THE TIMES POLL : Quake Aftereffects Run Deep in Hard-Hit Areas

A year after the Northridge earthquake violently shook Los Angeles’ physical and emotional foundations, a sizable share of county residents, particularly in the hard-hit San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys, still suffer hardships, psychological aftereffects or delays in repairing their homes, a new Times Poll has found.

A wide majority of Los Angeles County residents say their lives have returned to normal. But one-third of adults in the valley communities close to the epicenter of the disaster--one of the most destructive and costly in U.S. history--say their families’ lives have not returned to normal, and nearly one in four say they are worse off financially.

In those areas, more than half of those whose residences need repairs have not completed them, the poll found. About the same percentage said they or their children continue to suffer from sleeplessness, jittery nerves, fearfulness or other emotional upset. Indeed, a majority of residents in the worst affected areas now say they suffered a “great deal” or “good amount” of quake-caused hardships, an increase from the period just after the damage occurred.

Fully one-quarter of county residents--and half of those in areas that incurred the greatest damage--said they still had some pressing problem or difficulty caused by the quake. Psychological effects were often cited, but a range of unwelcome changes involving life at home and work also were mentioned, from lost business income to difficulty finishing repairs. In addition, 30% of parents surveyed countywide said their children continue to have nightmares and other emotional aftereffects linked to the Jan. 17 quake.

In broad brush, the poll of 1,141 county residents, including a large sample in the vast, still-recovering northwest valleys, found evidence of both the resilient, adaptable post-disaster spirit hailed by leaders from President Clinton to Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, and a wide streak of continuing personal pain and disruption. The poll’s margin of error is plus or minus three percentage points.

Despite the trials still faced by some, a remarkable amount of healing has occurred. Eighty-five percent of residents countywide--and even two of three in the most affected valleys--say they and their families have “pretty much gotten back to normal.” Just 3% of adults in the two valleys--and 1% in the rest of the county--say they are still in temporary housing.

The shambles of cracked walls, destroyed furniture and badly damaged block walls at their Northridge home--at least $50,000 in wreckage all told--are a fading memory for Barbara Cirks and her husband, Duane.

With steady effort, insurance reimbursements and a goal of having repairs completed by their daughter’s high school graduation, the Cirks’ Porter Ranch home was completely restored by summer. “We were very lucky,” said the 46-year-old secretary, who works at her church. “We did many of the major things ourselves. My husband is just one of those people who knows how to do things.”

“Psychologically, we felt cool” right away, she added, explaining that she suffered greater losses in the 1971 Sylmar earthquake. She has moved beyond quake-related worries in her own household and has empathy to spare for those caught in fresh travails--such as last week’s storms. “I’m at the point I’m worrying about people in the flooding, because I know how bad that must be for them.”

“Everybody really adapts,” said 69-year-old Don Minassian, who lives in the Lancaster area and had to map routes around collapsed freeways in the first months after the quake. “We all holler and scream and yell about earthquakes, but when all is said and done, we have to adjust. We’re tenants on this Earth and Mother Nature dictates.”

Although “most people, even in the valleys, have gotten back to normal,” said John Brennan, director of The Times Poll, “a sizable minority has not.” With more than 700,000 adults in the most seriously affected valley areas--and some 6 million adults countywide--the poll indicates that large numbers of households continue to be adversely affected.

Michael Lyttle of Hollywood is feeling both psychological and financial aftershocks. “I’m still very nervous and jumpy,” he said. “When my neighbor’s washing machine got off balance the other day, I thought we were having another earthquake.” And it will take years to pay off the debts he ran up keeping his Robertson Boulevard miniature dollhouse shop going through a business slump after the quake.

When last week’s rainstorm kicked tiles around on John Tobin’s roof in the middle of the night, he leaped out of bed from a sound sleep and started to run, fearing another quake had struck.

Tobin, 37, an advertising consultant who lives in Woodland Hills, said he is not worried about earthquakes, but has developed a heightened sense of caution. “I just think it’s survival instinct,” he said. When trucks rumble by on a nearby freeway, he and his wife, Karen, often fear it’s the first tremors of another quake, he said. Karen Tobin also sleeps a lot less soundly since the magnitude 6.7 quake, which did $100,000 damage to their home and toppled a tall, heavy headboard on the sleeping couple.

In Calabasas, Michael Bangos and his wife, Artemis, came through the quake relatively untouched--their home suffered only $3,200 in damage--but that awful, pre-dawn moment keeps revisiting the 67-year-old retired gift shop operator. Like clockwork, at 4:30 a.m. each morning--one minute before the quake struck--Bangos awakes.

“I wake up for awhile before I can doze off again,” he said. “I say, ‘Here it is. It must be 4:30.’ ”

Many Reminders

In the Pico-Union area, southwest of Downtown, Raul Flores still lives with physical reminders of the quake, including separated walls and a dislodged concrete stairwell in the older apartment buildings he manages. City inspectors have declared the buildings safe, but the cosmetic problems remain--some extremely expensive to correct, he said. The building owner still hopes to arrange fix-up financing, but it is unclear when or if it is ever going to be repaired, Flores said.

Only in the past several weeks has Jill Kaufman come to comprehend the damage to her home near the Westside’s Miracle Mile--and begun navigating the disaster recovery labyrinth of inspectors, relief agencies and contractors. The 38-year-old advertising art director noticed her house slowly shifting and separating from the concrete. Then inspectors found considerable damage to her 60-year-old residence’s foundation. “Everything looked fine to us (but) the pilings broke underneath,” she said. “We’re reluctantly dealing with it.”

The lingering effects of the quake seem to be feeding a generally more pessimistic view of community life and personal finances in the San Fernando-Santa Clarita valleys, where 42% of adults describe the quake as one of the worst experiences of their lives. Only 16% of county residents farther from the epicenter describe the event so starkly.

The poll found that 27% of adults in the valleys said they are dissatisfied with their communities, compared to 17% elsewhere in the county. And 35% described their personal financial situations as “shaky,” compared to 27% in the rest of the county.

“The people in the valleys are less sanguine than people in the rest of the county,” said Brennan. “The quake contributes to it, although it may not be the only factor.”

Although there are more negative feelings in the valley areas compared to the rest of the county, 57% of adults there said they do not think the quality of life in their community has changed much. Twenty-two percent said life has gotten worse, and 18% said it is better.

Since the seismic thrashing that caused $90,000 damage to Rodney Blackford’s Granada Hills home, much of the fun has gone out of his family life. A vacation he and his wife, Bea, planned to take with their 10-year-old daughter has fallen victim to bills and rebuilding. All the money the couple earns--he as an electrician, she as a dental assistant--goes to meet expenses incurred fixing the house since the quake.

“The money’s not there,” said the 38-year-old Blackford. “Financially, the burden is a lot harder for people now, because they have more debt, which means less money to play with.”

A Sense of Loss

For others, the sense of continuing loss is more subtle--a sentimental possession lost, a neighborhood amenity shuttered. Marty Willinski of Northridge is almost embarrassed to complain. His chimney had to be replaced and cracked walls patched, but “I was lucky,” said the 66-year-old retired engineer.

Still, he misses trips to the nearby Northridge Fashion Square, still partially closed. What hurts most is the destruction of sculptures created by his late wife. “You can’t put a dollar value on that,” he said. “I actually try not to think about the loss of things.”

Fully 90% of adults in the valleys reported some damage to their homes, and 38% of those said losses exceeded $10,000. In the remainder of the county, 42% of adults said their residences were damaged, although losses exceed $10,000 in only 9% of those cases.

Of those who suffered damage, nearly half in the northern valleys applied for federal assistance, compared to just 19% of those reporting damage elsewhere in the county.

Flores, the Pico-Union apartment manager, lost several hundred dollars in electronic equipment in the quake, but sought no reimbursement. “I just kind of went along,” he said. “People were . . . more concerned about getting (their lives) back together.”

The overwhelming majority of people who did seek aid received some payment, for the most part checks under $3,000 that arrived within two months.

The poll suggests exaggerated claims may have been more widespread than the relative handful of 37 criminal prosecutions thus far would indicate. Countywide, 8% of adults said they personally knew of someone who falsely inflated damage claims to get bigger payments from insurance companies or the government. In the valleys near Northridge, 15% of residents said they knew of such misrepresentations.

“I’d like to think the number’s not that high, but wouldn’t be surprised if there are many more prosecutable cases we are unaware of,” said Assistant U.S. Atty. Michael Emmick, chief of the government fraud section.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s chief of investigations, Paul Lillis, said fraud clearly is a problem, and urged those with information about false claims to report it. “These are tax dollars going out there . . . everyone has an obligation, a civic duty if you will, to combat fraud. They are stake holders.”

Brennan described the quake as “an equal opportunity disaster.”

“Basically, the rich and whites were hurt like the poor were hurt,” he said. Though damage was reported most frequently by relatively affluent residents close to the epicenter, a disproportionate share of blacks, who tend to be concentrated in the southern section of the county, reported financial and psychological aftereffects. Thirty-six percent of blacks reported a “good amount” of hardship, compared to 21% of whites and 28% of Latinos.

The reasons for the high rate of hardship reported by blacks are not clear, though the poll findings parallel a recent Times study of damage reports compiled by FEMA.

Emmett E. Rowe, 42, an African American bus driver who lives near Inglewood, received replacement funds for a refrigerator and other damaged property totaling about $800, then was laid off by his charter tour company when business plummeted after the quake.

Now working as a driver for Pepperdine University, the ex-Marine and father of a 15-month-old daughter said, “I was off the job for three months. If it wasn’t for FEMA’s helping us in emergency food stamps, things would have been really, really rough.”

Blacks also reported more lingering quake-related worries, including fears about the safety of their families. “The way I feel now, I just don’t trust Los Angeles, California, that much anymore,” said Rowe. “Everything seems to be going toward the prophecies of the Bible . . . fire, floods, earthquakes.”

Overall, the proportion of people reporting nervousness, sleeplessness and other psychological aftereffects has diminished by about half since immediately after the quake.

But the new poll suggests that large numbers of children, particularly those living nearer the epicenter, continue to suffer emotional stress. About two in five parents in the San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys--and more than one in four in the rest of the county--said their children still suffer nightmares or other problems.

Also, parents who reported continuing psychological aftereffects were more likely to report problems among their children as well, the poll found.

For six months after the quake, George Tsai’s three children were so frightened they insisted on sleeping in the same room with their parents. The children, 6, 12 and 14, have returned to their own rooms, but the memory of the quake--which did $60,000 worth of damage to their home--is still so frightening they don’t want to talk about it.

“They don’t even want to mention it, they were so scared,” said Tsai, 37, a computer engineer who lives in hard-hit Chatsworth. Tsai also is troubled by the experience and frequently wakes up in the middle of the night.

“It’s very scary to think back,” he said.

“Even now, we still have these (aftershocks). . . . Any time the house is moving, we feel the same way. The whole family gets nervous.”

On the brighter side, the poll found widespread satisfaction with the way federal, state and local agencies, as well as insurance companies, responded to the quake.

And despite news of insurance firms withdrawing from providing earthquake coverage in the California market, the poll found the number of people with quake policies had increased slightly in the valley areas since before the quake and remained the same elsewhere.

Better Prepared

There also has been a sharp increase in quake preparedness, including the share of county residents who have taken steps to secure loose objects, strap down water heaters and stockpile water and batteries. Just 31% of adults countywide--and only 16% of those in the valleys--have taken no precautions, down from 51% and 52% respectively before the quake.

That may partly explain a rebound in confidence--even in more seriously damaged areas--that people will be safe in their homes during “the big earthquake.”

The quake actually bolstered Georg Ann Walters’ confidence in her four-bedroom Chatsworth home, which suffered $50,000 worth of damage, but no fundamental structural problems. “I feel better about it than I did before,” she said. “I don’t think our house would ever collapse.”

But Brennan notes that a darker resignation endures about the region’s ability to prepare for the much-predicted giant quake to come.

Majorities across the county say they are doubtful that Los Angeles can take the steps necessary to come through “the Big One” relatively unscathed.

* RELATED STORY: B1

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Rebounding From the Quake

A year after the Northridge earthquake, most Los Angeles County residents say their lives are back to normal. But others still suffer hardships of some kind, the latest Times Poll has found.

How much hardship did you and your immediate family suffer because of last January’s earthquake?

SAN FERNANDO AND SANTA CLARITA VALLEYS Not much: 36% A good amount: 34% A great deal: 21% None at all: 9% ***

REST OF L.A. COUNTY Not much: 41% None at all: 39% A good amount: 14% A great deal: 6% ***

Has your life and the lives of your immediate family pretty much gotten back to normal now, or is the earthquake having a longer-term impact on the way you and your family live?

SAN FERNANDO AND SANTA CLARITA VALLEYS Has gotten back to normal: 67% Having major long-term impact: 18% Having minor long-term impact: 15% ***

REST OF L.A. COUNTY Has gotten back to normal: 87% Having minor long-term impact: 8% Having major long-term impact: 4% Don’t know: 1% ***

What kind of financial impact has the earthquake had on you and your household?

HOUSEHOLD INCOME Rest of Less SFV/ L.A. than $20,000- $40,000 SCV* County $20,000 $39,999 $59,999 Better off financially 9% 5% 4% 5% 10% Worse off financially 23% 10% 20% 9% 9% Little change 66% 82% 71% 84% 80%

More than $60,000 Better off financially 4% Worse off financially 12% Little change 83%

***

How much do you know about how your dwelling is prepared to withstand a strong earthquake?

HOUSEHOLD INCOME Rest of Less More SFV/ L.A. than $20,000- $40,000 than SCV* County $20,000 $39,999 $59,999 $60,000 Great deal 14% 10% 5% 9% 16% 19% Good amount 32% 27% 22% 29% 29% 37% Not much 29% 34% 37% 36% 29% 24% Nothing at all 22% 26% 32% 24% 24% 14%

***

How safe do you think you would be in your home if “the big earthquake” struck?

HOUSEHOLD INCOME Rest of Less More SFV/ L.A. than $20,000- $40,000 than SCV* County $20,000 $39,999 $59,999 $60,000 Safe 50% 52% 48% 60% 55% 50% Unsafe 38% 38% 46% 33% 37% 36%

***

Given the amount of damage from the earthquake, are you confident or doubtful that Los Angeles can take steps it needs to get through “the Big One” relatively unscathed if it comes?

HOUSEHOLD INCOME Rest of Less More SFV/ L.A. than $20,000- $40,000 than SCV* County $20,000 $39,999 $59,999 $60,000 Confident 34% 35% 31% 42% 35% 33% Doubtful 57% 53% 56% 44% 59% 61%

* San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys.

Some numbers do not add up to 100% because the “don’t know” category is not shown.

How the Poll Was Conducted

The Times Poll interviewed 1,141 Los Angeles County adults by telephone, Jan. 7-9. Telephone numbers were chosen from a list of all exchanges in the county. Random-digit dialing techniques were used so that listed and non-listed numbers could be contacted. Interviewing was conducted in English and Spanish. The sample was weighted slightly to conform with census figures for sex, race, age and education. The sample numbers 627 in the San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys and 514 in the rest of the county; these groups are weighted to the proper proportions when countywide results are reported. The margin of sampling error for the total sample is plus or minus 3 percentage points. For certain subgroups the error margin may be somewhat higher. Poll results can also be affected by other factors such as question wording and the order in which questions are presented.