EARTHQUAKE: THE LONG ROAD BACK : Diary of a Disaster : Residents Struggling to Put Lives Back in Order One Day at a Time

DAY 1

Darkness. Then, abruptly, a jolt. A crash. Rumbling, screaming, shattering, tumbling. Panic. And again, darkness.

Alone before dawn on Monday in a hilltop parking lot in Simi Valley, nighttime security guard Mike Tam watched the shuddering earth heave through the San Fernando Valley and on toward Ventura County. One by one, lights flared and went dim, as transformers blew.

“It was a hell of a show,” Tam said. “I could have used my surfboard up there on that ridge.”

Across Ventura County in Fillmore, Roger Campbell wasn’t so sanguine.

Campbell is a city councilman. A deputy fire chief. And Fillmore’s only emergency medical technician.

As soon as the initial trembling stopped, he sprang into action. Jumping into his firefighter’s boots, stashed as always by his bed, Campbell stumbled through the house, grabbing shoes for his family and clearing a path through the rubble. He ripped the front door off its hinges and hurried his wife and two teen-age children outside.

Even in the dark, Campbell had an inkling that the quake had shoved his 90-year-old house off its foundation. But when he dashed off to the fire station at 4:40 a.m., he shelved all thoughts of his personal tragedy.

It was the start of a selfless--and hectic--week.

“I’ve mainly been working on solving other people’s problems,” Campbell said.

So have Julie Merich and Nan Thompson, emergency room nurses at Simi Valley Hospital.

They were nearing the end of their graveyard shift Monday, helping physician Pam Biren deal with two patients who had just come for aid when the quake hit.

Ceiling tiles smashed to the floor. A big glass sliding door exploded. Medicine and supplies tumbled off shelves. Sugary-smelling slicks of liquid Tylenol and Motrin oozed across the floor--yellow and red pools snaking around the rubble.

“As soon as it started, we looked at each other and said, ‘Earthquake. Big earthquake.’ Then we ran to the doorway,” Merich recounted.

As the shaking subsided, Biren ran to check on the patients. Then, fearful the whole building could collapse, the three emergency room staffers shuttled their two patients--a man with a sore back and an asthmatic woman--out the door. Merich guided them to the parking lot and sat them down in the chill, still darkness.

The quiet was short-lived.

Alone and in clusters, huddled under blankets or shuffling in slippers, the wounded, the scared and the dazed began to arrive within 10 minutes of the fearsome jolt.

Most were bleeding from lacerations, suffered as they tripped through rubble-filled hallways or lay stunned under falling objects. A few had more serious injuries--fractures, chest pains, panic attacks.

As her watch inched toward 5 a.m., Thompson held a flashlight in the hospital parking lot while Biren stitched up a gash on a young man’s face.

With that first, nerve-racking operation, they launched a primitive, open-air emergency room.

Scores of off-duty doctors and nurses, some from neighboring cities, came by in sweats and sneakers to offer their services. They quickly set up an assembly line to suture wounds in the parking lot.

Although the hospital’s emergency generator had kicked in immediately after the quake, no one wanted to go back into the building. Not with ceiling tiles on the floor and aftershocks on the way.

“It seems like we took care of at least 50 or 60 people by flashlight,” Merich recalled. “I had them lined up on the curb. I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off.”

Roger Campbell in Fillmore and Julie Merich in Simi Valley were among the first to aid others when the earthquake rocked Southern California with horrific force at 4:31 a.m. Monday.

Although centered in Northridge, the magnitude 6.6 quake--sent devastating tremors throughout Ventura County, shattering lives in Fillmore and Simi Valley and wrecking buildings in Moorpark and Thousand Oaks as well.

The force of the quake bounced Larry Perillo--a 6 foot, 2 inch, 280-pound quality control worker--clear out of his bed in Simi Valley. He flipped in the air, landed face down and hit his head on a table, leaving him bruised and disoriented.

A few miles away in northeastern Thousand Oaks, Anne Weidenweber was jolted awake and tried to warn her husband that the heavy mirror behind their bed could come flying down on top of them. But he couldn’t hear her shriek--just then, the mantle piece and chimney came plunging down, bricks cascading in a thunderous crescendo.

And in a Von’s supermarket in Simi Valley, Robert Moss found himself pinned in an aisle when the quake toppled a huge Coca Cola display he was stocking. It took him 90 minutes to extricate himself and slither around the debris to freedom, using the light on his pager to guide him down the aisle.

Amid all the noise and destruction, Mary Beth Wolford, superintendent of the Simi Valley Unified School District, slumbered--tucked into a comfortable bed in a guest room at a friend’s house in Sun City West, Ariz.

But her oblivion ended with a scare almost as frightening as the quake itself. Wolford awoke to a television news account of the disaster, featuring an interview with a Simi Valley resident. Trembling, he described the fear. The chaos. The wreckage.

“The personal side of me was saying, ‘I’m glad I wasn’t there at 4:31 a.m.,’ but the professional side was saying, ‘What a lousy day to be gone,’ ” Wolford recounted. “The more I heard, the worse I felt.”

Frantic to return and investigate the damage to her schools, Wolford scrambled to get a ticket--any ticket--to Southern California. When she finally got aboard a flight to Burbank, she found it filled with other nail-biting travelers desperately anxious about whether their homes, businesses and relatives had survived the quake.

Wolford arrived in Simi Valley about 3:30 p.m., took one look at the broken glass littering her living room, and headed straight out on a tour of the schools.

Most of them looked bad. And three--Township Elementary School, Valley View Junior High and Simi Valley High--looked downright dangerous. Wolford’s succinct assessment: “It was a total mess.”

Day 2

As Tuesday dawned in Fillmore, Roger Campbell still had no clue about the earthquake’s total punch. He had heard vague rumors about crumbled freeways, collapsed apartment buildings, crushed bodies. He knew the epicenter was somewhere in the San Fernando Valley.

But beyond that, he didn’t know much. And he didn’t much care.

Every last ounce of Campbell’s energy was focused on his city, its three square miles of territory and its 13,000 anxious residents.

And he had more than enough to worry about.

Much of Fillmore’s downtown district was destroyed. Bricks were scattered, helter-skelter, across cracked streets. Homes had crumpled like paper. Hundreds of people had jammed into a makeshift shelter at the San Cayetano Elementary School.

Like scores of other firefighters and city officials, Campbell was working frantically. After just two hours of sleep, he was coordinating the response to Fillmore’s trauma. His employees were supervising building inspections, organizing the shelter, preparing an ordinance declaring a local state of emergency.

No time to listen to the radio. No place to plug in a television set. No idea where to purchase a newspaper.

“I wanted to know what was going on in my own town, and I didn’t pay attention to anything else,” Campbell said.

He also didn’t pay attention to his own family’s plight, focusing instead on those worse off.

Finally, about noon, he managed to wrangle a short break from his post at the command center. He rushed to his home--just three blocks away--and saw, for the first time, the damage.

The lime green, two-story house that he had lived in for 20 years now tilted several degrees to the west. Cockeyed and slumping, it looked about to collapse. But despite the obvious danger, dozens of Campbell’s friends were traipsing through the off-kilter door, carrying his furniture to safety.

Elsewhere in the county, other quake victims spent Tuesday performing similarly grim tasks.

They cleaned their homes or tried to salvage cherished possessions. They stood in 30-minute grocery store lines for water, flashlights and canned food--in at least one case, ignoring a sign that warned “Shop at Your Own Risk.” They consoled distraught friends and called worried relatives.

In Thousand Oaks, council members showed their congressman, Anthony Beilenson, their quake-ravaged library, picking their way around fragments from the metal ceiling that had blasted loose during the temblor.

“It looks like Beirut,” City Manager Grant Brimhall said. “Or worse.”

In Simi Valley, Supt. Wolford strode through the city with building inspectors and held conference after urgent conference to decide which schools could reopen.

And, in her home just blocks from the Simi Valley Hospital, nurse Merich tried to relax after the most hectic 15-hour shift of her career.

Like many, Merich could not find peace.

Though they tried to nap on Tuesday afternoon, many Ventura County residents found themselves twitchy and tense. Even lying in bed, their muscles stayed taut, their hands reached out toward flashlights and hard-soled shoes, their minds ran through an endless catalogue of objects broken and friends left homeless.

“I didn’t want to go to sleep because I was so afraid the Big One would come,” 13-year-old Sarah Jenkins said.

Others shared her fear--and wondered how to prepare.

“In Mexico, we all have the idea that we should run outside as fast as possible, but here, they tell us to stay inside and get in the doorway,” immigrant Jose Lopez, 31, said. “But there’s not enough room in the doorway for all of us.”

By Tuesday evening, those who survived the quake with homes and possessions intact felt ready to get their lives back to normal. Some even felt relaxed enough to make a few earthquake jokes.

At a Thousand Oaks council meeting marked by three small aftershocks, council members expressed gratitude that their city had suffered less than nearby Simi Valley. Councilman Alex Fiore chuckled and said: “This time, I guess it just wasn’t our fault.”

Day 3

The sign in Fillmore on Wednesday seemed pitifully inadequate.

The entire downtown district was cordoned off, sheriff’s deputies were patrolling homes and shops to prevent looting, and volunteer firefighters were trying to move the emergency shelter to a bigger location.

Yet the orange sign posted on a traffic cone near Santa Clara Street offered scanty news: “Traffic Subject to Delays Due to Special Event.”

For a change, Roger Campbell was free to help his family instead of aiding others. He scarcely knew where to start.

“I have no earthquake insurance,” he said. “I am financially devastated. I don’t know what to do. Except work on cars. I know I can make money working on cars. I’ll just have to keep working and hope the people who owe me money will pay me money.”

But despite his resolve, he didn’t get much done.

“I put on my coveralls like I’m going to work, but I haven’t touched a thing,” he said.

Like others who watched life savings crumble in the earth’s violent spasm, Campbell got a small measure of support Wednesday, when President Clinton declared Ventura County a disaster area, eligible for federal aid.

But they also received some bad news.

Caltech scientists reported that aftershock activity was unusually vigorous--and migrating toward Ventura County. Two strong Wednesday afternoon temblors were centered barely six miles northeast of Simi Valley.

Supt. Mary Beth Wolford didn’t need a degree in geology to figure that out.

When the floor started pitching shortly after 1 p.m. Wednesday, Wolford dove under a table in the district office, where she had been answering press calls about school damage.

“Right away, I said ‘That’s a 5.1,’ ” she recounted. “My colleague said, ‘No, no, no, that’s a 3.2, I’ll bet you a dollar.’ As it turned out, I was right on target. When we heard on the radio that it was a 5.1, everyone in the room offered to give me a dollar. And we had a bit of laughter, which we desperately needed to break the tension.”

The chuckle might have made everyone feel better for an instant. But within minutes the district office was deluged with phone calls from frightened students, teachers and custodians.

No one wanted to go back to school, not even to the schools that had previously been declared safe.

Within an hour, Wolford had dashed off a press release canceling school in the Simi Valley Unified district for the rest of the week.

“I knew immediately that we’d have further damage from those aftershocks,” Wolford said. “I thought, ‘There goes the plan for tomorrow.’ ”

Day 4

It was Thursday. Three full days had passed. Yet the aftershocks kept coming, smaller but still potent in some pockets of eastern Ventura County. And the talk kept coming as well.

For some it was idle chatter.

How many pictures fell off your wall? How scared was your cat? How long did it take you to vacuum up the glass?

For those most affected, however, the talk was serious, and wrenching.

Where will I live if it rains this weekend? How can I get loans to repair my house? Why won’t the building inspector let me enter my shop?

Federal emergency aid offices opened at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in Fillmore and at the Sycamore Drive Community Center in Simi Valley to answer those nuts-and-bolts questions.

Hundreds of quake victims lined up at the FEMA centers, some waiting for hours in the bright sunshine. But most got no tangible help on Thursday--just a sheaf of papers and an appointment for an individual counseling session later in the week.

“I don’t even know what FEMA is,” Roger Campbell said, discouraged and disconsolate as the magnitude of his personal tragedy began to sink in. “I don’t even know what they can do for us. All they did was give us pieces of paper and tell us to come back tomorrow.”

The officers of the Federal Emergency Management Agency--well-versed in helping Californians after last fall’s disastrous wildfires--promised to work on pragmatic problems soon.

The philosophical questions, however, were harder to deal with.

“A lot of people have lost everything, so they’re asking why,” said Father Norm Supancheck of Fillmore’s St. Francis of Assisi.

“I tell some of them I don’t know--only God knows. Some, I reassure that we can go forward from here. For others, though, that’s not enough.”

On Thursday, like every day since the earthquake, more than 200 people attended church services at St. Francis of Assisi--a dramatic jump from the normal attendance of about three dozen.

Many were children, who seemed to find peace in the sanctuary.

“It’s beautiful to see how the children who haven’t slept for days come to church and fall asleep leaning against their parents because they feel safe there,” Supancheck said.

While the newly homeless, suddenly jobless and simply shaken sought financial aid or emotional support, administrators across the county continued the gritty work of assessing damages on Day 4 of Quake Week.

Building inspectors plodded from door to door, pasting on red, yellow or green tags to indicate the state of each structure they investigated.

Surprisingly, many had good news--at least in eastern Ventura County.

In Thousand Oaks, officials checking out the library concluded that they, too, had overestimated the damage. A new computer system, installed the day before the earthquake, was working again--though it had been sprayed with water when a sprinkler burst during the temblor. Despite the collapsed ceiling, City Manager Grant Brimhall pronounced the library itself structurally sound.

Although damage estimates topped $5 million for the Simi Valley Unified School District, the structural weaknesses were not as bad as they first appeared. After another exhausting day of touring schools, conferring with inspectors and answering calls, Wolford reported late Thursday that the schools once considered ruined could be salvaged.

“Some of the damage we were fearful was structural turned out to be merely cosmetic,” she said with evident relief. “We’ll be able to repair them and the buildings will be in good shape. They may not look nice, but they’ll be safe.”

Across the county in Fillmore, however, the devastation was every bit as bad as it had first appeared.

Meeting as usual on Thursday night, the Fillmore City Council decided to take control of the demolition bulldozer. Any building deemed a public hazard could be razed with 48 hours notice, the council members decided.

It was the toughest vote of Roger Campbell’s life.

“Basically, the ordinance we passed was a death sentence for my house,” he said. “I voted for it. But it was hard.”

The house he had lived in nearly all his married life, the house he had raised his two children in, the house he had renovated room by room, would be swept away by a city bulldozer.

Logically, Campbell knew he had to tear down the home. Leaning and shaky, it clearly jeopardized his elderly neighbor’s house. Repairing his house would cost $60,000 to $75,000. For that price, he said, he might as well build a new house.

The thought was daunting.

He had managed to find a temporary apartment for his family--one bedroom for the four of them, “not nearly enough room, but it’s a roof over our heads.” Dozens of tasks still lay ahead.

He had to look for a new home. He had to get price quotes from contractors. He had to keep up with his City Council and Fire Department chores. He had to earn money, lots of money, in his auto repair shop.

“My personal life is a shambles,” Campbell said. “I’m trying to do a bunch of things at once. I have to because I’m in trouble.”

Day 5

The portable toilets stank. The lines were long. The paperwork was endless. And the check was nowhere near the mail.

Still, many of the earthquake victims waiting for federal assistance Friday remained good-natured, patient and even optimistic.

Some were frustrated--wanting immediate answers when they could get only future appointments. But others were glad to be taking some action, glad to be talking to people who could help.

Strolling up and down the line in Simi Valley, distributing flyers and flashing his Irish smile, disaster relief worker Michael Kavanaugh tried to keep everyone cheerful.

“If people are hurting, we’re there,” said Kavanaugh, a retired police officer from Roanoke, Va. “That’s the whole point, isn’t it? We’re here to help and we’ll be here for as long as we need to be here.”

John Ayers, for one, was glad to hear that.

The Simi Valley computer programmer had just experienced a rather traumatic Friday.

He had been rooting through the Elks Lodge, seeking a wheelchair for his injured son, when a series of palpable aftershocks rolled through eastern Ventura County about 11 a.m.

Rubble rained down around him as he dashed for the door.

A few hours later, he was on a ladder, checking out his chimney, when another jolt hit.

The earth swayed slightly as he clutched the roof in terror.

Two near-escapes in one day persuaded Ayers to stay outside and on the ground--and the FEMA line outside Simi Valley’s Sycamore Drive Community Center was as good a place as any.

Like many, he wasn’t sure what he might need from the government. But he thought he might as well queue up just in case. Perhaps, he said, he would ask for a low-interest loan to fix his cracked foundation.

On Friday, though, Ayers couldn’t think that far ahead. After four tense nights of fitful sleep, he had one main wish. “Let’s just have a little peace,” he said wearily.

But, even on the fifth day, peace seemed far away.

Mary Beth Wolford was harried and harassed at the district office in Simi Valley, fielding calls from school principals, custodians and worried parents.

Roger Campbell was harried and harassed at his auto repair shop in Fillmore, trying to take care of business and find new lodging for his family.

And John Dosen was harried and harassed at an industrial building in Newbury Park, welcoming a small army of State Farm Insurance claims adjusters from across the country.

More than 800 out-of-town employees joined the 250 already stationed in State Farm’s regional office in Westlake Village.

Before they could fan out to handle the claims--which were expected to reach nearly 100,000--they shuttled through an “induction center” in Newbury Park, picking up maps, flashlights, hard hats, gloves and instructions on how to assess earthquake damage.

“To a casual observer, this may look a little chaotic, but really, it’s organized,” Dosen said as claims adjusters in red “Special Disaster Team” T-shirts swarmed through the building.

Experienced in dealing with natural disasters--many spoke calmly of having “worked Andrew,” as in the hurricane--the claims adjusters nonetheless admitted some fear of aftershocks. Yet they all tried to ignore the shakes, girding themselves for six weeks of nonstop work.

“You can make the Adrenalin rush last that long,” said Karen O’Neill, who left her husband and 4-month-old daughter in icy Ohio when she flew west to process earthquake claims.

“It was 21 degrees below zero when I left,” O’Neill said, marveling. “Here, I don’t even need a jacket.”

Day 6

For Jennifer Jimenez, Saturday meant:

Another morning of waking up in the Royal High School gym, surrounded by crying babies, barking dogs and snoring men.

Another trip to the smelly portable toilets. Another communal shower in the women’s trailer. Another pass through the cafeteria line for sticky buns, fruit and cereal. Another makeshift day.

But the 23-year-old mother wasn’t complaining.

She had slept in her house at the east end of Simi Valley the first night after the quake--or rather, she had stood vigil over her infant’s crib, fearful that at any moment the creaky old building would cave in.

“Then I came here,” Jimenez said, gesturing to the Red Cross shelter. “And I had my first good sleep. I know this building can hold an 8.9 earthquake. I wish I was at home. But I feel safe here.”

Many of her fellow shelter dwellers seemed to agree.

Despite the inconveniences, they expressed boundless admiration for the Red Cross volunteers and deep gratitude for the temporary housing. Hundreds of people have slept at Red Cross shelters in Simi Valley and Fillmore each night since the quake, and hundreds more have accepted emergency food and water.

“These people couldn’t be better,” said Frances Littlefield, 82, who spent Saturday morning reading the paper and joking with the volunteers. “They’re all wonderful.”

As Littlefield sat in her wheelchair, cozy in a white terry cloth bathrobe, 8-year-old Jessica Valadez played with her pet rats in the shelter’s lobby. Meanwhile, Danielle Maston, 12, tried to shush her puppy, which had started barking furiously in its tiny carrier.

Their public schools superintendent, Mary Beth Wolford, had just formulated a plan that would put them back in the classroom within days--a plan that made neither girl happy.

Surrounded by games, pets and potential playmates, Jessica and Danielle said they considered life in the Royal High gym even better than summer camp. And they wanted the vacation to continue.

“I actually don’t like my house much,” Jessica said. “It’s too boring there. Here, they give us lots of activities and it’s much more fun.”

The good cheer and hard work of those who had come to Ventura County to help the needy also impressed Roger Campbell. After spending three hours with FEMA officials, Campbell said he felt optimistic for the first time since he had paused to contemplate his plight.

“I know financially I’ve taken a terrible hit, and I lost 21 years of history in my home, but I know that FEMA can help me. Not with gifts, but with loans, loans that I can pay back,” he said.

While fellow is that word necessary firefighters escorted merchants into their wrecked downtown stores, Campbell stayed in his auto repair shop, tuning up cars so his customers could get back to work Monday.

“I was in a real despair, a really bad depression,” Campbell said.

“But I haven’t cried for almost 24 hours.”

Day 7

For some, prayer.

For others, Joe Montana.

After a week of terrifying tremors, confounding commutes and boggling bureaucracy, Ventura County residents plan to take solace today in meditation, recreation or vegetation.

Father Dennis Mongrain said he expects hundreds to attend his morning service at St. Peter Claver Church in Simi Valley, looking for answers to that eternal enigma: Why?

Why the floods? Why the fires? Why the quakes? Why me?

Unable to answer such cosmic questions, Mongrain said he has decided instead to remind his congregation of the earthquake’s primary lesson: Homes and cars, even fat bank accounts, can crumble in an instant, felled by nature’s awesome force.

Focus on building spiritual and personal relationships, not on accumulating material possessions, Mongrain will urge. After all, he plans to tell them, “You can’t take your surfboard to heaven.”

While some will seek peace in churches, other quake victims will look to escape their sorrows and fears by plopping down in front of a television set for a day of NFL playoff action.

Watching the Dallas Cowboys and the San Francisco 49ers, the Kansas City Chiefs and the Buffalo Bills sounded like an ideal Sunday to Joe Martini, who has spent several nights in Simi Valley’s Red Cross shelter, bunking down on an Army cot and showering in a trailer.

“I’m sure they’ll have the playoffs on TV here,” he said. “That really will be fun--something to take our minds off what’s happened.”

But even the best diversion will not distract Roger Campbell and thousands of other county residents--still stunned and disbelieving.

“I just have to start rebuilding a life,” Campbell said. “A life that was pretty nice last Sunday.”