EARTHQUAKE: THE LONG ROAD BACK : San Fernando Gets Long-Awaited Help : Recovery: Officials complain it took an earthquake to get Metrolink stop. And it took another week to get a disaster center.

Surveying the wreckage, including damage to 22% of his city’s housing stock, San Fernando Mayor Dan Acuna recovered his sense of humor:

At least the city’s long-awaited Metrolink station is open now, he said--too bad it took an earthquake to do it.

Although proud of their independence, residents of this 2.4-square-mile city often complain they are ignored by Los Angeles city and county, which surround them. If the idle station--slated to open today to help ease the commuter crisis after a year of delays--hinted at San Fernando’s lack of clout, the earthquake hammered it home.

For example: It took a week of political string-pulling, including a visit from federal Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros, before San Fernando got its own disaster assistance center, according to Acuna and others involved in the effort. The center opened Monday at 1245 San Fernando Road.

San Fernando city officials say it also took until Monday for the city to borrow two building inspectors from Los Angeles County to help assess damage to about 835 structures. For most of that time, San Fernando got by with one licensed inspector for its population of 23,500.

“We have just now got two inspectors from the county,” City Administrator Mary Strenn said. “But prior to that, our requests for help have not been heeded too well.”

Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City) said he started pressuring federal officials on the evening after the quake.

“I told federal officials, ‘Remember, this is not just the city of Los Angeles,’ ” Berman said Tuesday. “I told them, ‘Please, tomorrow, bring them into this.’ ”

With few exceptions, response to the disaster in San Fernando was homespun, Berman said. City Hall staffers pitched in, GTE donated a massive tent, and the Red Cross started serving food, Acuna said. About the only outside agency that responded quickly was the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, he said, which showed up to help the city’s 34-officer Police Department.

“Our own people, I can’t say enough,” Acuna said. “Of course, as you go up the bureaucracy, you run into problems.”

Berman said his efforts paid off last Wednesday when HUD Secretary Cisneros and James Witt, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, toured the city and pledged to open the disaster center.

Until Saturday, when it hired five private inspectors, San Fernando had only one licensed building inspector, and as a desperate stopgap sent two community preservation officers to “condemn” the most obviously damaged structures until licensed inspectors could check them, said Howard Miura, the city’s community development director.

The city now is considering emergency demolition of 30 structures and is trying to assess how many of the 835 damaged buildings will be habitable, Miura said.

A week of aftershocks contributed to about 60 water-main breaks, and residents continue to be warned to boil their water, said Strenn.

“As of Friday, we really thought we were in recovery mode,” she said. “And then the aftershocks started.”

There were so many breaks in water pipes along San Fernando Mission Boulevard and Kalisher Street that the city gave up patching the pipes and started replacing them instead, she said.

Only half the city’s industrial buildings have been inspected, and even fewer of its residential and commercial buildings, Strenn said.

The inspection problem has been complicated by a jittery population skeptical of official opinions about the safety of their homes, according to Strenn. Even though the inspectors say many of their homes are safe, about 450 people still are camped in San Fernando Recreation Park, beneath a massive tent erected by GTE.

“It’s partially human relations and partially inspections of the buildings,” Strenn said. “One of the inspectors said he was surprised at the terror of the residents. He’d had to take people inside and show them the problems were cosmetic”--damage that, however ugly, posed no threat to lives.

Strenn said the city should have enough reserve funding to support the relief effort, and will seek reimbursement from federal and state sources when the dust settles. She said no one is sure exactly what the cost will be to the city.

The city also is struggling to keep some of the staff of the San Fernando Superior Court based in temporary offices inside the city. The courthouse was deemed unsound and most court functions will be moved to Van Nuys during repairs, which could take a year, officials said this week.

“It honestly looks like someone set a bomb off,” said Superior Court Judge Judith Ashmann, who supervises the building’s 12 courtrooms. The San Fernando Municipal Courthouse survived and will continue operating.