Earthquake: The Long Road Back : Simi Valley Residents Look for Signs From Disaster

Clutching a free bag of Fritos outside Simi Valley’s emergency center, Frances Ramirez offered her theory--call it the “garage door hypothesis”--about the fearsome quake that rattled her townhouse two weeks ago.

“These days there’s so much ugliness and bitterness around that no one talks to anyone--you just drive into your garage and close the door behind you,” said Ramirez, 76, emphatic and emotional before a cluster of Red Cross volunteers.

“This earthquake was a message, telling us, ‘Hey, guys, wake up--you do have neighbors,’ ” she said. “I know for me, the fence in the back of my house broke down and for the first time, I saw my neighbor’s face. Now, we’ve vowed to go out to lunch.”

Two weeks have passed since that first terrifying jolt sent Ramirez fleeing into her closet. But, like other Simi Valley residents, she is just beginning to untangle her thoughts about the powerful earthquake that roared through the city before dawn on Jan. 17.

The 6.6-magnitude quake tossed books from shelves in the Simi Valley Library, shattered windows in the east county courthouse, snapped water lines in homes and knocked trailers off their foundations. It rocked the schools, the police station and City Hall. And when it heaved on toward Fillmore, it left an enormous cleanup bill behind in Simi Valley.

Many of the city’s most important structures have been fixed. Except for Simi Valley High School, all campuses have been declared safe. The courtrooms will reopen on Monday. Even Simi’s library has been pronounced structurally sound and should be ready to welcome back readers within six weeks.

But still “there’s obviously a lot to be done,” said Mayor Greg Stratton.

Yellow police tape still blocks access to scores of listing buildings. Red tags still warn of unsafe conditions at dozens of homes and businesses. And dusty cars still line the curbs outside the emergency center on Sycamore Drive, where the “No Parking” signs have been covered up with plastic garbage bags.

Damage to commercial and industrial property exceeds $80 million, and residential buildings have taken a $32.5-million blow, Deputy City Atty. Laura Herron said. And those staggering figures do not even account for the substantial cost of repairing the city’s schools, churches and public buildings. Nor do they factor in the quake’s human cost.

At the emergency center, Red Cross relief workers, always cheerful, see that toll on the weary, lined faces of people seeking help. In response, they dispense supportive hugs and sugary snacks, and offer heartfelt sympathy.

“Help yourself, help yourself,” Page Spencer said, handing out free cookies. “Either that, or we’ll twist your arm.”

Spencer’s week in Simi Valley has made her fluent in American Red Cross disaster-speak. She talks of sending DATs in ERVs to the DACs--in other words, dispatching disaster action teams in emergency response vehicles to disaster assistance centers.

Her alphabet soup sounds dispassionate, but Spencer says she empathizes with each victim who comes forward. So do many others.

“We’re to the point of trying to understand the damages and put people’s lives back together,” Mayor Stratton said. “Now’s when we start really hearing about the personal tragedies.”

City officials still are fielding calls from bewildered residents: How can I get my gas turned on? Where can I return my library books? What should I do about the hole that mysteriously appeared in my front yard after that last big tremor?

And, most plaintive: How could the building inspectors pronounce my house safe when it’s full of cracks and the chimney’s collapsed?

Tina and Joe Lamia have asked that question again and again.

City inspectors first gave their Cochran Street house a red tag, signifying serious structural damage. But three days later, they returned and pasted a green sign on the front door, indicating that the hefty cracks, shattered mantelpiece and sloping second-story floors were purely cosmetic.

“Our inspectors are not going to give a building a green tag if there’s a question about safety,” Deputy City Manager Herron said. “It may not look good, but it is safe.”

The Lamias are not convinced.

“Every time there’s a fairly decent aftershock, something else happens to this place,” Lamia said. “This house is trashed.”

Still unable to sleep two weeks after their bedroom window crashed down onto their pastel comforter, the Lamias have their own theory about the earthquake’s meaning.

It was their own personal wake-up call, they say--a rattling, jouncing, petrifying signal that they should leave Southern California. Immediately.

Although they still have a hefty mortgage on their Cochran Street home, the Lamias left for Arizona on Saturday, along with 2-year-old Anthony and year-old Vincent.

They have applied for federal assistance to cover the deductible on their earthquake insurance policy and to help pay for extensive repairs. But they’re not going to stick around to check up on the contractors.

“I asked my dad one question: ‘Does Arizona shake?’ ” said Joe Lamia, whose parents live near Phoenix. “He said no. I said, ‘I’m there.’ ”

Michele Kraenkel had the same reaction when the quake struck her Simi Valley home, dashing furniture, dishes and her young son to the floor.

Now, she has had a chance to calm down and she is prepared to stay in Simi Valley, reasoning that disasters can strike anywhere.

But her eyes still glisten with tears at every new tremor. And Kraenkel, a receptionist at Mitchell Realtors on Tapo Canyon Road, keeps a safari helmet next to the potted fern on her desk--just in case an aftershock tosses shards of glass her way.

“It makes me feel better,” she said, patting the helmet’s hard shell.

Despite their fear and anger at the quake, the Lamias and Kraenkel agree with the garage door hypothesis: a natural disaster breeds camaraderie.

Neighbors barbecue swiftly defrosting steaks for a darkened block, colleagues dive under desks together at the first rumble of an aftershock, strangers share information about the best way to snag federal loans.

“Frankly, that’s always been a real strength of our community,” Stratton said. The quake, the mayor added, “has been binding people together to work against a common enemy.”

A similar spirit has motivated the intensive cleanup work on the other end of the Moorpark Freeway, at the hard-hit Thousand Oaks Library.

Repairing the collapsed metal ceiling and buying new books to replace 10,000 waterlogged volumes will cost at least $2 million, said Steve Brogden, deputy director of library services. He expects the library to reopen in four to eight weeks.

In the meantime, librarians in jeans, sneakers and face masks pick through the books in the library, scrutinizing each page for flecks of mold. A single mold spore can multiply and spread through an entire shelf, ruining hundreds of books and potentially creating respiratory problems for asthmatic readers.

“It just breaks your heart to throw them away,” librarian Chris Stensvold said as she sorted children’s books in a putrid-smelling wing of the library. Nearby, a wheelbarrow full of moldy stuffed animals stood ready for the trash, a plush green parakeet tossed haphazardly atop a solemn owl and a perky pink fish.

The librarians have also been busy moving some key reference material to the Newbury Park branch. Digging through the rubble in the Thousand Oaks Library, they found a few handy guides for earthquake victims, including a thick, black binder full of information on federal grants and books on replacing china and repairing homes.

But the most popular volume, senior librarian Susan Odencrantz said, is an almanac listing the best cities to live in the United States.

“That’s been the favorite book around here,” she said.