WESTSIDE COVER STORY : 3 Dimensions of Pain : The Cooper Family : ‘I’m grateful we have insurance and my husband can provide for us to be here. I feel bad for everybody else.’

A note in Santa Monica’s Red Cross shelter gives earthquake victims a prayer and inspiration hot line number. But the “hot line” tells you to leave a message--no prayer, no inspiration.

Much to hope for but little to count on--that’s the way it’s been for thousands of dislocated Westsiders since the Jan. 17 quake. From fortress houses in Bel-Air to tarpaulin encampments in Santa Monica parks, the displaced found themselves in straits as varied as their backgrounds.

Rescue came in many forms. For the more fortunate, it was a sympathetic insurance adjuster or a healthy savings account. For others, it was a housing voucher, a friend’s couch.

Trouble also came in a variety pack. Some of the lucky who could go home were afraid to, even to clean up. Others had to rely on an alien bureaucracy for a new place or cash to stay afloat.

Here are the experiences of three Westside families--the Peraleses, Coopers and Nelsons--as they coped with distinct slices of the disaster.

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The earthquake exiled Robert and Michelle Cooper to a $240-a-night suite in a Marina del Rey hotel. Any other time, it might be a dream getaway--a month of beach views and lazy room-service dinners.

But this is no vacation for the Bel-Air couple, who have tried to turn their two rooms into something approaching home for their two children, Harrison, 4, and Jennifer, 1. The counters are stacked like a pantry with crackers, sugar, paper plates, chips and fruit. A microwave oven has turned one bathroom into a makeshift kitchen for heating up soups and other food the kids can eat.

“Room service is not exactly baby food,” said Michelle, 29. “They have cream of carrot soup with ginger in it.”

And they’ve been too busy picking up the ruins of their crumpled five-bedroom house to go to the beach near the hotel. They’ve covered their home’s buckled roof where rafters collapsed. The chimney tumbled, hardwood floors popped open and walls reveal inch-wide gashes.

Michelle’s bottom lip, cut when a television fell against her during the maddening dash through the darkened house, has not yet healed. Nor has she shaken the horror of feeling Jennifer’s stiffened body--apparently a temporary fright reaction--just after the quake. Robert, a 42-year-old physician, gave the toddler mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and the little girl recovered.

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Inspectors have deemed the house livable, but the couple plan to spend another week or so at the hotel, then move into a rented house in the marina for a year while they repair their own. Their insurance company has been kind, but there’s still a $30,000 deductible on an insurance claim the Coopers figure will hit the policy ceiling of $300,000. The house, which they remodeled after buying eight years ago, is worth almost twice that.

Michelle is still afraid to enter the house alone--or take the kids along to clean up the smashed heirlooms and box the rest of the belongings. “It’s not safe for them up there,” she said.

Harrison, who’s eager to talk about Thomas the Tank Engine or his new shovel, won’t discuss the earthquake and gets angry if you press him. “He has some blocks and knocks them down, pretends it’s an earthquake. He’s scared,” Michelle said.

Among the losses is the family’s Scottish terrier, Mack, who ran off after a building inspector left a gate open. Days of calling to area pounds had yielded no leads on the missing pet.

Still with bruises on her arms and legs from the ordeal, Michelle said she feels guilty counting herself a victim while in a setting as plush as the Doubletree Hotel. “I’m lucky,” she said. “Everyone else is in a shelter. I’m grateful we have insurance and my husband can provide for us to be here. I feel bad for everybody else.”