SIMI VALLEY : Disaster Aid Center Moves to New Office

Six weeks after the Northridge earthquake, the multi-agency Disaster Assistance Center in Simi Valley moved Wednesday to more permanent quarters on the west end of the city.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency closed the makeshift headquarters for earthquake aid at a park district community center Tuesday night and reopened Wednesday afternoon in a 15,000-square-foot office space at 59 W. Tierra Rejada Road.

“By (Tuesday) afternoon, we’d taken 6,846 applications for aid,” and the number of new cases began leveling off some time ago, said Eugene Brezany, a FEMA spokesman.

The disaster center will remain in its new location for at least six months and possibly longer, said Brezany. The center appeared busy Wednesday afternoon as several dozen people filed claims with agencies ranging from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development to the California Employment Development Department.

Unlike the temporary aid center set up at Sycamore Drive Community Center after the Jan. 17 earthquake, the new center is wired into FEMA’s computer so aid workers can have direct access to quake victims’ claim records, Brezany said.

Instead of checking the process of their claims by phone, as they had to do earlier, the applicants can sit down face to face with disaster workers and get quick answers to their questions, he said.

Meanwhile, Rancho Simi Recreation and Park District officials were glad to regain use of the all-purpose room that the disaster center had occupied since the week of the earthquake, said Rick Johnson, a district spokesman.

About half the recreation classes normally held there were lost to cancellations or rescheduling because of the disaster center, depriving the district of a large source of income, he said.