The Northridge Quake: One Year Later : President Lauds CSUN Recovery : Commemoration: His speech provides an emotional boost for battered campus and the quake-rocked region.

Thomas Huber took off work Tuesday and spent two hours in a cold, muddy field to hear President Clinton laud Cal State Northridge as a symbol of the region’s ability to overcome adversity. The 1990 CSUN graduate was also one of the lucky ones who got to shake the President’s hand.

But when the speeches by the politicians had ended, Huber’s thoughts, like many of the thousands who flocked to the campus for the one-year commemoration of the devastating Northridge earthquake, quickly returned to his own lingering personal woes.

Although eligible for a government loan to repair the $80,000 damage to his home, the CSUN grad hasn’t taken it, fearing he would never recover from the debt. “It was a nice day. It lifts your spirits,” Huber said of the presidential ceremony. “But I’ve got to go back to my house with its cracks.”

During a 20-minute speech that drew generous applause from the crowd, the President promised the federal government’s continued help with the recovery, and provided an emotional boost both for the battered campus and the earthquake-rocked region.

“A year ago I said we would not leave you to pick up the pieces alone, that we would stay on until the job is done,” said Clinton, adding that federal earthquake aid thus far has totaled about $11.5 billion. “We have kept that pledge today, and today I renew that pledge into the future,” he said.

But the President could not erase the pain that many residents continue to endure.

Even CSUN President Blenda J. Wilson conceded that the remarkable pace of the campus recovery has exceeded that of many people who work and study at the university, and of those who live nearby. “The campus has done better in our recovery than many of our people have done in their personal lives,” Wilson said after Clinton’s speech.

Sitting on a tarp on the muddy ground with a group of fellow fifth-graders from the Countryside Preparatory School, 10-year-old Briana Lee called Clinton’s visit “really cool,” saying she had never seen him before--in person or on television. “I never watch the news. I only watch cartoons,” she giggled.

A year after the quake, Briana’s teacher, David Kessler, said the young girl’s family remains out of their earthquake-damaged home in Woodland Hills. Briana said they are renting a residence in Westlake Village. But asked when her family might return home, the girl could only answer, “Sometime next year.”

Nearby, CSUN shipping supervisor Levie Slack said he still cannot stop thinking about the earthquake even though he wants to. “It’s something that stays on your mind,” Slack said. “And if I ever forget about it, I just go home and look up at the ceiling. Ever since the earthquake, the roof’s been leaking.”

Likewise, 73-year-old Gladys Gomez, who drove from North Hills to hear the President, said problems remain in her neighborhood and people remain afraid. “It’s progressing,” she said of the recovery, “but the fear is there of having another earthquake. It’s going to take time to get that fear out of our systems, and it’s going to take time to rebuild.”

Only last week, Gomez, whose daughter attended CSUN years ago, said she received a $48,000 loan check from the federal Small Business Administration that will enable her to begin repairs on her house and two others she owns. “They’re working very slow, but at least they’ve responded to my needs,” she said of the government.

Clinton addressed the crowd from in front of the university’s damaged Delmar T. Oviatt Library, backed by one large photograph of CSUN’s collapsed parking structure to illustrate the past, and another large photo of a tidy-looking Sierra Tower faculty office building, presumably to show the recovery. The building, however, remains closed for repairs.

Surrounding the crowd for impact was an array of heavy construction equipment--a huge concrete recycling machine, a bulldozer, trucks, a crane and others--bearing the names or logos of the contractors hired by the university. CSUN has received nearly $150 million in federal relief funds thus far, but has spent somewhat less, Wilson said.

For a campus that has incurred an estimated $350 million in damage and experienced a dramatic drop in enrollment, the first presidential visit in its 38-year history was an opportunity for CSUN to bask in renewed federal attention, and to spread word of its recovery to the surrounding community.

Monday, campus officials began removing the first of CSUN’s 11 clusters of portable classrooms. And a contractor soon will demolish the collapsed CSUN parking structure that became a symbol of the quake.

Adding to the atmosphere of rebuilding, dozens of construction workers in white, yellow and blue hard hats escorted Clinton to the stage. Joining him there were Lt. Gov. Gray Davis, who represented vacationing Gov. Pete Wilson; Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, a group of local congressmen and several top-level Clinton Administration officials.

For reasons that university officials could not explain, seats were provided for only a small fraction of those in the crowd, mostly VIPS. So most stood waiting up to several hours on cold, muddy grass until Clinton began speaking about 10 a.m., more than 40 minutes late. A handful of students had camped out overnight, CSUN spokeswoman Carmen Ramos Chandler said.

At the front of the crowd, and drawing a mention from the President in his speech, was Northridge’s national championship Little League team that became known as “the Earthquake Kids.” After the speech, Clinton shook hands with each of the team members and posed for photographs with the group.

The event was marred only by a bomb scare that forced the President to cancel a tour of a campus building prior to his speech. Secret Service agents inspecting the Science 2 building found three pipe sections stuffed with cotton. After Clinton left, police detonated two of the three, saying they may have been left behind by construction crews.

Later in the day, CSUN’s Associated Students organization held its own ceremony to award the first pair of annual scholarships in memory of two CSUN students, Jaime Reyes and Manuel Sandoval, who died in the quake when the Northridge Meadows Apartments complex collapsed several blocks from campus.

Standing with her three children before Clinton spoke, Kristal Gordon, who works at CSUN’s student health center, said her house sustained $40,000 in damage from the quake. But she nonetheless considered herself and others there Tuesday among the fortunate.

“Thinking about (the earthquake) makes my heart kind of flutter and I still wake up at 4:30 in the morning once in a while,” Gordon said. “But everyone here in this crowd is one of the lucky ones. After all, we’re alive.”

Times staff writer Julie Tamaki contributed to this story.

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