Valley residents.

Trash cans and dumpsters overflowing with building debris, broken glassware and other quake-ruined items lined streets in eastern Simi Valley and parts of Thousand Oaks as residents continued to sort through the mess.

Since the quake, garbage haulers have been carrying 200 more tons of trash per day than usual from the east county to the Simi Valley Landfill, a 10% increase, said Doug Corcoran, vice president of the landfill.

Corcoran said he expects even more garbage once contractors begin tearing up damaged walls, roofs and floors to begin repairs. “Once they start getting into the real structural demolition, it’s going to pick up a lot,” he said.

In Thousand Oaks, resident Jerry Roth said he paid for a 31-foot-long dumpster to be brought into his Chanteclair Estates gated community so neighbors could clear out broken glass and other debris.

“It was filled in a day and we had to call in for a second one,” Roth said. “I think people, from the minute the quake was over, were thinking about cleaning up and putting this behind them.”

In their struggle to bring their lives back to normal, Thousand Oaks and Simi Valley residents were also seeking assurance that their homes were safe.

Simi Valley officials said the backlog of inspection requests rose to more than 3,000 on Friday, with most coming from homeowners and apartment dwellers.

Although most apartments and houses inspected so far have been declared safe to enter and occupy, residents of others have not been so lucky.

All 13 of the two-story stucco homes on Golf Meadows Court in northeast Simi Valley have been tagged with yellow signs, warning residents that they may enter the buildings but should not live in them until the houses are repaired. The street was bustling with activity Friday as residents scurried to move out belongings before the start of rains forecast for this weekend.

“They told us we’re not to live in the home,” said Elizabeth Fuentes as she and her husband and their two sons packed up belongings to move to her mother’s house.

Pointing to interior walls that had broken away from the floor and were leaning to one side, Fuentes and her husband said they don’t know how they will pay their $2,000 monthly mortgage payments and save money for the repairs necessary to move back in.

The couple estimate it will cost $50,000 to fix the house, but they have no earthquake insurance.

Even before the disaster, the Fuentes family and other homeowners along the street had sued their tract’s builder, alleging shoddy construction, residents said. And unless the Fuentes family gets a settlement from that suit, their only hope for rebuilding is federal aid, Elizabeth’s husband, Javier Fuentes, said. “Without that we’ll probably have to foreclose.”

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Residents laid off as a result of the quake were also worried.

Peter Yanez commutes from Simi Valley to Rocketdyne in Canoga Park, where he has worked for 13 years.

Because of earthquake damage to the business, Yanez is not sure when he will be able to go back to work. “They tell us maybe Monday,” the 34-year-old jet-propulsion technician said. “It could be two weeks, it could be three weeks.”

In the meantime, he added, “as far as we know we’re not getting paid.”

So Yanez brought his wife, laid off before the quake from her job at a photography studio, and their infant son to the state jobless office Friday, where they ran into at least three other Rocketdyne workers.

Yanez said he was frustrated to learn that his weekly benefit payments may be as low as $200. “That’s not going to cover it,” he said.

Although many of the newly jobless are commuters who work for San Fernando Valley businesses seriously damaged by the quake, others are employed by Simi Valley companies closed for earthquake repairs.

Among those laying off workers is one of Simi Valley’s largest employers, defense contractor Whittaker Electronic Systems, which has furloughed about 675 of its 750 workers until early spring. The company expects to complete repairs at its structurally damaged plant by the end of March, Whittaker officials said.

To alleviate financial hardship, the city of Simi Valley plans to waive all planning fees for quake-related repairs to homes and businesses, Assistant City Manager Mike Sedell said.

Thousand Oaks officials are also considering waiving fees for minor repairs related to the earthquake.

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But Ventura County residents should not expect any state help with quake repairs, elected officials warned Friday. While touring Simi Valley High School on Friday, state Sen. Cathie Wright (R-Simi Valley) told school officials that the state simply can’t afford to help pay for repairs at the heavily damaged campus.

School officials estimated damage to the school at $3 million to $5 million, but they have no earthquake insurance to help cover these costs.

Times correspondent Matthew Mosk contributed to this story.

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