Wave of Anguish

All John and Barbara Jones seemed to have in common with next-door neighbors David and Salome Vandermade was the wall connecting their two-story townhomes just off the San Diego Freeway in Westminster.

But that was before a water tank ruptured near sunrise one day last month, inundating their homes with millions of gallons of water. The families now have common goals: putting their lives back together and, someday, returning to their homes on Hefley Street.

Things had seemed so normal just the night before. The Vandermades had quietly celebrated their 23rd wedding anniversary with their three sons. Barbara Jones had made her husband his favorite dinner from their native England: roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.

The normalcy ended just hours later.

The Vandermades awoke to the screams of their oldest son, Alfred, who was pinned against a wall by a wave of water that had crashed through the kitchen.

“I thought the world was coming to an end,” his mother said.

Standing in the dark with water above her knees, Barbara Jones frantically called her daughter in Big Bear. In her panic, she was only able to scream into her daughter’s answering machine: “Water! Cars gone! Garage gone!”

It wasn’t until later that the two families learned the devastating truth: They were homeless.

“It’s a nightmare,” David Vandermade, 44, said. “I’ve never seen anything like this in my life.”

But life does go on. The Vandermades’ youngest son, Lenny, is a star football player at Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana, and college recruiters from around the country continue to contact the family amid the tumult. And Barbara Jones celebrated her 64th birthday five days after the flood.

But the disaster and the sudden uncertainty of their lives has them all undeniably on edge.

“I think the niceties are going to be over and I think it’s going to be a [legal] battle,” Barbara Jones said. “There’s no good side yet. What could be good? Nothing. It should never have happened.”

With a household to run and a full-time position as a job counselor for the Department of Corrections at a Long Beach halfway house, Salome Vandermade, 43, is fighting to keep up the sagging spirits of her family.

“I cannot be depressed,” she said. “That will wear you out. Just take it one day at a time.”

And that is exactly what the two families have done.

Monday, Sept. 21: It’s 5:47 a.m. and the Joneses, married 47 years, are asleep in an upstairs bedroom. Barbara begins to stir. “I can’t really explain the feeling. I don’t know what woke me. My first thought was, ‘Oh my God, it’s pouring down.’ But I looked out and saw there was no rain coming down.”

Salome is jolted awake. “I thought it was a tornado because of the sound of things breaking and flying. . . . The roof of our garage went flying up into the air and landed on top of our house. Glasses were breaking and one side of our house was shaking so much that we thought it was an earthquake plus a tornado.”

She and David hear 22-year-old Alfred’s cries for help, run to the top of the stairs and see him being carried by a current of water toward a living room window. Alfred eventually makes it to the staircase and to safety.

Salome calls out to the Joneses through a second-story window: “Are you OK?” They tell her they are fine.

John, 68, can’t find his flashlight or one of the couple’s cats, Tittles. Their other cat, Sassy, has wisely hidden under the bed. John opens a back door, thinking the water would flow out. Instead, more rushes in.

Minutes later, a firefighter tells the Vandermades to stay upstairs until the water recedes. They are finally escorted out, stepping over wood, trees, rocks and broken glass. The smell of gas is everywhere. Their dog, Mallory, also makes it out safely.

Meanwhile, the American Red Cross of Orange County has set up a relief center at a nearby church. The Joneses and the Vandermades find their way there. Glynis Carter, the Joneses’ daughter from Big Bear, tracks down her parents at the church and sobs. Their son, Bryn, has already driven up from Oceanside.

11:15 a.m.: Dozens of neighbors have gathered at the relief center, where the mood is surprisingly calm. They are grateful for the hot coffee, assorted foods and a dry, safe place to relax. David asks a paramedic to check his heart and his blood pressure.

“I’m so glad my son made it,” David says moments later. “I’m just glad my whole family is safe and my neighbors are safe. You never think that the tank would break; you never give it a second thought.”

3 p.m.: A friend gives Salome a ride back to the townhome. She manages to retrieve Lenny’s Mater Dei uniform, but her stoicism begins to melt when a neighbor gently asks her, “How are you doing?”

“I’m not doing so well,” she says, tears falling. “We rushed out this morning; we didn’t really see everything. It was so fast. It’s worse than we thought. If I had known how bad it was, I wouldn’t have come back.”

The Vandermades spend the night at the Garden Grove home of Salome’s sister. The Joneses sleep at a friend’s house in Huntington Beach.

Tuesday, Sept. 22: The Joneses check in to the Best Western on Westminster Boulevard. It’s a small room with two hard beds. They return to the condo, with police escort, for about 10 minutes to retrieve what belongings they can. Items from the pantry are closest to the door, so they grab a few six-packs of John’s favorite beer, Newcastle Brown, Barbara’s tea kettle, some shortbread cookies and other miscellaneous items.

Carter studies the damaged townhome, which she and her husband, Harold, own.

“It’s like a bomb went off,” she says. “There’s Dad’s car with the roof on it. And the Vandermades’ house . . . Oh, God.”

David and Salome and their two youngest sons, Lenny and Paul, check into two rooms at a Holiday Inn in Huntington Beach. Lenny returns to school while Paul, 21, returns to his job in the personnel department of Orange County Superior Court. Alfred remains at his aunt’s house.

Later that afternoon, David and Salome return to Hefley Square, put on hard hats and grimly enter their now uninhabitable home.

“Look at it,” David says. “It doesn’t look like a house. Can you believe a wave about 4 feet [high] came inside here?”

Says Salome: “What can you say? You basically don’t have anything except the clothes you put on your back.”

Wednesday, Sept. 23: John returns to his job as a stress analysis engineer in El Segundo. He is grateful for a little normalcy.

“John has a good thing he does,” Barbara says. “He just shuts things out.”

Barbara gets a call from the city and learns that their cat Tittles has been found and is at a local humane society.

“I thought she was dead,” Barbara says. “I guess she had another life.”

The Joneses are eating nearly all of their meals at the Westminster Cafe, where they have a daily allowance of $18 each. The Vandermades have a similar arrangement at a Denny’s near their hotel. Paul complains that he is tired of “living off Buffalo wings and chicken strips.”

Friday, Sept. 25: It is Barbara’s birthday but there’s no time to celebrate. The family spends the day at the condo going through their belongings and storing what they can in a portable storage locker. John apologizes to his wife for the lack of birthday festivities. His spirits are low after seeing the damage for the first time in broad daylight.

“We didn’t realize the damage that had been done,” he says.

Barbara asks Salome, “Where is your garage?” Salome replies: “It just went.”

Saturday, Sept. 26: Bryn Jones, 36, returns to Westminster for a belated birthday dinner for Barbara. Carter gives her mother a card that leaves her in tears.

The Vandermades spend the evening at Edison International Field in Anaheim, where the Mater Dei Monarchs are facing Concord de la Salle, ranked No. 1 in the state and the nation. Lenny, a linesman, faces one of the biggest games of his high school career before a crowd of 20,781. Mater Dei loses, 28-21.

Sunday, Sept. 27: Barbara dissolves into frequent crying jags. “I don’t know why,” she says. “It was just one of those days.” She can’t help but think about all that’s been lost: family home videos; Christmas presents she’d already wrapped for her three grandchildren; an English baby stroller she was keeping for her first great-grandchild; Glynis’ wedding dress and 40-year-old Barbie dolls.

Tuesday, Sept. 29: David Vandermade returns to his job at a produce warehouse for Lucky supermarkets in Irvine. Salome searches in vain for an apartment.

Barbara is also feeling frustrated as she sits in her hotel room with Glynis, waiting for city officials to call with news. “Nobody will return our calls. Nobody seems interested. Nobody wants to be bothered.”

Wednesday, Sept. 30: A good day for the Joneses: The city has found them an apartment and Barbara gets a new Lexus to replace the one that was destroyed.

“Maybe once we get settled and start a routine, it will be fine,” she says optimistically.

Salome’s day has not gone so well. She returns home from her first day back at work and learns that the city has been able to find only two separate apartments, next door to each other, for the family.

“How can a family live in separate apartments?” she wonders. “I don’t feel comfortable with it.”

She asks the city to keep looking.

Saturday, Oct. 3: The Vandermades attend another Mater Dei football game and college recruiters continue to call. The family learns they have to stay at the Holiday Inn for at least another week. The city offers the family two $25 supermarket gift certificates because they are no longer eligible for restaurant vouchers from the Red Cross. David wonders how they can buy groceries without a refrigerator or a stove.

“I still have a lot of patience but it’s getting more frustrating,” he says. “The longer we wait, the more it gives us stress.”

The Joneses move into the Sutton Place apartment complex. Despite the frustrations of the last two weeks, Barbara counts her blessings.

“We’re very lucky to be alive because I’m usually on the patio an hour from the time [the tank burst] having my tea and my cigarette. I’m always there, every morning. The timing was right for it. If it had to hit, it was the right time. Not too many people were around.”