Readers Remember

In the 1933 earthquake, we lived in L.A. and my dad had an oil well pumping on Signal Hill. The only way he could find out if it was still pumping was to drive there. He and my Mom put us kids in the car to go see.

Many roadblocks had to be passed before we got to Pacific Coast Highway and Cherry Street. It looked like the buildings had all fallen down. There was rubble everyplace. But it was the silence and the yellow glow of the emergency lights that made it seem like a nightmare. People were walking silently up Cherry with mattresses on their backs, taking what belongings they could carry and hanging onto children’s hands, all seemingly soundless. They were trying to get to higher ground in fear of the expected tsunami. There was no tsunami, and the well pumped along for another 50 years.

EILEEN DeWITT MURPHY

Huntington Beach

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On a Friday evening, my home started to shake. Mom calmly gathered our family under the door frame. At age 6 I had just experienced the great Long Beach earthquake of 1933.

My Dad was a building inspector for Los Angeles. After arriving home he checked our 1927 Spanish-style residence and found no cracks or displacement. Still, Dad always said of the houses built during the World War II boom: “The best damn houses built were built in L.A. city and county, thanks to the revised building codes that came out of the 1933 Long Beach quake.”

JAMES FENDER

Lancaster

In 200 words or less, send us your memories, comments or eyewitness accounts. Write to Century, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053, or e-mail century@latimes.com. We regret we cannot acknowledge individual submissions.