Aftershocks : Great Leveler Gives All Victims Same Task of Healing

With little regard for the artificial boundaries of wealth and race, the Jan. 17 earthquake left in its wake a swath of equal opportunity devastation, forcing San Fernando Valley residents from all backgrounds to pick up their possessions and their lives and begin to rebuild.

A Sylmar man, already out of work, was left homeless when his trailer toppled from its foundation. A Sherman Oaks couple fled their hillside house, which slid down the hill and will take months to repair.

A grandmother in Pacoima, too afraid to sleep in her cracked house, now lives out of her garage and spends her days trying to generate more government assistance for her neighborhood. And a Northridge businessman, who left South-Central Los Angeles after his liquor store was burned to the ground in the 1992 riots, is struggling to replace thousands of dollars in merchandise lost in the quake.

Here are their stories--universal, yet unique--as they try to recover:

‘I Can Go In . . .But I Feel Safer Outside’

Camping used to be a pastime for Lucy Perez. That is, until Jan. 17, when it abruptly became a way of life.

The longtime Pacoima resident darted out of her Pinney Street home soon after the Northridge earthquake hit, afraid the walls would crumble down around her. Since then, Perez, 68, has stepped back in only to pick up some belongings, sweep up broken glass and use the bathroom.

For the past two weeks, Perez, her oldest son and two of her teen-age grandsons, have been living outside, first in tents in the front yard and now in the garage in back.

A propane-powered stove lent by a friend functions as the kitchen, and canned baked beans and eggs are often the only things on the menu. Her son sleeps in a chair; her two grandsons make do with a sleeping bag and a roll-away bed. Two plastic tarps pinned together constitute the front door.

It’s not what she’s used to, but Perez, a widow, refuses to go back to indoor living, even though a building inspector has pronounced her house safe by taping a green tag to the porch window.

“He said I can go in there and live,” she said, using a stick to poke at yard-long cracks running along the walls of the one-story concrete-and-stucco home, “but I feel safer outside.”

Unfortunately, what remains inside is only a fractured reflection of what had been--25 years of memories ransacked by Mother Nature in just 10 seconds.

As in so many homes throughout the San Fernando Valley, items once perched on shelves and walls now litter the floor in pieces that cannot be reassembled. Odds and ends of china and crystal that Perez had displayed in a hutch don’t exist any longer. Even photographs did not escape unscathed, because stray pictures that fell to the floor were overrun by the chocolate milk that spilled out of the refrigerator.

All of which makes the loan Perez recently took out to remodel her house a bitter irony.

“I thought when we got the money and started fixing the house, my house was going to look good,” she said, shaking her head. “But now, no way.

“I haven’t given myself a chance to cry. . . . I’m too strong for that. If I shed tears over things that are broken, it’s not going to help.”

Instead, Perez, a slight woman with a wizened face who is not afraid to speak her mind, has channeled whatever sorrow she feels in the wake of the temblor into anger, directed mostly at a disaster-relief system she accuses of leaving behind poor neighborhoods like hers in favor of affluent communities.

“Here’s this area, right here, isolated. Its name is Pacoima,” she said, gesturing with her hands for emphasis. “We’re suffering just as much over here, if not more.”

Fueled by her indignation, Perez has gone knocking on the doors of elected officials and banded together with neighbors to express outrage at what they feel to be unfair treatment.

But this is a short-term struggle, Perez realizes, something to ensure that she doesn’t end up waiting again for hours in a line only to receive one liter of water and four pieces of bread, as happened during those first days. To rebuild her house and her life, she has applied for a Federal Emergency Management Agency loan, but Perez--a nurse’s aide who has lived on Social Security and disability payments for several years--is not optimistic that she will receive one.

And if not, “I don’t know what the next step is,” she said with a sigh. But after a quarter of a century there on Pinney Street, “I’m not thinking of running away. I’d rather stay right here where I am,” she said--even if her home will have to remain her garage.

‘My God. . . It Could Have Been Me’

For 17 years, Steve and Barbara Sadd gambled with Mother Nature.

Last week, they nearly lost.

The killer quake shook the Sadd’s house on stilts like custom paint being mixed in a blender, jiggling the foundation 10 inches down the Sherman Oaks hillside.

Inside the beam-and-pole bungalow, a door came unhinged and furniture flew when the quake hit, forcing the couple to crawl to safety over their lives’ collection of valuables.

“I felt like a piece of popcorn bouncing on the bed,” recalled Barbara Sadd.

It’s too soon to tell how much it will cost the Sadds in time, money and new furnishings to make their house--which building inspectors have deemed unsafe to enter--a home again. Before they can return and assess damage to the interior, the foundation needs to be repaired and reinforced.

But life was good for the Sadds before the quake, and for the most part it still is.

They are hopeful that their earthquake insurance will cover the cost to repair the foundation, which could exceed $60,000. In the meantime, the couple plan to wait out the renovations in West Los Angeles, where they rented a house the day of the quake.

Steve Sadd, a Century City attorney, remained determined to return to the hills of Sherman Oaks this past week, even as aftershocks continued to jostle his house while workers prepared to pull it back up.

“I miss being in the hills,” said Sadd, just moments after a 4.5 aftershock jolted him as he stood outside his house. “Earthquakes aside, there’s a certain serenity that this home has had for me for 17 years.”

The Sadds said they will go home with the realization that some things will never be the same. Many of their neighbors’ homes were damaged in the quake, and some of them do not plan to return.

“I’ll miss them,” Barbara Sadd said of her fleeing neighbors. “But I think life will be better in other ways because the earthquake gave us a heightened appreciation for what we have.”

In the coming months, the couple will have to deal with their insurers, possibly apply for a FEMA loan, and, they hope, begin cleaning up the mess of furniture and glass that awaits them inside their house.

Yet possibly most haunting for the couple will be the constant reminder of what could have been. Their home perches beneath the bluff where another hillside home collapsed during the quake, killing 4-year-old Amy Tyre-Vigil.

“Every time I go by, I look up there,” Barbara Sadd said. “It was such a tragedy.”

It was a tragedy that reminded Steve Sadd of the delicate balancing act being played out between nature and architecture for him and his neighbors, who defy the force of gravity in exchange for their breathtaking views of the Valley.

After seeing the demise of Tyre-Vigil’s home, Sadd said he was struck by his own mortality.

“My God, (my house) could have come off the poles,” he said. “It could have been me.”

‘I’m Probably a Bad-Luck Person’

On the morning of the earthquake, merchant Daniel K. Whang arrived at his Northridge liquor store and was met with a scene of utter devastation--for the second time in as many years.

The Korean immigrant had viewed the Valley as a refuge from destruction when he moved his business here after the Los Angeles riots, leaving behind the burned-out hulk of his South-Central Los Angeles market.

“I’m probably a bad-luck person,” the Glendale resident said, with a smile that belies his troubles.

Whang moved his business to Balboa Boulevard over a year ago because he could not meet the tough conditions required by the city of Los Angeles to reopen his liquor store. He’s hoping to open a coin-operated laundry at the South-Central site.

The 41-year-old businessman was just getting settled in when the earthquake savaged the store and destroyed nearly $90,000 in inventory. At 8 that morning, he arrived to find smashed bottles everywhere.

Sitting on a box in his store, Whang points to all the things he must repair: the windows, a refrigeration system, his store signs. “Just replacing the coolant costs $500. . . . Everything costs money,” he sighed.

Previously, the Small Business Administration had authorized a $251,000 riot-recovery loan for Whang to build the laundry. Now he faces another protracted loan-application process to fix his Valley store and replenish its stock.

Yet despite the staggering financial blows they have suffered, Whang said he and his family are optimistic about getting their derailed lives back on track.

“Life has a cycle,” he said. “One time is a good time, next is bad. Probably the next one coming is a good one.”

Whang could not have predicted the roller-coaster ride his life would become when he first emigrated from Seoul, South Korea, in 1982. Within months, the former civil engineer opened his first business, a grocery store, in South-Central. Three years later, the immigrant sold the business to buy a liquor store at 89th and San Pedro streets. Whang’s first brush with tragedy came when his business partner, who also was a distant relative, was shot and killed in May, 1986, in an apparent robbery attempt at another store.

Still, the next two years were prosperous ones. With their annual income inching into the six-digit range, Daniel and Cindy Whang moved to a modest, wood-frame house in Glendale, where they live with their children, Janet, 14, and Andrew, 13.

But now they face a difficult month. Just last week, according to Whang, the SBA told him the second installment of his riot loan would be delayed because most of the SBA staff is busy helping victims of the Northridge earthquake.

Working in his favor are an increase in business since the earthquake and the ability to begin replenishing his stock using credit extended by his supplier.

However, as early as Tuesday, Whang must pay out a total $13,000 in loan payments on his store, his home and an apartment building he owns, and for repairs to one of the quake-damaged apartment units. And, by the end of February, Whang must start repaying his SBA riot loan.

“Next month, I will have no money,” he said.

‘It Was Like Hell Here That Day’

What a lost job and a lousy economy started, the earthquake finally finished: Joaquin Morales, a 29-year-old man--equal parts resilient, upbeat and just plain tough--is homeless.

Until the Monday before last, Morales lived at the Tahitian Mobile Home Park in Sylmar, where he paid $400 a month for a room in a mobile home.

But at 4:31 a.m., the ground shook, knocking trailers off foundations and breaking gas lines, which ignited fires throughout the block-long park. In the end, nearly a quarter of the park’s 236 homes had burned to the ground and most of the rest were heavily damaged.

“It was like hell here that day,” Morales said last week, on his first visit to the park since the earthquake. “There were fires. No lights or phones. . . . Water flooding the street. Everyone was screaming. It was bad.”

Two weeks after the quake, Morales is one of hundreds of quake refugees who live in a Red Cross shelter at the San Fernando Recreation Center. Though he has never had much money, this is the first time Morales has been without a place to stay.

“I’m used to living on my own, so this is hard,” he said, nervously folding and unfolding a newspaper. “But hopefully, this won’t last too long.”

He has taken the bus to apply for jobs at car dealerships and thinks he has a good shot. Now he is waiting for a call back on one of the recreation center’s office phones.

Meanwhile, Morales tries to keep busy. He sits on his cot, reading the newspaper several times each day. He helps shelter officials do everything from looking after children to performing cleanup chores. But mostly, he watches people leave: During his stay, the population of the shelter has dwindled from more than 2,000 to fewer than 200 as the luckier ones have returned to homes that have been declared safe.

When the Jan. 17 quake hit, Morales had been wide awake, trying to get back to sleep. He didn’t get up until the trailer had slipped off its foundation and crashed to the ground.

Outside, he heard small explosions, as ammunition stored in neighboring homes went off and gas mains ignited. All over the park, he listened as people screamed in terror.

Along with others, Morales rushed to shut off the gas, checked on several neighbors and helped firefighters battle several blazes that were leaping from home to home.

He left when there was nothing else he could do.

Although his home was spared by the fire, it did shift about 2 feet to the right and crash to the ground.

Ten seconds of intense shaking caused about $7,000 damage and has made the 30-foot-long mobile home uninhabitable--two weeks later, it still leans badly to the right. Both doors are jammed shut. Inside, toilets came off their moorings. The stereo fell and smashed. Nothing is where it should be.

While several residents of the Tahitian Mobile Home Park have been able to move back into their homes, many, including Morales, are still homeless.

Morales however, has managed to take it in stride. This is, after all, not his first disaster.

Two months ago, he lost his job when his car broke down and he was unable to get to the Simi Valley auto dealership where he worked.

Without a car, he was unable to find work, and when it became clear the car was beyond repair, Morales sold it to a scrap yard for $110 to help pay his rent.

“It’s been some two months,” Morales said. “I don’t have anything except for a few clothes, because I can’t get back inside.”

But, Morales--ever upbeat--quickly turns away from such dark thoughts.

“I’m going to make it OK. . .. If I get this job. . . . and with the (FEMA aid), I’ll be back on the road again. All I need is a job.”