Valley Seen as Mecca for Disaster Aid Techniques : Aftermath: Experts from around the world visit, seeking ways to improve their own relief efforts based on the response to the Northridge quake.

The San Fernando Valley, long known for its suburbs and movie studios, is gaining international fame for its latest attraction: earthquake experts.

Since the Northridge temblor, firefighters, engineers and college professors from Japan to New Zealand have begun turning to their counterparts in the Valley for firsthand lessons on how to deal with disaster.

Today, a delegation of Japanese lawyers is scheduled to meet with attorneys from a Pacoima-based legal aid center to learn about federal and state disaster assistance that was available after the quake, and how victims were helped through the legal system.

“In a lot of ways, the incredible success that the government and social service agencies have had here in responding to the Northridge quake has made us known nationally and internationally,” said Neal Dudovitz, executive director of San Fernando Valley Neighborhood Legal Services Inc., which will host an afternoon presentation for the visiting lawyers.

“People see us as having succeeded, and I think that’s true,” he added.

Just last week, members of a Japanese think tank seeking ways to improve disaster relief efforts in their country visited Community Assisting Recovery Inc., a Valley-based group that is helping victims of the Northridge quake. In Kobe, the site of Japan’s devastating earthquake in January, about 50,000 people without homes continue to languish in relocation camps. The visiting team walked away with tips on how to fortify homes against quakes and how to document damage and deal with insurance companies.

Those two delegations are only the latest in a parade of groups that have come here in search of earthquake wisdom, turning the still-recovering Valley into an international hub of information.

“We’ve had literally hundreds of requests from firefighters from all over who want to come visit, and they are still coming to town right up to this day,” said Battalion Chief Roger Gillis of the Los Angeles Fire Department.

The first group of visitors arrived a week after the quake, Gillis recalled, estimating that since that time the department’s community service unit has spent hundreds of hours scheduling interviews and tours.

Highlight stops initially included the collapsed Northridge Meadows Apartments and the Northridge Fashion Center, which also partially collapsed, Gillis said. Northridge Meadows has since been razed, and the rebuilt mall has reopened.

Most recently, a delegation of firefighters from South Korea--where a department store collapse in June killed more than 450 people--arrived in Los Angeles equipped with video cameras to film a demonstration on how to perform a heavy rescue operation, like the kind that saved several lives at the Northridge Meadows complex.

Other guests of the Fire Department have included a New Zealand fire service similarly interested in rescue expertise and a German news crew seeking a feature story.

Often, the type of information sought reflects the visitors’ native land. The Japanese lawyers due today, for example, are particularly interested in how renters fared after the quake and negotiated with their landlords. The reason? Apartments are the prevailing type of housing in densely packed Japan, where land is a scare commodity.

The demand for information has been so great that Gillis said his department put together a booklet detailing how firefighters responded to the quake in the first 24 hours. The brochure also provides an overview of how firefighters spent the first week after the temblor.

Officials from the city’s Department of Water and Power have not escaped the spotlight either.

“There have been many, many inquiries,” said Jan Merlo, a DWP spokeswoman. “All states in the western and eastern regions that have experienced disasters have looked to us for information following the quake.”

The Northridge temblor cut off electricity to the entire city and water service to about 500,000 residents in a matter of seconds, leaving repair crews with the extraordinary task of restoring service to the largest municipally owned utility in the country, according to a DWP report that has been distributed to utilities throughout the West Coast.

And more than a year and a half later, word continues to travel about the Valley’s wealth of earthquake expertise.

The group of Japanese attorneys, for example, requested a meeting with their counterparts in Pacoima after learning of their experiences in providing legal aid to quake victims, said the coordinator of the Japanese delegation’s West Coast tour.

“I think what these Japanese attorneys are aware of and what others in the world are aware of is that because we had to go through the quake, we at least have that experience,” said James Lafferty, executive director of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Lawyers Guild.

Dudovitz said he hopes to relay information to the delegation about the role his organization played in helping low-income quake victims in the San Fernando, Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys gain access to services.

“One of the things they want to know about,” Dudovitz said, “is what legally happens to tenants if their apartment building comes down in an earthquake.”