Many Barely Beat State Deadline for Quake Aid : Canoga Park: Disaster Unemployment Assistance offers cash payments to owners of small businesses.

Tiny Bernice Marcus, 64, and Rose Altmark, who admits only to being “over 60,” looked out of place at the Canoga Park unemployment office Thursday.

“Excuse me, we’re here to apply for DUA. Which line is that?” Marcus asked a security guard, pulling herself up to her full height of maybe 5 feet.

“I have no idea what DUA stands for,” added Altmark, her equally diminutive friend of 30 years, “but it’s because of the earthquake.”

Indeed, DUA stands for Disaster Unemployment Assistance, a U.S. Department of Labor program administered by local California Employment Development Department (EDD) offices like the one in Canoga Park.

The program provides weekly cash benefits following a disaster to owners of small businesses like Marcus and Altmark, both of West Hills, and others--who are ineligible for regular state unemployment benefits. The payments are retroactive to Jan. 23, when DUA went into effect six days after the Northridge quake, and continue up to 26 weeks.

Thursday was officially the last day to apply for the benefits. Individuals can still sign up for the program through July 23, according to a Labor Department spokeswoman, but applicants must have a good reason for not applying by March 31, such as illness or injury.

Scores of people showed up at the EDD office on Vanowen Street in Canoga Park to beat Thursday’s deadline.

Janet Yamanaka, manager of the Canoga Park EDD office, said the 15 EDD offices that serve the San Fernando Valley and its environs--12 in Los Angeles County and three in Ventura County--had received 8,316 DUA applications by March 26. The Canoga Park office alone had received 2,554.

She noted that many of those claims were filed by people who were only out of work for a week or two because of the quake. “The total figures look massive and they are, but a lot of those people are now back at work,” she said.

All of the disaster-unemployment claims are being forwarded to a special Labor Department unit in Sacramento, which decides who is eligible for the aid and how much.

DUA payments generally range from $40 to $230 a week depending on income level, the same as regular unemployment benefits.

Several people who waited half an hour or more in the D line--for Disaster--to sign up for unemployment aid said they had just learned of the DUA program this week when they went to apply for other quake relief from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

They included Marcus, who keeps the books for her husband’s tool business based in their quake-damaged home. Altmark and her husband own a wholesale novelty business in Canoga Park, Buttons ‘N Bears, which sells personalized, campaign-style buttons and stuffed animals. The Altmarks had to close their store for several weeks after the quake because of structural damage.

“We were so lucky. We just heard about this DUA program yesterday,” Rose Altmark marveled. “It’s a pity it isn’t more widely known,” Marcus added.

Yamanaka said information about the unemployment program has been available at disaster centers in the area since the quake.

“As many claims as we’ve processed already, it’s hard to believe there is anybody still out there to apply,” she said.

Al Rematch, a free-lance writer who also lives in West Hills, said he lucked out too. “I didn’t know it was the last day. I just decided to come in.”

Rematch said he would use his unemployment benefits to fix his home computer, which still works but has developed some new quirks since the quake.

Elaine Bedigian of Encino said she would also put her money into repairing or replacing computers--as much as $60,000 worth--for use in the desktop-publishing business she runs out of her garage.

“It all came down in the quake,” Bedigian said, adding that she started to apply for DUA last week but didn’t have all the necessary documents.

“I was amazed when they called me to say today was the last day, which was really nice,” Bedigian said. “I’m hoping the money will go a long way toward helping me rebuild my electronic disaster.”