Earthquake: The Long Road Back : Road Building Virtually Isolates Mobile Home Park : Bypass: As crews transform a once-neglected canyon route, residents can enter and exit only by a construction zone route several miles long.

Attention, motorists: When the new bypass to the Golden State Freeway opens in a few days and you begin racing down The Old Road, how about giving a nod of acknowledgment to the few remaining folks at the mobile home park there? They’ve been feeling a bit low.

For the nearly two weeks since the Northridge earthquake--apart from still lacking running water and natural gas for heating and cooking due to quake damage--residents of the Crescent Valley Mobile Home Park also have been virtually isolated by the road construction at their doorstep.

“I know the 5 freeway is the whole city’s priority. But we just feel we’re getting rolled over by the people who want the freeway to go through. A little attention would be nice. An insurance adjuster would be fine,” said park resident Chuck Brooke, 40, echoing others’ complaints.

As crews have toiled furiously to transform the once-neglected canyon road into a new freeway route, residents of the mobile home park have only been able to get in and out through a construction zone route several miles long--and only by showing special passes and being escorted by California Highway Patrol officers.

Since the earthquake, the 87-unit park, where many homes sustained extensive damage, has had no mail delivery, no newspaper delivery and no television until cable was restored Thursday. Residents said even relatives and repair contractors have had a hard time getting in.

“My son is with the Sheriff’s Department. He’s a sergeant. And they wouldn’t let him through,” said park manager Angie Leano, 69, who has lived there since the hillside park opened in 1969. Because of the access and utility problems, two-thirds of the park residents have left, she said.

One of those was Joe Cerulle Jr., 36, a Los Angeles Department of Transportation surveyor who returned briefly with his father Thursday for the first time since Saturday. “We’re not sure how long it’s going to be before we get a reasonable semblance of life back here,” Cerulle said.

For those who have stayed, there also has been the endless staccato sounds of heavy equipment breaking up the concrete debris of the freeway bridge over Gavin Canyon, part of which fell in the quake. Then the park had to be evacuated Sunday so Caltrans could dynamite the still-standing remains.

By Monday, Caltrans officials say they hope to reopen the Golden State Freeway through Santa Clarita using the new bypass along The Old Road to skirt the damaged section of freeway. The park is about midway on the bypass, which will run from Calgrove Boulevard to the Weldon Canyon truck station.

For park residents, many of whom came to the isolated area to escape urban life, the opening of the bypass promises to be a mixed blessing. They no longer will be cut off, but they will have a four-lane freeway at their front door for what officials say will be at least a year.

From his back yard, Brooke, an unemployed saxophonist, has a bird’s-eye view of the now-gaping space where the freeway bridge used to stand. He marveled at how fast Caltrans has worked to open the bypass, saying, “Seven days ago it was a deteriorating canyon road. Now it’s a freeway. Amazing.”

“Gosh, I don’t think I’ll look good as a hood ornament,” said Leano, worrying like others that the soon-to-be-rushing-past traffic will make trying to drive out of the park a safety nightmare. Except for the brief evacuation, Leano said she has not left the park since the earthquake.

But the park manager, whose unit is one of many there posted as unsafe because of quake damage, said she and remaining residents still plan to persevere. “We’ll have to bear it. We’re going to have to do it. That’s all there is to it,” she said.