Aftershocks: One year after the quake

Aftershocks: One year after the quake

Aftershocks. A year later, the Southland still feels the
physical, psychological and social reverberations lingering from
the Northridge Quake.

This issue explores the aftershocks that impacted the UCLA
community in the past year. Seismologists predicted the tremors
would continue, but the past year has shown that these other
aftershocks have also interrupted our return to normal life. For
many, the clean-up continues. For others, the rebuilding goes on.
And for most, the Jan. 17 earthquake remains with us as a reminder
of our tenuous stability.

By Nancy Hsu

4:31 a.m. Southern California residents awoke that Monday
morning to what seemed like a mild earthquake. Seconds later, a
powerful jolt told them this was no ordinary California
tumbler.

One year later, students remember the quake.

"I thought it was just another one of those small earthquakes,
but it really lasted for a long time," said Debi Pian, a third-year
biochemistry student who was in the bed of her Sproul Hall dorm
room when the quake hit. "I was in my loft and it was shaking back
and forth. My roommate and I stayed in bed and when it stopped, we
climbed down and got in the hallway. Our whole floor was in the
hallway. Some people slept there. One guy had a radio. People just
wanted to be together."

The 30-second quake that sent Pian and her friends into the hall
measured 6.7 on the Richter scale. Centered below heavily-populated
Northridge, the quake sparked fires, crumbled parts of major
freeways and blacked out portions of Los Angeles.

Cheryl Rea, a fourth-year sociology student, was at her home in
Torrance when the quake hit. Experiencing no electrical problems,
she turned on the television and saw wreckage everywhere. The Santa
Monica (10) Freeway collapse was particularly shocking.

"I was like, whoa," she said. "I drove those freeways a
lot."

County emergency officials worked overtime to rescue trapped
residents. City officials also tried to restore power to 82,000
Valley residents. Department of Water and Power officials also
scrambled to fix a chlorinating facility that left much of the
Westside without drinking water.

While county and city personnel worked, campus officials were
also busy assessing damages to the school. Chemical spills in the
science buildings and damage to other classrooms forced
administrators to cancel classes Tuesday and Wednesday.

Kerckhoff Hall and Royce Hall sustained the most structural
damage. Spires adorning the top of Kerckhoff rotated six inches
during the quake. School officials, fearing that a strong
aftershock would send the spires toppling down onto students below,
had the concrete decorations removed with cranes. Cracks in both
towers of Royce also forced officials to close the hall until it
could be renovated.

Cracked ceilings, walls, shattered glass and buckled doorways
also marred the residence halls. Students in Dykstra Hall, the
tallest and oldest of the four high-rise complexes, were forced by
campus police to evacuate. They were allowed to re-enter an hour
later.

Some students, however, were trapped in their rooms when the
door frames to their rooms shifted. The door to one ninth-floor
dorm room had to be kicked down after two hours of trying to pry
the door open with a crow bar.

"I used to work at the front desk and I know the front desk was
getting a lot of calls from parents and from people stuck in their
rooms," Pian said. "My (resident assistant), her window
shattered."

Students living in nearby apartments also sought comfort in
numbers. After making sure their neighbors were okay, many on
Midvale Avenue gathered on the street, listening to car radios
tuned to local news stations.

"We were there," said Vince Ayroso, a cell and molecular biology
student who was at a friend’s apartment on Midvale. "It was sort of
a bonding moment. I was in bed, staring at the ceiling, waiting for
it to fall down. When it stopped, I put some clothes on and got out
the door. It was all dark."

In the days that followed, the resiliency of southern California
residents and the ability of the UCLA community to pull together
was put to the test. Individual students, fraternities, sororities,
groups from residence halls and other campus organizations went to
the epicenter in droves to help with the clean up effort.

At American Red Cross shelters, students wearing UCLA and greek
sweatshirts could be seen making sandwiches and sorting donated
goods for those left homeless by the quake.

"Four or five of us went out to a regional distribution center
and there were a lot of other people there from UCLA," said Vivian
Huang, a third year biochemistry student and Bruin Belles member.
"They had boxes and boxes of canned food and clothes and we helped
sort them out. Since UCLA is such a huge diverse school, it was
really great how we got to go out and help everybody. It was like
giving back to the community."

It has been a year since the quake rattled Angelenos’ nerves.
Many are still picking up the pieces. Ongoing construction
throughout campus and empty corners in the city where buildings
used to stand are constant reminders that one year later, the story
continues.