SYLMAR : Man Honored for 562 Quake Calls

As he stumbled out of his mobile home in Sylmar just after the Northridge earthquake, the only thing Charles Speers had with him was his phone.

His neighbors couldn’t have been happier to see it.

“I’m not trying to make myself out as a hero,” said Speers, 66, who was recognized last week for helping fellow residents of the Tahitian Mobile Home Park make 562 phone calls in the aftermath of the temblor. “Anybody would have done the same thing.”

There were plenty of other cellular phones in that park before the earthquake, but many were lost in a chain reaction of explosions that destroyed 52 mobile homes.

The owner of a courier service, Speers kept his cellular phone by the door, and had a habit of grabbing it as he stepped out.

He also happened to have battery packs that kept the phone working throughout the disaster.

“He used the phone not only for his own safety, but many victims in the neighborhood relied on his phone,” said Glenn Wilk, spokesman for AirTouch Cellular, sponsor of the award. “His phone was a communication lifeline for a lot of people who lost their homes.”

His efforts as a Good Samaritan cost Speers $2,000 in phone bills.

His honor from the company did not include a cash award.

After the earthquake, Speers’ first call was to the Fire Department to report the spreading fire and explosions. He also called the American Red Cross and other emergency services.

And he called Mexico, British Columbia, and across the U.S. to let his neighbors’ families know they were alive.

“Sometimes I had to dial 25 times to get through,” Speers said of the jammed phone lines. “On the first day, I must have made 125 calls, not counting redials.”

He sometimes let the neighbors make the calls themselves.

Some of them had escaped just before their homes were destroyed and had retrieved no clothes or other belongings.

“We had a lot of people who didn’t even grab their wallets,” Speers said. “I had to call their friends to see if they could get them money.”

For 10 days after the earthquake, Speers spent the night with friends in Santa Clarita but came back each morning to the mobile home park just so that his neighbors could use the phone.

The area is surrounded by light industry and homes, with only two operating pay phones in a two-square-mile area, he said.