Los Angeles Times Special Quake Report: One Year Later : Still Shaken / Voices : From the Epicenter to D.C.: Reflections on the Devastation : KELLY SILVERBERG

When the earthquake struck, Kelly Silverberg had already gone into labor at her home in Malibu. She and her husband, Ted, still not knowing the extent of the quake’s impact, drove to Santa Monica Hospital Medical Center. But that hospital and all the others in the area were being evacuated in addition to trying to treat the incoming injured. So Kelly, Ted and their obstetrician grabbed a mattress pad, forceps and some clean sheets and moved her to the safest nearby spot, an old bomb shelter turned office, where--without water, food, equipment, electricity or anesthetic--Kelly, now 27, gave birth to her second daughter, Coral Malia.

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“We have it very good here in Southern California. We’re very lucky to be where we are. Even though we’ve got the earthquakes and the rains and the floods and the fires, we have it a lot better than a lot of people in the rest of the world.

“I would rather be in Southern California having a baby during the earthquake than in Yugoslavia. With earthquakes, you always know they are going to stop at some point. I would not want to be pregnant with bombs going on around me not knowing if it was going to stop and not knowing if my child was going to survive afterward. . . .

“I think how fortunate I am to have such a beautiful, healthy, happy little girl. It could have turned out a lot worse than it did. . . .

“It wasn’t very clean and there had been plants that had spilled over so the carpet was muddy, but at that point, I didn’t really care; all I could think about was getting this baby out and getting someplace safe. I realized that the epidural and the things that today’s technology can do to assist women with labor are pretty extraordinary--and I didn’t have them.

“I was laying down in heavy labor and we had the aftershocks, I was literally in the stage of pushing and there was no going back. . . . She didn’t come out in any ball of glory. We weren’t able to clean her up or give her a blood test, but even minus all of those things, she was healthy. . . .

“Everybody can do what they set their mind to. Women for centuries have been having babies without the luxuries we have today. When most of us are pressed, we’re survivors, we make it through. I really didn’t have many options. . . .

“With all of the negativism that we have in the media, I guess everybody’s outlook is pretty much pessimistic these days; there really is a lot of good in people’s hearts. There were all these people helping me when they could have been home with their families. I take that as a sign of hope that people’s hearts aren’t as cold as it sometimes seems these days.”