COLUMN ONE : Blocking the Urge to Rebuild : The threat of natural disaster hasn’t stopped development in high-risk areas. But fewer cities are willing to keep picking up the pieces.

Miriam Hilscher was knocked to the floor by a violent, unseen force and couldn’t get up. She had no way of knowing whether her daughter and husband, in other parts of the house, were safe. Not until the rolling and shaking stopped 4 1/2 minutes later.

The Hilschers all survived the gigantic, 8.5-magnitude earthquake that ripped through Alaska in 1964. One hundred and thirty-one others didn’t. In Hilscher’s hometown of Anchorage, buildings gave way, houses crumbled and whole bluffs slid or collapsed until they were flattened bay-view terraces.

But that was 25 years ago, and, said Miriam Hilscher, “after a few years, a lot of the horror goes away.” What took a lot longer to get over, for Hilscher and two dozen Anchorage property owners, were hurdles the city erected to keep property owners from rebuilding on ground that had taken the brunt of the quake.

Finally, though, Hilscher and the others won the right to rebuild--albeit with heavy restrictions--in the subdivision that once had been a scenic neighborhood of pricey homes. The city backed off earlier prohibitions and ended one of the most protracted battles ever in an ongoing conflict over how much power local governments have over development in hazardous areas and over how and where rebuilding occurs after a disaster.

In communities all across the United States, this conflict has come into sharper focus since the devastation caused by the Bay Area earthquake last month and Hurricane Hugo the month before. Especially in areas where there’s a high risk of natural disaster recurring, the battles pit the rights of property owners--and the survivor’s instinct to rebuild--against government’s responsibility to curtail the high cost in lives and money of natural disasters:

On beaches along South Carolina’s lush coastline and nearby islands, extravagant vacation homes and modest cottages alike were ripped apart by Hurricane Hugo on Sept. 21. But some distraught owners may not be able to rebuild because a tough new law mandates how far back from the beach a building must sit, and some of the lots simply aren’t deep enough.

Property owners on the Gulf Coast islands and coastline of Texas have fought and lost court battles against a state law that essentially kicked them off their property after Hurricane Alicia in 1983. The novel law mandates that along each coastline, there must be a minimum width of public beach. If beachfront is lost through erosion, the minimum width must be preserved, even if that means encroaching onto privately held property. Alicia left some homeowners illegally camped on public beaches, or unable to erect sea walls to protect their homes.

On the big island of Hawaii during the last six years, lava from a volcanic eruption has destroyed 74 houses built in the shadow of Kilauea--subdivisions approved in the 1960s under existing zoning laws. Since then, the state and county have restricted building in such hazardous or environmentally sensitive areas, but it is unclear how this affects houses already there. As the lava flow continues, however, unlucky property owners generally choose to move away; those who would rebuild are prevented because they can’t get financing or insurance.

Beyond the issue of property rights, natural disasters highlight contradictory sides of the national character: magnanimity toward disaster victims, and reluctance, later on, to foot the bill with higher taxes and insurance premiums. For some, the higher costs are especially troublesome because it seems they are subsidizing the fortunate few who can afford to live in areas that, while prone to natural disasters, are also some of the most exclusive and desirable.

Part of the impulse to help stems from an awareness that natural disaster can strike anyone, anywhere. Only a few states along the Southeast and Gulf coasts are not affected by earthquake faults--but they are among the many at risk from hurricanes. Tornadoes swoop down on the Midwest and Plains, while snow avalanches imperil the Rocky Mountain areas, tidal waves and lava flows threaten Hawaii and the demon of brush fires haunts the heavily forested areas of the Pacific Northwest.

It is certain, though, that some areas, such as flood plains and fault zones, are more vulnerable to natural disaster than others. In those areas, the debate centers on how far government should go in protecting people from risks, and how the effectiveness of protective measures stacks up against the costs.

“Disasters focus public debate,” said Elliott Mittler, an assistant professor at the University of Southern California who specializes in natural disasters and public policy. “Unless you have disasters like this, no one talks about them. (Disaster preparedness) is a difficult thing to get on public agendas when they’re in the distance.”

In Anchorage, where entire districts slid during the 1964 quake, municipal officials prohibited redevelopment in the most severely damaged areas, believing those areas to be vulnerable to future temblors.

But as memory of the great quake receded, sentiment against rebuilding on questionable land softened. Opinion was split as to whether the land was unsafe after all, and building restrictions were loosened. The state was among those disputing warnings about future hazards. It is going ahead with an addition to the Anchorage courthouse that, though it incorporates sophisticated earthquake resistant designs, will be built near a bluff that slid during the quake.

In the Turnagain neighborhood where the Hilschers owned property, the city is now letting property owners rebuild on land that dropped toward the ocean in 1964. Opponents argued that the rebuilding permits ignored history.

“It takes a San Francisco or Los Angeles or Alaska quake to remind people there is a real problem and there’s a finite length of time as far as a potential recurrence,” said John Aho, an engineer who was a member of an advisory panel that recommended against granting the permits.

But Turnagain landowners put their faith in new tests that show the rebuilt homes will be safe, given new earthquake resistance designs and technology. Hilscher herself has no qualms about letting her now-grown daughter build a new home in the area.

No one interfered when JoAnn and Smith Pickett Jr. wanted to rebuild their home on Dauphin Island, Ala., after Hurricane Frederick flattened it in 1979. The original home complied with local flood control requirements for elevation, so there was no need to make any changes when they rebuilt. So the Picketts put up virtually the same house, on the same spot. “Exactly,” says Smith Pickett.

And in 1985, that same house got the same treatment from Hurricane Elena. “If you’d looked at it, you would have said it was the same hurricane as in 1979. The damage was almost identical to Frederick,” Pickett said.

He rebuilt again. On the same foundation, still facing the same way into the wind. This time, though, he made a few changes so the house wouldn’t be quite so vulnerable. But if a hurricane comes along and they lose their house again, Pickett is sure of his response.

“If it gets blown down again,” he said, “We’ll come back. We’ll build it again--as long as we have adequate insurance.”

Part of what keeps the Picketts in hurricane country, and thousands of others in hazardous areas, is a denial of the risks. They just don’t believe it will happen. And after it does, they are convinced it won’t happen again.

“It’s the same stupidity of saying, ‘well, I’ll gamble it won’t happen to me,’ then turning to your neighbor when the inevitable happens and saying, ‘please help me,’ ” said John J. Nance, author of “On Shaky Ground,” which looks at the threat of earthquakes across the country.

That attitude applies not just to rebuilding, but also to initial development.

Memphis sits perilously close to the New Madrid fault, site of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded in the continental United States. Four quakes with an estimated magnitude of 8.6 hit the area during the winter of 1811-1812. Geologists say the area is overdue for a 6.3-magnitude earthquake, comparable to the one that shook the San Fernando Valley in 1971. Such a quake would cause billions of dollars of damage in Memphis.

And yet, because Memphis has not felt a major quake since 1843, earthquake preparedness hasn’t been a priority. The city’s building codes still do not require quake-resistant designs, and like other older cities, is full of the kind of brick buildings that easily collapse in a quake.

“It’s a mind set,” Shelby County Commissioner Jim Rout said. “Most people do not really think it’s going to happen, or if it does, it’s way down the line.”

Now, the city and county are building a 32-story-tall sports arena and music center, in the shape of a pyramid, on the north banks of the Wolf River. They are building even though the structure sits on low-lying, silty land that, like the Marina district in San Francisco, could liquefy and worsen the effects of an earthquake.

The destruction caused by the Bay Area quake has boosted sentiment in Memphis to add earthquake safety measures to the area’s building codes. But local officials doubt whether there is enough concern to stop construction on the pyramid and include seismic safety provisions that were rejected during initial discussions of the pyramid’s design.

Rep. Harold E. Ford (D-Tenn.), though, has threatened court action if city and county officials don’t halt construction of the $60-million structure for possible addition of safety provisions.

In letters last week, Ford warned against complacency. “Ensuring the safety of public buildings and the citizens of Memphis should demand greater importance than strict adherence to construction timetables,” he wrote. And, he said, “if we are not absolutely positive that the pyramid would survive an earthquake, the future economic cost to taxpayers and the loss of human life would surely be greater than any preventive costs.”

The post-disaster period, when the pictures of destruction and human tragedy are fresh in the public’s mind, “can be a windfall in terms of local planning activity,” said Philip Berke, associate director of the Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center at Texas A&M; University in College Station, Tex.

Following the 1971 San Fernando earthquake, California passed a law that required local governments to incorporate seismic safety elements in their general plans. After the Mexico City quake in 1985, the city of Los Angeles ordered a speed-up in enforcement of a 1981 law that mandated upgrading of unreinforced brick buildings. And just last week, Los Angeles officials proposed a $90-million bond measure for loans to help property owners comply.

After the 1987 earthquake in Whittier and the 1988 quake in Soviet Armenia, the national Building Officials and Code Administrators organization began efforts to standardize earthquake resistance provisions of all national building codes.

The Bay Area quake, which could saddle insurance companies with a multibillion-dollar liability, is moving to the front burner an industry proposal to create a federal earthquake insurance program modeled on a federal program of flood insurance.

“Interest is so keen (now) that the proposal is likely to be introduced (to Congress) before the original deadline of early 1990,” said Franklin W. Nutter, president of the Alliance of American Insurers and chairman of the Earthquake Project.

The proposal stems from industry fears that a larger quake could result in insured losses of as much as $50 billion--an amount that would wipe out many companies. Under the program, the federal government would manage a fund that would cover quake losses. All homeowners or businesses with federally insured mortgages would be required to have earthquake insurance, and premium payments would go into the federal fund.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, which administers the flood insurance program, is putting together its own study of a federal earthquake insurance program. Gary Johnson, chief of FEMA’s earthquakes and natural hazards division, said disaster mitigation provisions would be a necessary component.

Already the proposal has drawn fire from critics who contend that government disaster relief, federal flood insurance programs and mandatory high-risk pools have enabled more property owners to build bigger and more expensive homes along hurricane-vulnerable coasts--virtually worry-free.

In states along the Southeast and Gulf coasts, state laws require insurance companies to offer windstorm insurance in assigned-risk pools like California’s for hard-to-insure motorists. The costs of the high-risk policies are spread among all customers. And while their premiums may be higher than those for neighbors farther inland, folks who live on the coasts and nearby islands say they don’t mind paying the price because it enables them to remain in areas of great natural beauty.

“In the old days in South Carolina, it was a rule, a common sense rule, that you didn’t build something on the coast that you couldn’t just walk away from . . . if it got blown away,” said H. Wayne Beam, executive director of the South Carolina Coastal Council, which administers the state’s beachfront protection law.

Now, he said, people can rebuild time and time again in hazardous areas.

“The federal government has thwarted efforts of state and local governments to try to move people away from high hazard areas,” Beam said. “You can’t get a mortgage unless you get flood insurance, and you can get flood insurance” now from the federal government.

In some cases, the federal insurance is subsidized. “They have federally subsidized loan insurance and are not bearing 100% of the risk,” he said. “The insurance pays off and lets them build in the same place.”

But FEMA officials maintain the flood insurance program, begun in 1968 after many insurance companies stopped providing flood insurance, has helped to reduce risks and redevelopment costs in flood-prone areas.

The program mandates that before property in flood zones can be insured, the local governments must have adopted a flood zone management plan with minimum flood-line setbacks for new development and redevelopment of buildings substantially damaged in disasters.

The program now also prohibits federally backed or insured mortgage loans for property in flood plains, unless the local flood control plans are in place, and includes provisions to help finance property owners’ moves away from hazardous areas.

There are even more restrictions on development of the nation’s barrier islands and shorelines. The Coastal Barrier Act of 1982 prohibits use of federal funds, or even loans from federally insured lending institutions, to build or enhance roads, bridges and other public improvements in barrier areas.

The primary purpose of the act was to protect the fragile environment of these islands and shorelines. A secondary benefit, say hazard management experts, has been to reduce risk of disaster and also public liability.

Regardless of how many restrictions are placed on development, or the availability of reasonably priced insurance, some people will always choose to live in harm’s way.

Pickett of Dauphin Island recalls how some contractors came from Michigan to help in the recovery after Hurricane Frederick, then built their own homes on the island. They have stayed ever since.

Pickett understands them well.

“The joy of living on water is very difficult to explain . . . It’s a gracious life. We wouldn’t move for anything.”

Researcher Nona Yates contributed to this story.