From Firefighters to Businesses, Region Pulls Together in Crisis

Many deserve sincere thanks for their actions following the Northridge earthquake. We include in their number anyone who offered a show of kindness or consideration to someone outside of their normal circle of family and friends. Some were dramatically heroic. Others simply offered brief respites from the great hardships of the week.

Among them were the firefighters who braved severe aftershocks to rescue a critically injured maintenance worker who had been trapped under 20 tons of concrete at the Northridge Fashion Center.

Other firefighters from Orange County were involved in some of the most desperate efforts at the Northridge Meadows Apartments, where several people died. The toll there might have been much higher, were it not for the courageous work of three residents. Emergency medical technician Eric Pearson, for example, escaped from his apartment and threw fire hoses to people who could not make their way from the top of the wrecked building. The hoses helped them climb to safety.

Residents Alan and Buffy Jo Fitch also escaped, making their way to the third floor of the building where they tied the fire hoses around the waists of several residents and lowered them to the courtyard.

Another rescue effort at a home in Sherman Oaks failed, but that was not due to any lack of effort or will. A dozen or so neighbors frantically tried to reach the couple who owned a home that had collapsed in the earthquake. They dug at the wreckage in their bare feet with their bare hands, without regard to their own safety.

On Balboa Boulevard in Granada Hills, neighbors began an impromptu bucket brigade to douse flames that threatened apartments and homes. The effort was not very effective, but the neighbors mastered fear and confusion and dutifully tried to help.

The Northridge Meadows Apartments rescue effort was also notable in another respect. It was part of a gratifyingly swift response from local, state and federal officials. Among them were Los Angeles Police Chief Willie L. Williams, who had declared a police emergency within 31 minutes of the quake; Mayor Richard Riordan, who had declared a local emergency slightly more than a half-hour later, and officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, who quickly dispatched special medical units and 400 urban search-and-rescue team members from places as distant as Fairfax, Va., and King County in Washington. A local group of search-and-rescue team members were at the Northridge Meadow Apartments with enough supplies to support 72 hours of all-out exploration.

Thanks are also in order for the officials who set up the countywide emergency response system established after the disastrous 1971 Sylmar earthquake. That network helped hospitals swiftly coordinate transfers of patients to other facilities.

In the same vein, appreciation ought to be extended to the staff at the UCI Medical Center in Orange, who rushed to the aid of Granada Hills Community Hospital after it was overwhelmed with earthquake victims.

When infants had to be evacuated from the damaged neonatal ward at the Northridge Hospital Medical Center, combat helicopters from El Toro Marine Corps Air Station were there to help.

Unemployed medical workers like Charles Miseroy rushed to Holy Cross Hospital in Mission Hills to bandage wounds and just to help out as the hospital evacuated patients. “I’m certified,” said Miseroy. “Why stand around and pick my nose?”

And it might not have seemed like much, but the simple courteousness of those who had to drive in the San Fernando Valley this past week gained national attention and helped out an overworked police force. Those drivers smoothly negotiated major intersections without a working traffic light or police officer in sight. That left the police free for far more important duties.

And we can’t forget the management of the Target store in Santa Clarita. They handed out flashlights, batteries, propane and bottled water for free and worked throughout the long hours without electricity, interior walls, or ceiling tiles. “We had one lady who needed formula and a diaper,” said Target employee Jane Delfavero. “Someone crawled back there and got it for her.”

The Lucky’s supermarket chain donated food, emergency supplies and bottled water to Red Cross and Salvation Army relief centers.

Other merchants took a chance on customers by taking scores of personal checks when automated teller machines would not function.

Finally, there was the In and Out Burger restaurant in Northridge, which simply stayed open during the crisis. “You can’t get to our refrigerator. This is like a public service,” one customer told a reporter.

Perhaps it’s even more remarkable that folks who had endured the strongest quake in modern L.A. history could get excited by a hamburger, shake and a side order of fries.