Salvage Operation Begins in Fillmore : Quake: A search and rescue team works to retrieve valuable items from structures that are scheduled for demolition soon.

Trying to save what they can before the wrecking ball falls, a rescue team began Wednesday to retrieve valuables from earthquake-damaged businesses in Fillmore that are scheduled for demolition.

At the request of Fillmore city officials, an Urban Search and Rescue Unit of 58 firefighters from San Diego County arrived in the city early Wednesday with the task of salvaging items from 14 buildings that the city plans to tear down.

The rescue team will have to work fast.

To ensure residents’ safety and to protect nearby buildings in case any damaged structures collapse, Fillmore officials have ordered that demolition be completed by the end of the weekend.

The rescue workers’ first job Wednesday was to retrieve a large, brand-new refrigerated compartment from a tiny flower shop on Central Avenue that was devastated by the earthquake. And this morning the team plans to salvage some of the $300,000 worth of medical equipment stranded in a now-closed clinic for low-income residents.

All owners of buildings doomed to demolition will have the chance to give rescue workers a wish list of valuables to be salvaged.

But not all residents or business owners will have their wishes fulfilled.

Following engineers’ inspections early Wednesday, rescue team leaders quickly ruled out conducting salvage operations at three downtown buildings that are deemed too dangerous to enter: the Fillmore Theater, the Masonic Building and the Fillmore Hotel.

Some former residents of the Fillmore Hotel had asked city officials for help retrieving immigration documents left in the building after the quake, which toppled an entire wall of the hotel.

Craig Black, a technical team manager for the rescue unit, said the hotel building was simply too perilous for his workers to enter.

“I basically just wrote that off,” he said.

Because of the rescue team’s decision on the hotel, Fillmore Fire Chief Pat Asken said city workers will attempt to demolish the hotel one section at a time to allow retrieval of papers and other valuables left by residents.

“We’ll have to selectively demolish it,” Asken said. “Some of those things people can’t go on with their lives without.”

Many of the 80 people who lived at the hotel were migrant workers who may need their immigration documents to prove that they are in the country legally, he said.

Rescue unit leaders said they would send workers into the hotel, theater or Masonic Building if it were necessary to save a person’s life, but not to salvage papers or other goods.

“We would do that for life but we wouldn’t do it for equipment,” said John Hale, a technical team manager with the rescue unit. “Safety is the most important issue. Everybody that goes in we want them to get out.”

Even in buildings deemed safe for salvage operations, rescue workers take precautions.

At the Fillmore Flower Shop, for example, rescue workers would not enter the building until they first knocked off all the bricks remaining on the parapet above the store’s entrance.

Because half of the parapet was torn away in the quake, rescue team leaders said they were concerned that loose bricks would fall on workers as they entered the building.

At other buildings that are in worse shape than the flower shop, the rescue team will erect wood supports to hold up falling walls or sagging ceilings long enough for firefighters to get in and out of the structures safely.

The rescue team worked on the Fillmore Flower Shop first because they considered it a relatively easy job. They succeeded in removing most of the cooler by Wednesday night and planned to finish the job today.

But they will turn to the Fillmore Family Clinic next because of the clinic’s value to the community.

Run by the Oxnard-based nonprofit agency Clinicas del Camino Real Inc., the clinic served 1,500 to 1,800 low-income clients each month before it was damaged in the quake, clinic manager Roberto Rojas said. Now clinic workers are serving patients from two trailers in a church parking lot.

As Rojas watched the rescue team descend on Fillmore’s tiny but devastated downtown district Wednesday, he said he is eager to salvage X-ray machines, examination tables and other items from the clinic.

But he said he wishes he had more time for retrieving the equipment and clearing out the building.

Although Rojas said he agrees with city officials that the clinic must be torn down, he doesn’t understand why the demolition must take place so soon and he plans to appeal the decision.

“It’s frustrating that we can’t have as much time as we like to get our equipment out,” he said.

City officials said that all owners of buildings condemned to be torn down are welcome to appeal.

Not all merchants sympathized with Rojas’ frustration.

Some business owners whose buildings withstood the earthquake said they are eager to see ruined structures leveled so that the protective fencing that has been erected around the entire downtown district can be removed and life can return to normal.

“Once it’s over with it’ll probably be better,” said Harvey Patterson, the 74-year-old proprietor of Patterson Hardware, which is across Central Avenue from the Fillmore Family Clinic. “I want to get the mess cleaned up and get back to work. When the junk is out of here they can start rebuilding.”

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