Funds OKd for Sound Wall Repair : Simi Valley: The city will seek bids to stabilize the damaged structures along 21 streets. The quake-recovery funds will come from FEMA.

More than a year after his Simi Valley house sustained moderate damage in last January’s Northridge earthquake, Frank Hayashida has completed most of the repairs.

But the sound wall behind his Bitternut Circle home still wobbles to the touch, with cracks and missing bricks marking the disaster.

“It’s loose,” said Hayashida, a retired aircraft company supervisor. “You can take it and move it back and forth.”

The six-foot masonry wall, like so many others stretching along subdivisions in Simi Valley, needs to be propped up, reinforced and stabilized.

Under a $1.25-million federally funded plan approved by the Simi Valley City Council late Monday, dozens of other homeowners will no longer have to worry about unstable walls protecting their back yards from motorists and pedestrians along major streets, such as Galena Avenue just behind Hayashida’s back yard.

Council members on Monday unanimously directed staff to advertise for bids to repair the toppled and buckling walls.

“They’re not as sturdy as the walls are supposed to be,” said Alice Stoner, an engineer in the Public Works Department. “Most of the work will be providing stabilizers, where we add supports to the walls and hold them in place.”

City engineers have identified walls along 21 streets that were significantly damaged in last year’s earthquake. Under a three-phase Federal Emergency Management Agency plan, bids for repairing the walls will be advertised this week.

Most of the damage occurred along streets without much traffic. But many of the roads are heavily traveled, including Galena Avenue, Sycamore Drive, Yosemite and Sequoia avenues and Stow Street.

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The first phase of the FEMA-funded reconstruction--repaving and repairing surface streets and major arteries--already is under way. The $1.31-million project is scheduled to be completed in May.

Stoner said construction on the second phase, which includes the sound walls behind Hayashida’s house, should begin in April and be finished this summer.

“Most of them are in the public rights of way,” Stoner said. “And some of them got worse because of the aftershocks.”

The third phase, a plan to repair the more heavily damaged Mildred Street and portions of Rory Lane, Sabina Circle and Hope Street, will begin in April and be completed in August, Stoner said. Those repairs will cost another $1.48 million.

City officials first applied for the FEMA funds, which will cover virtually all of the $4-million cost, in the weeks immediately following the quake, Councilwoman Sandi Webb said.

“I go by and look at the walls that are broken and I’ve wondered why it takes so long,” Webb said. “But it just has to wind its way through the (FEMA) administration.”

Retired engineer Ray Hanbel was pleased to hear that something is finally happening with the damaged sound wall behind his Cheryl Court home.

“There’s cracks all the way to the foundation,” he said. “You can grab hold of it and see that it shakes. It used to be very stiff.”

Nonetheless, Hanbel said he does not mind the delay, considering the extent of earthquake damage citywide.

“There are a lot of other problems that Simi Valley has,” he said. “But I’m happy to see it finally being addressed.”