Earthquake: The Road to Recovery : CSUN Braces for Course in Learning Amid the Rubble

The president of Cal State Northridge takes comfort these days from a saying she once heard: All a university really needs is a tree, and a professor under it to teach the students who gather there.

And although conditions will not be quite that Spartan for the 24,000 CSUN students and faculty members who return to class beginning Monday, they’d better expect life on the devastated campus to be hobbled by quake damage for months, or perhaps years, to come.

The bad news, as President Blenda J. Wilson put it: “The buildings that existed on the campus are in large measure damaged in a variety of ways.” The good news: “The people on the campus are not.”

So scratch the library, the labs and the classrooms, most of which have been closed by quake damage that has delayed the beginning of the semester by two weeks. Most students will be routed to more than 300 modular classrooms hurriedly erected throughout the 353-acre campus, or to 25 new off-campus class locations.

They may be there a long time.

The bill for the school’s quake damage--still under review but unofficially estimated at $250 million to $350 million--promises to be the largest ever for a natural disaster at a U.S. university, campus officials say. Indeed, it may be the largest disaster to an American institution of higher learning from any cause since the Civil War.

But all of the damaged facilities--except for a collapsed $11-million parking structure--appear repairable, school officials say. And if they receive disaster aid promised by the state and federal governments, administrators said, they can probably put some damaged buildings back into service during the semester.

Nearly every one of about 60 major buildings on campus has some degree of structural damage, the most serious being the Oviatt Library, the east building of the Fine Arts complex, and the so-called South Library, which housed the university’s computers, said Mike Delvin, an engineer working for the university.

Most of the problems can be solved by patching or replacing damaged walls, he said. Among other major buildings, the Sierra complex is closed while workers remove a damaged stairwell from Sierra Tower; the engineering building is closed for asbestos removal, and the science complex is closed because of fire damage and hazardous material contamination.

But because the quake struck before dawn when the university was between semesters, campus buildings were virtually empty, avoiding what could have been a large loss of life.

“This is far less a disaster than it might have been,” Wilson said. “It’s impossible to conceptualize what the damage to human life could have been. We feel blessed simply that it wasn’t.”

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Two CSUN students--21-year-old Manuel Sandoval and 19-year-old roommate Jaime Reyes--died in the Jan. 17 quake when the off-campus Northridge Meadows apartment building that they had just moved into collapsed. Officials said the only serious injury on campus occurred when a student twisted a knee during one of the aftershocks.

In the wake of the quake, university officials have adopted a motto for their planned return: “Not just back . . . better!”

But after weeks of working from tents that replaced their offices, they were hesitant to predict when the university might return to normal. Some said that completing all repairs could take two years.

Although it was clear immediately after the quake that the campus was hard hit, the toll of damage grew in the following weeks to far more than had been suspected as aftershocks continued and unexpected problems continued to surface.

As late as Thursday, when students began moving back into campus housing, officials had to quickly shuffle assignments because several structurally sound student dorm buildings were found to have broken water heaters.

Early that day, in the wake of two aftershocks that came weeks after the original quake, a water cooling unit on the roof of the university’s structurally damaged administration building also failed, sending water flooding through the five-story facility to worsen the prior damage, campus officials said.

Perhaps the worst blow was to the Delmar T. Oviatt Library, the centerpiece of the campus.

At first, although the imposing 220,000-square-foot building suffered extensive cosmetic damage, university officials said it appeared structurally sound. They were planning to try to reopen it by mid-March, about a month after the start of classes.

But those hopes--and the spirits of many on campus--sank last week when engineers said they had discovered serious structural problems in the building’s east and west wings. The library is closed indefinitely as engineers cut into the building to identify the full extent of the structural problems. “With every layer, we find something different. It’s going to take some time just to stabilize it,” Delvin said.

Most of the 600,000 volumes on its open shelves were toppled by the earthquake, officials said, and rain leaked in through the roof a week ago, damaging about 15 boxes of rare books and papers.

In the meantime, campus officials have arranged for CSUN students to use libraries at UCLA until mid-March and plan to offer daily shuttle service there.

Some effects of the quake may last longer. Recruiting new administrators and faculty members may be more difficult now, Wilson said.

And although CSUN’s athletic facilities escaped with only minor damage, the football program started slowly with only one player signed because recruiting visits were canceled.

Nonetheless, faculty members and students appeared eager to get the campus operating again.

“I’m hearing about students who just can’t wait to get back. It’s been too long of a break for them. I know the faculty feel that way,” said Faculty Senate President Louise Lewis, an art history professor.

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Although many faculty members have been on campus at least briefly since the quake to see the damage, the first glimpse may be a shock for many students. And students and faculty members will have to grapple with a campus layout that has been drastically transformed by the addition of hundreds of modular classrooms.

Many of the sprawling campus’s grassy areas and its paved parking lots have been swallowed up by 10 widely scattered clusters of portable classrooms, enough to house about 15,000 people. J. A. Jones Construction Co. of City of Commerce, CSUN’s chief contractor for the project, had the classrooms towed in from as far as Nevada.

Calling the scope of the project unprecedented, Jones purchasing manager Dave Lagan said they include 333 temporary classrooms housed in 135 trailers holding two each, 58 single classroom units and five lecture halls. In addition, there will be several dozen restroom and office trailers, he said.

To create the trailer city in time, Gov. Pete Wilson waived highway rules that usually would permit the extra-wide portable buildings to be moved only in daylight, Lagan said.

CSUN officials, who launched the plan late last month, expect to spend up to $6 million renting the buildings for this semester, hoping they will need far fewer by fall.

The loss of parking areas, where modular classrooms will be clustered, and the collapse of the 2,500-vehicle parking structure is expected to create a parking nightmare around the campus, where most students commute from home.

Wilson said the university has sent its neighbors a letter asking for their patience. University officials were scrambling to produce additional parking areas, and on Saturday said they would have 1,500 spaces graded on the north campus area by Monday.

Another 500 spaces will be available Monday off campus at the site of a defunct Handyman’s store, just west of the Northridge Fashion Center at Corbin Avenue and Plummer Street.

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And for those who can reach the campus, problems will have just begun. University officials predict that the first week of classes will be chaotic, in large part because the loss of the regular classroom buildings wiped out the planned class schedule.

Students and faculty members were not to learn, until publication of new schedules today, when and where their classes will be held.

University officials also have transferred most of CSUN’s lab and other specialized classes to 25 off-campus locations as far as UCLA in Westwood and California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks.

Except for the shuttle to UCLA’s libraries, CSUN students mostly will be responsible for their own transportation to the remote sites, officials said.

“In the first week, people will need a good sense of patience and humor,” said university Provost Louanne Kennedy, who lost her on-campus apartment to quake damage.

“By the second week, we will have everything worked out.”

* CSUN GUIDE

Graphic shows the condition of buildings and helps returning Cal State Northridge students get around the damaged campus. B5

* QUAKE COVERAGE

Related stories on A1, A30, B4, B7, D4 and K1-3.

Times staff writer Mike Hiserman contributed to this report.