Swarm of Aftershocks Hits L.A. : Threat of Rain Spurs Race to Set Up Tent Cities : Disaster: Power is restored to most customers, even as four powerful, midmorning jolts rock the quake area in quick succession. Death toll is now put at 55.

Four powerful aftershocks hit the San Fernando Valley in an hour Friday as public parks swelled with new waves of the homeless and all of Los Angeles braced for yet another trial this weekend: rain.

A Pacific storm was expected to approach Southern California between Saturday and Monday, bringing the possibility of winds and as much as half an inch of rain. Many of the estimated 14,500 quake refugees sleeping in public parks and parking lots scrambled to buy protective gear, from ponchos to tarps large enough to cover an entire family. The National Guard raced to set up tent cities at six sites across the Valley, enough to shelter 6,000 people.

“Californians usually welcome rain,” meteorologist Harry Woolford said. “But not this time. For many people, it couldn’t be a worse weekend for rain.”

Even as power was restored to virtually all of Los Angeles and the water was deemed safe to drink in some parts, the four powerful jolts at midmorning Friday reminded residents that this seismic dance was not over. The aftershocks, which ranged in magnitude from 4.0 to 4.6 and were centered three miles northwest of San Fernando, fit the expected pattern for a quake the size of Monday’s early morning magnitude 6.6 shaker.

In other developments Friday:

* Police were used to maintain order at federal disaster centers overwhelmed by frustrated quake victims. A 12th center opened in Sherman Oaks, but lines were long and the red tape was thick. The director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency promised to open six more centers by next week--including one tomorrow in South-Central Los Angeles--and President Clinton ordered centers staffed until 10 p.m. But on Friday, there were mostly long, angry, tearful queues to get appointments to see a relief worker days or weeks in the future. “We’re living in our car,” one woman cried plaintively as a FEMA worker begged for patience.

* The death toll in Los Angeles County rose to 55 as four more fatalities were reported by the coroner’s office. All died on the day of the quake, but no other details were released. In San Bernardino County, an autopsy on Elizabeth Brace found that the Rancho Cucamonga mother widely reported to have died when she fell and hit her head on her child’s crib during the quake had no broken bones. She may have died of excess adrenaline caused by fear, said Dr. Frank Sheridan, the county’s chief medical examiner.

* The Los Angeles Unified School District said that it will open all but 97 of its hardest hit campuses Tuesday. The schools to remain closed indefinitely are all in the West Valley, Supt. Sid Thompson said. School authorities are hoping that safe portions of those campuses, where more than 100,000 students are enrolled, can be opened soon.

* Mayor Richard Riordan said he will urge businesses to stagger work schedules and use four-day weeks and telecommuting to alleviate traffic jams. Such measures were highly successful in preventing tie-ups during the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. Ramps connecting the Glendale and Ventura freeways were closed so engineers could inspect damage from the aftershocks. Transportation officials came to the grim conclusion Friday that alternate routes can handle only 60% of the traffic being diverted from broken freeways.

* The number of uninhabitable buildings in Los Angeles reached 1,175 as inspectors continued to fan out through the city. The red- and yellow-tagged structures encompass 4,800 housing units. The city pledged to demolish buildings at no cost to owners and to pick up street rubble in the Valley this weekend if residents will place it at the curb.

* The Los Angeles Police Department said it would stay fully mobilized at least through the weekend, keeping officers on 12-hour shifts with no days off. Although officers report that crime has been remarkably low since the quake, they are busy assisting the displaced and patrolling ravaged area to guard against looters.

* The federal government, which normally covers such emergency assistance costs as police, firefighting and water delivery for the first 72 hours after a disaster, announced Friday that it will pay such expenses for an additional five days--through Jan. 25--and possibly longer if necessary.

* Friday also brought promises from politicians at every level of government about expediting aid. Henry Cisneros, secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, said he will speed up approval of $83 million in housing vouchers, low-interest loans and other quake aid. State legislators promised to introduce bills to increase tax deductions for earthquake damage and speed unemployment benefits. And the City Council asked the Department of Water and Power to find a way to offer customers in the quake zone discounts or payment deferrals on their water and electric bills if their homes were damaged or destroyed.

The Next Test

Los Angeles struggled toward recovery Friday in fits and starts that felt like one step forward and two steps back. Electricity was restored to virtually all of the city; only a handful of customers remained without power.

But 20,000 customers from the Valley to the Santa Monica Mountains were still without water. Tap water south of the Santa Monica Mountains was declared safe to drink without being boiled, but water supplied north of Sunset Boulevard was expected to remain unsafe at least through the weekend.

Then came word of possible rain. The weather’s unfortunate turn came as inspectors declared building after building uninhabitable and the newly homeless headed to parks and parking lots for a place to sleep. The encamped population climbed from 13,800 to about 14,500. Forecasters warned that a storm 700 miles off the Northwest coast and heading east could cause trouble for Los Angeles, pushing a cold front through the area and posing a 40% chance of light rain.

Working frantically to beat the storm, emergency workers scrambled Friday to convince earthquake victims to leave city parks.

Huge National Guard tents such as those used to shelter people who lost homes in Hurricane Andrew had been delivered and were were being erected for emergency shelter. The sites selected as of Friday were Lanark Recreation Center in Canoga Park, Reseda Recreation Center, Valley Plaza Recreation Center, North Hollywood Park, West Valley Park and Winnetka Recreation Center in Northridge. GTE also has donated a tent in San Fernando.

In addition to the tents, 32 Red Cross centers were housing thousands. But efforts to clear the parks stalled despite the presence of “reassurance teams” that fanned out to urge people to leave their camps and head to city shelters. Although some of those who were camped out took that advice, new arrivals outnumbered them.

“This is big,” said Geoffrey Garfield, an aide to Mayor Richard Riordan. “It’s our major effort right now. . . . We have to get the people out of these encampments.”

The decision to put up the tents was made reluctantly and only after city officials became convinced that there was no other way to protect dislocated people from the coming rains. After Hurricane Andrew hit Florida, the tent cities became near-permanent encampments, and it took the concentrated efforts of law enforcement agencies to ultimately force some people out of the tents.

Nevertheless, Riordan and other city officials recommended Friday that the tents go up before the rain arrives, possibly Saturday night or early Sunday morning. The storm is expected to taper off to scattered showers by Monday.

“Some people may get the feeling they can stay there permanently,” Riordan conceded. “But with the rains coming, we have no choice.”

As the weather reports predicted an uncomfortable weekend, residents kept a wary eye on the darkening sky and hunted down provisions. Outside the Home Depot in Canoga Park, Billaldo Jeronimo held up his new tarp.

“We sleep outside in the parking lot of our apartment,” said the 18-year-old, who has been living in a makeshift camp in North Hills with his wife and 6-month-old son. “On Saturday, they say it will rain and we will have only this.”

Jack Welsh of Canoga Park also shopped for gear, just hoping to stay dry. When asked what he would do if faced with the choice of getting wet or re-entering his quake-damaged home, he replied: “I’m taking the rain outside.”

Meanwhile, as phone calls deluged the Valley from throughout the world, Pacific Bell officials in the company’s Northridge processing center struggled to repair roofs that could leave equipment exposed to the weekend rains. The center is handling 12 million calls a day, 7 million more than normal.

More Aftershocks

At times there is a sense that the city could handle almost anything, even the rain, if the shaking would only stop. The swarm of aftershocks that hit at midmorning Friday sent the already shellshocked diving for cover for a fifth day.

The earth’s rocking set off a fire at a collapsed apartment building on Victory Boulevard in Reseda when the shaking caused a car trapped beneath the building to ignite, Los Angeles City Fire Chief Mike Littleton said.

“With the aftershocks moving things around, the car’s frayed wires rubbed together and ignited the fire which spread to the building,” he said.

The blaze was controlled in less than an hour--even though the building was deemed too dangerous for firefighters to venture inside. Residents were moving their belongings out of another condemned building nearby when National Guard troops began yelling “Fire! Fire!”

“Me and my mom dropped what we were carrying and ran out of the building,” Charla Pang said wearily. “All we want to do is get our stuff into storage and then find a place to live.”

Following the aftershocks, Cal State Northridge President Blenda Wilson announced that all 53 of the major structures on campus would have to be reinspected before a final damage assessment is made. Until Friday, engineers had been prepared to announce that 80% of the buildings had made it through the temblor and its initial aftershocks without debilitating structural damage.

The campus may reopen by Feb. 14, two weeks later than the scheduled start of the new semester. “We might have to hold classes in trailers, community education buildings, churches and community agencies,” Wilson said.

Burying the Dead

As the earth kept rumbling, Los Angeles residents began the grim task of burying the dead.

Ted Fichtner, the first quake victim to be laid to rest, was interred in blue jeans and a flannel shirt given to him by residents of the Chatsworth Lake neighborhood who had adopted him 10 years ago when he was homeless.

Fichtner died inside the donated camper in which he lived on a Van Nuys street when a microwave oven fell and struck him in the head.

Two hours later, 4-year-old Amy Tyre-Vigil was remembered in a service at a Reseda temple. Her short life was filled with promise and possessions--different from Fichtner’s in many ways--but it ended within minutes of his when her parents’ affluent Sherman Oaks hillside house collapsed around her.

The casualty count from the earthquake continued to rise Friday and hospital officials expressed alarm about the dwindling number of beds in county intensive care units.

These are the beds for the most acutely ill, people on life support who need 24-hour care. There are 1,750 such beds in the county, but only 216 remained unoccupied as of midday Friday.

“We’re becoming concerned,” said David Langness, a spokesman for the Hospital Council of Southern California. He said hospitals in San Bernardino, Ventura and Orange counties have been put on alert.

In addition to the usual run of heart attacks, difficult pregnancies and other patients with potential life-threatening diseases, county hospitals have had to cope with nearly 1,300 patients admitted for earthquake-related injuries, some of them in critical condition.

Adding to the problem are the 915 patients who were evacuated from more than two dozen quake-damaged hospitals.

Three hospitals remained totally shut down: St. Johns Hospital and Health Center in Santa Monica, the Veterans Administration Hospital in Sepulveda, and the Psychiatric Hospital in the Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center Complex. Many others were operating at reduced levels.

The Hospital Council of Southern California said that 6,547 patients had been treated and released from hospitals since Monday’s quake and that 1,292 patients were admitted for treatment.

Government Tries to Help

Friday also brought more promises from government officials who say they are expediting aid to quake victims, but it could be weeks before housing and other forms of emergency aid will be distributed by disaster centers.

About $83 million in federal money that was to arrive in July for job training and low-income housing construction primarily in South-Central Los Angeles will be delivered immediately. A total of $200 million will be available throughout Los Angeles County.

Councilman Mike Hernandez and other city officials praised Cisneros for moving quickly to respond to the city’s needs. “It’s the kind of stuff that we didn’t get during the civil disturbances,” he said.

Councilman Joel Wachs said Cisneros has been “remarkable.”

A bill passed by the Legislature and signed into law Thursday night by Gov. Pete Wilson extends the arraignment period for criminal suspects from 48 hours to seven days. The legislators said such a move was necessary because there are several quake damaged courthouses where arraignments can not take place. The bill will expire after 30 days.