Central Coast Quake Victims Dig Out

As San Luis Obispo County officials estimated Friday that damage from this week’s magnitude 6.5 earthquake that shook the Central Coast will top $200 million, owners of even the smallest businesses here were sweeping up, digging out, and trying to get back on their feet.

The worst-damaged buildings in the core of the central district in Paso Robles remained off-limits to owners Friday, but other small businesses in the scenic town square and spreading out from the city’s core were up and running.

Some had “30% Off” signs outside, while other businesses were in a state somewhere between open and closed, letting in some customers and well-wishers for a quick hug.

Though the owners of Pan Jewelers had no idea if or when they might be able to retrieve their jewelry inventory in the most severely damaged building, Virginia’s Attic was open after a Christmas Eve that saw antique dealers sweeping up broken china and glass.

Restaurants along Pine Street, located at the eastern edge of downtown and just one block from the worst damage, were doing a brisk business serving the curious.

“People are walking around and just looking at all the damage, kind of amazed,” said Adam Pollard, a waiter at the Good Times Cafe, which reopened for the first time on Friday after getting a green tag from the city allowing full re-entry.

Just across the square from the historic Acorn Building, where two women died Monday morning after being crushed by debris while trying to escape the dress shop where they worked, people were lined up Friday to see movies at Park Cinemas.

They stood in line even as smelly, sulfuric steam rose from storm drains at their feet, coming from a hot spring that was disturbed in the quake and continues to pump an estimated 500 gallons of hot sulfuric mud a minute up through a growing hole in the City Hall & Library parking lot.

The Paso Robles City Council held a special Friday afternoon meeting, declaring the city an emergency area as a first step toward obtaining federal funds. City Manager Jim App, addressing about 80 people in the City Hall parking lot, referred to the wayward hot spring inching closer to the 10-year-old City Hall: “Then we have the hole from hell out in the parking lot .”

Spewing 500 gallons of 111-degree sulfuric mud and water a minute, the spring was first downplayed by city officials, who have grown increasingly alarmed. “There’s just no discernible source that we have located,” App said.

He and other city officials said the spring seems to be spewing up the sulfuric mud from far below, in an area where a 100-year-old well was capped years ago. Downtown Paso Robles used its hot springs as a tourist draw from the late 19th century to the 1950s.

Just down Park Street from the Acorn Building is the Alliance Board Co., which sells skateboards, surfboards and snow boards and is owned by Kate Davis. It remains red-tagged, and like many of the proprietors of the hardest-hit businesses, Davis has no word on when she might retrieve her inventory.

“All of these businesses were carrying more inventory than any other time of the year, because of Christmas,” Davis said, conceding that she was worried because she had no earthquake insurance and did not know if any inventory survived. “But I do know one thing: We’re going to rise from the ashes of this thing. We’re just trying to figure out how.”

The most severe damage from the quake occurred in Paso Robles, where 27 buildings remain red-tagged in the city’s core, and about 20 others bear yellow tags allowing only limited access. Buildings were also damaged in Morro Bay, Cambria, Atascadero, San Simeon and downtown San Luis Obispo; they have not yet been included in the total figures.

Some officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency met with city officials Friday, and were beginning to assess the damage. Even though local agencies have asked that San Luis Obispo County be declared a federal disaster area, which would free up extensive federal money for rebuilding, it would take days before any such determination is made, said Det. Rick Ince, who is serving as a spokesman for all city departments.

The historic old brick buildings, which received the worst damage, have cheaper rents and old touches that have made them a favorite of the antique trade. There are at least five large antique malls in the city, and they in turn rent to anywhere from 28 to 75 individual antique dealers, often retirees who depend on that extra income each month.

Emma Jeanne Mason, 88, is a retiree who rents space in the Sentimental Journey antique mall. On Friday, she was sweeping up vases, teapots and other merchandise and putting them into a plastic bin. Dumpsters were filling up outside each of the antique malls.

But even as Mason worked to get her place in shape, she took small solace in what did not break, like the historic china tea set that would have set her back hundreds of dollars had it been broken.

“Mine wasn’t as bad as some people’s,” she said. “Thank God for that.”

The damage seemed limited to older brick and masonry buildings. The Paso Robles Inn, an icon at Spring and 11th streets, had a crew with ladders putting up plywood on the brick facade even as parts of the inn were open.

Pat French, owner of the Pine Street Saloon, reported no damage to the two-story building just off the town square other than four glasses that fell from a shelf. “This is a wood building top to bottom,” French said as she served customers drinks and sold lottery tickets Friday. “That’s one reason we had a safe and sound ride through this quake.”

Some of the 27,000 residents of Paso Robles also were trying to assess damage.

Crews of building inspectors had finished with initial assessments on damage to businesses Friday, and they fanned out into residential neighborhoods on the east side, where there were widespread reports of damage to chimneys and some reports of cracked foundations.

Barry Barnes recently moved to Paso Robles to be near his daughter, Shannon Ettestad. He lives in a park of modular homes on the town’s newer east side, where garages sagged and some of the modular homes rocked so much on their foundations that residents are still digging out. “I know this is real important, what happened here,” he said, pointing to the businesses destroyed in the quake.

“But when FEMA meets with these business people, I hope that nobody forgets us little people, the residents. There was damage in every room of my house. The toilet exploded, just blew open the front part, causing water damage.”

Barnes spent Christmas at his daughter’s, but also worked with his son-in-law to clean out his home and begin repairs. But many of the seniors in the housing development are still confused about what they should do, he said.

On Friday, Barnes joined other residents who toured the business areas to view firsthand the damage there.

Barbara MacGregor was one of the business owners who invested in downtown when it was down on its luck in the early 1990s. She started her business, New to You, a consignment and collectible store on Park Street, in 1992. It’s red-tagged now, damaged not only by the earthquake but by a water main that broke, flooding her store.

“I did go back in before they started telling us we couldn’t. The ceiling buckled. It’s just a mess,” she said.

She said the city has made every effort to upgrade its downtown. “When I came here, there were 23 empty buildings in the central section.

“Now there aren’t any empty buildings, or weren’t any before this. I was in on the ground floor of turning this town around,” MacGregor said. “I’ll just say I don’t want to go through anything like this again.”