County’s Portrait Is Painted By Numbers

As the Earth rotated Orange County to a new Friday, already the first of 200,000 pounds of eggs were sizzling and 276,000 pints of orange juice were being poured in some of the county’s 829,000 households.

For most of the 2.3 million people here, the sunrise came in their sleep. But soon, Orange County alarm clocks jangled and telephones rang, and Orange County mouths would be on their way to swallowing 7 million pounds of food and guzzling 800,000 gallons of various beverages.

At least that’s the statistical county portrait rendered by the Fullerton Museum Center’s exhibit opening today at 301 N. Pomona Ave. The first of three parts of “Document: Orange County 1989” explores the county’s environment, economy and natural resources through clever graphics, photographs and videos.

“The idea is to present an overall picture of contemporary physical and cultural Orange County through visuals,” said Naida Osline, project curator. “We wanted to try and personalize and individualize statistics.”

Parts two and three will focus on the people of Orange County and their future. The show is based on research gathered by Tim Campbell--administrator of the Fullerton Museum--from more than 70 private industries and public agencies since last spring. The show closes July 30.

The museum’s effort is among the many affiliated this year with Orange County’s official centennial celebration, said Joe Felz, museum center director.

The exhibits, housed on 2,600 square feet of museum floor space, offer a most unusual look at that familiar creature, the Orange County animal in his habitat.

On any given Orange County day--say Friday, also the 12th day of Christmas--many early risers dawdled under a hot shower. About 40 gallons of H2O went down the drain for those 10-minute showers, adding to the day’s total pool of waste water of 250 million gallons, enough to fill Anaheim Stadium to the rim.

Orange County throats were cleared, toothpaste tubes squeezed, doors slammed and coffee chugged--on average, two cups per person. In keeping with tradition, most men pulled on their trousers one leg at a time.

The booming Orange County economy was already bracing itself for another day, looking for a piece of its annual $21.3 billion in taxable sales.

A fourth of the million people here in the civilian labor force were thinking about their jobs in the wholesale and retail trade. Another fourth contemplated their careers in the service industry. Only 5%--those in the construction industry--were worrying about building anything.

The county’s two major mineral resources to be exploited that day were oil and aggregate rock for concrete.

But most workers, perhaps, had their minds on the morning commute, especially the 26 new drivers entering Orange County’s roads Friday. It would have been a discouraging thing to remind them that there were 1.16 vehicles for each of the county’s residents.

Indeed, the 1.9 million cars registered here would stretch for 4,999 miles if parked end to end.

Only 2% of those hustling to work were sufficiently daunted by the ordeal to take public transportation. Most of those took the bus. An extraordinary 0.003% claimed to ride the subway to work.

2.6% Walk to Work

A healthier 2.6% of all commuters walked to their jobs. But three-quarters of those out there on the county’s 5,572 miles of public roads were alone in their cars.

About 5,000 cars an hour passed through the intersection at Beach Boulevard and Edinger Avenue, the county’s busiest.

The most popular new car stuck in traffic that morning was the Honda Accord, sales of which contributed to the more than $2.5 billion raked in by new-car dealers here each year.

But if that Honda was headed for one of the year’s more than 3,400 accidents, its driver was more likely to have been speeding, turning or yielding unsafely than to have been drunk, the cause for 12% of accidents here.

Some of the less affluent commuters were among the 50% of the county population who earn less than $43,264 a year. And many of them doubted that they could come up with a down payment for the median home, price tag $225,000. A few women wondered why they earned only 67 cents for every dollar paid their male colleagues doing a comparable job.

More affluent commuters may have planned to stop on their way home from work at various regional shopping malls, department stores and boutiques that in all occupy 0.3% of the county’s 511,437 total acres. Vacant land took up the most county space, followed next by single-family homes.

If all county land had been divided equally among residents that morning, each would receive 10,000 square feet.