A Foundation Cracks but Not His Spirit

Scott Miller of Granada Hills had a typical reaction.

“Mine was just get up and go for the kids.”

Their house was cracked and, of course, a mess. A 300-pound piano danced away from a wall.

Scott and his wife, Kathi, gathered up Ryan, 7, and Julianne, 5, and stepped out into the eerie darkness of their front yard.

“We could see fires in five different directions,” Miller said.

If the flames reminded him of another night, nearly two years earlier, Scott Miller didn’t say so.

*

Perhaps the name is familiar. Maybe you recall the Scott Miller story. For many people in the San Fernando Valley, Jan. 17, 1994, will be an unforgettable date. In the history of this unfair city, Scott Miller’s name will forever be attached to another calamity--the riots that began April 29, 1992, just a few hours after police were acquitted in the beating of Rodney G. King.

Scott Miller, a city firefighter, was piloting a hook-and-ladder through the flames of Western Avenue when a gunman reached out the window of a car and shot him in the right cheek. The bullet severed his carotid artery. Miller would not be alive but for the heroics of his comrades who applied first aid and rushed him to Cedar-Sinai Medical Center.

Of all the police officers, firefighters and other authorities who responded to the riots, Miller was the most severely injured. Doctors warned him that he might never walk, talk or even swallow.

But now the only sign of his injury is the paralysis that remains in his left arm and hand. During his recuperation, he was promoted to captain and assigned to supervise a team of high-rise fire safety inspectors.

But what is most memorable about Miller is the extraordinary grace with which he handled adversity. In a city filled with anger, Miller spoke with empathy about the riots and his causes. The First A.M.E. Church honored him for setting an example of tolerance. When people sent donations toward his recovery, Miller turned the money over to a fund for widows and orphans. Once, Miller received a letter from the mother of the man who would ultimately admit to the shooting, and he expressed sympathy for her predicament.

I asked him once if he ever felt bitter. “Why?” Miller responded. “What purpose would it serve? What good is it going to do?”

So the other day, when I heard a tip that Miller’s home had been severely damaged in the quake, it seemed that the fates were especially cruel.

*

It seems the reports had been exaggerated. I had been told, for example, that the Miller home had been knocked off its foundation. Miller says the foundation had been cracked.

This is hardly good news. Yet Scott Miller, in his laconic way, made it seem OK.

“It’s pretty typical for the area. There are some cracks in the walls,” he said. “It’s worse than some, not as bad as others.”

Not far away, homes burned to the ground. The Kaiser Permanente building that collapsed is about a half-mile from his home.

The neighbors’ calm impressed him. “They were surprisingly well-prepared. Everybody was pretty much able to take care of themselves--and make efforts to look in and take care of other neighbors. Nobody seemed to panic. Nobody was running around frantically.”

Miller expressed a common theme: “As a city, we’re awfully darn lucky we didn’t lose more people. If this had occurred during business hours, we’d have seen a lot more loss of life and injury . . . It would have been devastating to the city.”

The extent of the damage, he said, “didn’t surprise the Fire Department . . . But for the general public, it is a very big eye-opener.”

The good news was that, in Miller’s neighborhood, not many people are planning to move out. “Some people have said, ‘I’m leaving town until things calm down a little bit.’ I haven’t heard people say, ‘I’m leaving for good.’ The consensus is this is part of living in Los Angeles . . . You just roll with the punches and keep on going.”

*

Los Angeles, and Scott Miller, have been through much in recent years. I couldn’t help but wonder how he compared the riots to the earthquake.

His answer was typically sensible.

“It’s apples and oranges,” he said. “They’re completely different animals, completely different types of events, with the completely different types of origins.”

True, there’s a lot we can do about preparing for earthquakes, but the tremors themselves are beyond our control.

This is why the riot--albeit less deadly and less damaging--was a much sadder calamity to me.

The causes weren’t beyond our control.

Scott Harris’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. Readers may write Harris at The Times Valley Edition, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth, Ca . 91311.