Quake-Afflicted Community Still Roughing It

Since the Northridge earthquake, life at a Newhall mobile home park has resembled a wilderness camp-out, and after more than two months of roughing it, residents are getting pretty sick and tired of their new lifestyles.

They have been drinking water from bottles, using outdoor portable toilets and hiking down dirt roads to take showers. Their days are filled with noise and dust stirred up by heavy equipment working on repairs to the nearby Golden State Freeway. Their nights are noisy and just plain cold.

The 40 or so residents still living at the Crescent Valley Mobile Home Park, off of The Old Road south of Calgrove Avenue, unwillingly embarked on their new wilderness lifestyles after the Jan. 17 quake knocked out gas, water and sewage services to their park, causing nearly 100 other tenants to move out.

Word last week that repairs to the heavily damaged sewer system have been delayed because of problems with the park’s insurance company came as another blow to the weary residents.

The earliest that the 87-unit park is now expected to have all services restored is June 1, which prompted some residents to call on state and federal officials for help to speed up the process.

“The rest of the world is back to normal,” said resident Skip Cannon. “Meanwhile, we have to haul our water in. We don’t have heat, and we have to shower outside.”

Cannon’s neighbor, Lee Irish, said her life in recent weeks has been like someone who is stuck on an endless camping trip or somewhere worse.

“I live in hell’s kitchen,” she said. “We feel like we’re really the lost, forgotten souls up here.”

Like most other park residents, Irish has no running water and cannot flush the toilet or take a shower in her bathroom. She relies on portable toilets and showers set up around the park, which sometimes pose their own problems.

One recent night, Irish said her husband, Richard, cut his hands and knees when he fell into a knee-deep trench on his way to take a shower.

To make matters worse, heating their home with portable electric heaters instead of with natural gas has been a financial burden. Irish said their most recent electricity bill was $400--nearly the amount of the rent on their mobile home space.

The Irishes and other residents also have trouble getting out of the mobile home park by automobile because The Old Road has been transformed into a detour past the quake-damaged Golden State Freeway.

“We’re being held hostage by traffic,” Irish said.

Cannon has it a little better, but not by much. He and two other residents convinced their insurance company to provide them with temporary septic tanks, which means they can flush toilets and run water down sinks.

Still, like his neighbors, Cannon said he longs for the day when peace and quiet will replace the noise from the heavy equipment that is being used 24 hours a day to repair the freeway. Most of all, he longs for the day when the park is back up and running.

But Cannon said he realizes from walking around the park that it will be a while before that day arrives. Streets must be repaved; mobile homes must be hoisted back on to their foundations; and repairs must be made to the homes’ interiors.

Cannon said he circulated flyers encouraging his neighbors to write John Garamendi, the state insurance commissioner, and U. S. Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, asking them to intervene with the park’s insurance company.

Indeed, life at the park is anything but normal. Probably nobody has more memories of how the park used to look than park manager Angie Leano. She has lived there since it opened nearly 25 years ago.

“Before the earthquake, everybody was just coming and going,” Leano said. “We had families in here with children, but the quake drove them away.”

Leano said she has been lonely since many tenants fled to wait out repairs.

“They’re anxious to get back,” she said.

One tenant, Marian Toth, said she plans to return. Toth and one couple from the park have been staying with friends in Val Verde since the quake.

The quake jolted Toth’s mobile home off its foundation, but she has since had it raised. She still must complete floor repairs, which was punctured by jacks that supported her home.

“I feel like Dorothy from ‘The Wizard of Oz’ clicking her heels and saying, ‘There’s no place like home,’ ” Toth said. “I just want to go home.”