Temblor Damage Is Capricious

People elsewhere can talk all they want about the rolling, sailboat-in-a-squall feeling of the earthquake that struck Central California on Monday. But they’re not having any of that in this resort/retirement community on a man-made lake known as the Dragon because of its vermiform contours on the map.

Here, a dozen miles west of where two people died when a historic office building collapsed in Paso Robles, the quake hit with the force of a doubled-up fist.

“My whole home went straight up,” said Linda McLoughlan, 53, a resident of a lakeside community called Heritage Ranch. “I felt myself lift up, and then I came crashing down.”

As she talked, haltingly, trying to stop the crying that had kept her up all night, McLoughlan stood amid the devastation that used to be her home. Her driveway was broken, her fireplace shifted several inches off the wall. There were large cracks in the interior walls, and her $50,000 cobalt glass collection lay in shattered ruins at her feet.

To people who lived through the Northridge quake a decade ago, the destruction in McLoughlan’s home would look all too familiar. After the shaking stopped, she and her mother fled her house and didn’t return until Tuesday morning.

“I haven’t wanted to see it,” she said.

Though most of the attention in the aftermath of the 6.5 quake centered on the flattened shops in Paso Robles’ old downtown core, the damage inflicted on this community, which included the loss by fire of Los Angeles resident John Billesbach’s 65-foot mobile home, is a reminder of the capricious way the Earth’s movements can torment those on its surface.

A nighttime drive through Cambria, just south of the epicenter near San Simeon, revealed a town dressed merrily for Christmas, with the only obvious damage a few broken windows in the Cambria Pines Trading Co. on Main Street. But here, a few miles east, tap water was running brown and the Heritage Ranch Country Store was just getting back on its feet after the quake emptied the shelves.

“Everything went every which way,” said Lou Olsgaard, a clerk. It took eight volunteers five hours to get the place ready for business Tuesday.

Perhaps more predictable was the damage to the already decaying 19th century Mission San Miguel. Its condition was already considered so serious that the church had stopped using the elevated pulpit. Money was being raised to close cracks causing the walls to separate.

On Tuesday, it was obvious that more damage had been inflicted on the structure by the piles of rubble that had fallen off the face of the sanctuary building. A guard stationed out front kept visitors from entering the mission grounds.

Kevin Drabinski, a spokesman for the Diocese of Monterey, said that until building inspections, which began Tuesday afternoon, were completed there was no way to know when or if the building could be reopened to the public.

“We’re very concerned about aftershocks and public safety,” Drabinski said. “We want to err on the side of caution.”

Later on, the diocese announced that it would close the church to Christmas and Christmas Eve Masses. The Catholic Church hopes to move the services to another building, Casa San Miguel. Officials refused to describe the damage inside, but said they will be doing some “short-term shoring” in the sacristy. “Once that work has been completed, we will reevaluate safety issues,” diocese officials said in a statement.

San Luis Obispo County building inspectors fanned out across the area Tuesday to try to get a handle on just how widespread the damage was. But despite pockets of destruction here and elsewhere, early indications were that despite the severity of the quake, damage was not going to be anywhere near what was inflicted on Northridge in 1994, or San Francisco in 1989, when freeways collapsed.

“There’s no comparison to Northridge,” said Todd Youngdale, one of seven inspectors on duty.

The question is why? Early indications were that it was a combination of luck and preparation. As far as preparation goes, Youngdale said the county has toughened its building standards in recent years. That has drawn complaints from cost-conscious developers, but he said the value is only now becoming apparent.

The fact that the Central Coast is fairly sparsely populated, compared to big metropolitan areas like San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco, also helped. There was no crowded infrastructure, and even though some highways were damaged, they were not essential commuter corridors.

Last comes luck.

“We were very fortunate, and we don’t really know why,” Youngdale said.

Other than the badly damaged buildings in downtown Paso Robles, Youngdale doubted that any others would be red-tagged for demolition.

McLoughlan’s house would be yellow-tagged for restricted use, he said. One reason all the damage occurred in her house was that it sits on a raised foundation, which allowed more shaking. “This will be one of the worst buildings,” he said.

Ironically, one source of trouble is the brick tile roofs that many people in fire country have converted to in recent years in lieu of the old shake shingles. The weight of the tiles adds stress to the structure in a quake, Youngdale said.

When Monday’s temblor hit, McLoughlan was working at her computer on the second-floor landing of her $400,000 house, located on a small hill on a third of an acre. She immediately thought of her 80-year-old mother, who lives in an apartment next to the main house.

McLoughlan, a red-haired neat freak of a housekeeper who seemed almost as troubled by the disorder as by the destruction in her home, said she ran down the stairs, being pelted all the while by flying glass and other objects. It was a good thing that she left her perch, because windows around her were about to shatter and large pictures were flung around. “I’d have been toast if I stayed,” she said.

When she reached her mother, she realized she wouldn’t be able to safely remove the onetime fearless pilot who is frail with age.

Thinking fast, McLoughlan led her mother to her bed and grabbed every pillow she could find. She put her mother in bed, climbed in next to her and covered them both with pillows in the hope it would shield them from harm.

“We just lay there,” McLoughlan said. “We held each other and prayed.”