Quake Rebuilding: Hang Together or Hang Separately : A united front is needed to marshal the huge sums of necessary aid money

There are two important differences between the recovery periods following January’s Northridge earthquake and the 1989 Loma Prieta temblor in the San Francisco Bay Area. One of those differences favors the Los Angeles area; the other certainly does not. We’ll first consider the one that is good news for Los Angeles, because it figures to affect the other.

In the months after the Bay Area quake, there was considerable rancor among federal, state and local officials over what rebuidking and restoration projects would ultimately be approved and over the amount of federal funding that would be forthcoming. According to a 1993 report by the federal inspector general, the blame rested with regional officials of the Federal Emergency Management Agency who “made frequent reference to ensuring the ‘cost effectiveness’ and ‘reasonableness’ of (the) applicant(‘s) permanent restoration design plans” without providing “any criteria for either of these concepts. As such, applicants’ projects are constantly being evaluated against criteria that have not been made known to them.”

Fortunately, nothing so bureaucratically bizarre occurred in the Los Angeles area after the Northridge earthquake. The federal response was swift, and it surpassed the combined funding in seven natural disasters that devastated parts of the United States or territorial possessions from 1989 to 1993. In addition, the months following the Northridge temblor were marked by strong cooperation and agreement among federal, state and local officials.

Now, the second difference--the one that’s clearly not pleasing to Los Angeles.

Once the rebuilding effort had gotten underway after Loma Prieta, it was determined it would cost less to rebuild than first believed. That is far from the case here. In fact, the damage to public facilities alone in the Northridge earthquake now appears to have risen to $4.5 billion or even $6.5 billion, depending on the source.

The federal government has allocated about $3 billion for public facilities damaged by the quake and its aftershocks, and there is no dispute over the fact that federal funding in excess of that will be necessary.

The questions now are these: How much more federal money is legitimately needed, and will local, state and federal officials and California’s congressional delegation display the unity and resolve needed to obtain it? The failure of California to produce its own source of funding for a 10% share of costs also looms large.

What we don’t need is any repeat of what has occurred in the restoration of the Los Angeles Coliseum, where the foundations for future “skybox” suites seemed to have been thrown into the request. The public-policy goal is to repair the Buick, not to sue the money for a down payment on a Cadillac.

At the same time, however, it is undeniable that much earthquake damage has been discovered only recently and that there has been damage from aftershocks.

One example: The City of Los Angeles is still assessing the damage to its enormous sewer system. This was not on the original list for quake aid; the damage became apparent only later, and it is considered extensive. A second example: An aftershock early this month appeared to have further damaged buildings at Olive View Medical Center in the east San Fernando Valley, raising repair costs.

Yet to be finalized are the negotiations over such big-ticket items as structures at UCLA and the USC Medical Center, where officials are hoping for perhaps more than $1.5 billion in funding. Already there is some dispute, but it has been handled quietly thus far. One sticky issue, say county officials, involves the psychiatric hospital at USC, which the school and others want replaced at a cost of $45 million to $65 million and for which federal officials seem inclined to offer only $1 million or so because they feel the building is not so badly damaged.

We don’t know how the new Congress and its leadership will respond to future requests for federal assistance for quake recovery. We do know that the spirit of compromise and cooperation that marked the initial months after the Northridge quake must continue. Only a united front among local, state and federal officials and the state’s congressional delegation can persuade the rest of the nation to again open its pockets to make Southern California whole.