In the early morning hours of January 17th, 1994, a 6.7 magnitude earthquake rumbled through Southern California. The epicenter was in the city of Reseda, a neighborhood nestled within the San Fernando Valley, just south of Northridge which received superior damage. The initial thrust struck at 4:31 AM and lasted between 10-20 seconds.
I was 8 years old at the time, living in Gardena, 30 miles south of its origin. My bedroom was in the northwest corner of our 2-story house, facing the street.
I was woken up in bed by a severe jolt followed by several more of them (there was no rolling or wave-like sensation with this earthquake). The house shook back and forth a bit, and then the transformer on the utility pole up the street blew up, and sparks were flying everywhere (which I could see from my bedroom window).
My sister's bedroom was down the hall from mine (the northeast corner of the front of the house), and our parent's room was also on the upper floor but on the whole south, or backside, of the house. I recall my mom, sister, and I then each standing in our respective bedroom doorways for a moment until the shaking stopped. We convened at the top of the stairs and then proceeded down them, thinking it would be safer to stay on the ground floor -- but we were wrong in that moment.
In the minute following the initial earthquake, a 6.0 magnitude aftershock followed. As we were headed down the stairs, the ground moved, and with it, the entire staircase! It was under each of our feet one moment, and then it had shifted backwards the next. I can still visualize to this day how they almost seemed to disappear and we were floating in mid-air. It's amazing we didn't twist or break our ankles. However, my mom did fall out of the air in that moment, and hard. The thud was palpable, and she developed a large black and blue bruise for the next several weeks.
I can't explain why I have no memory of my dad being there with us, either in our doorways or on the stairs. By my recollection, he had already been enroute to work that morning which left us worried throughout the day.
However, he recalls being woken up in bed like the rest of us by the earthquake, seeing the power lines and utility poles behind our house arcing to and fro like they could fall down at any moment, and then heading into work. You see, he worked as a respiratory therapist at St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica. He knew they'd need him on the frontlines in a critical time like this, and they did. I'm sure his memory of his whereabouts that day is clearer than mine.
Once downstairs, my mom, sister, and I turned on the television. For the next several hours, we watched the crazy news reports showing collapsed freeways, crushed cars, ruptured gas mains, fires, floods, landslides, fatalities, etcetera. We were just hoping that my dad would come home safely. And my mom was resolute in the fact that we wouldn't be going to school that day (considering it was Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday, I'd venture a guess we had that day off anyhow).
My dad's day certainly looked different than ours.
He drove into work in the wee morning hours. It was still pitch black outside, and even darker than normal, as most neighborhoods had lost power. He recalls seeing only one other car on the freeway in front of him. He kept close on its rear to see its tail lights glowing red, but distant enough in preparation to slam on his breaks should they fall out of sight. This was in reaction to having remembered the freeways crumbling during the 1971 Sylmar earthquake. His hesitation was wise, as most of the southland's freeways did indeed fall apart.
He arrived at the hospital to find it a near ghost town. The ground floor was covered in water about an inch thick. The second floor had pancaked and all of its windows had spewed glass inwards. The NICU was on that floor, but by some miracle, all of the infants had been protected by their individual, enclosed bassinets.
Kevin McDermott, the respiratory therapist on duty in that unit throughout the night shift and into that morning, was surprised to see him and asked what he was doing there. My dad said he came to help, of course. He asked if there was anything Kevin needed, to which he responded, yes, more oxygen tanks. My dad went on the hunt for the tanks but found the door to that room jammed due to everything having shifted in the earthquake. Eventually, he managed to get in and retrieve the necessary tanks and secure others back to the wall.
At the time, we didn't have cell phones (let alone texting or social media), so there was no telling what his status was throughout the day. Thankfully, he made it home okay. Plus, our house stayed intact, with the exception of hairline cracks, and of course some fallen items in the house here and there.
St. John's, especially the north wing, was severely damaged as my dad had witnessed. Within a couple days, it was red-tagged, and by the end of the week, all patients were evacuated. Nearly the entire workforce (about 2,000 employees) were let go by the end of the month, including my father. The hospital would not reopen for another 9 months, requiring demolition of an entire wing and funds from FEMA to help rebuild.
The following is where the timeline gets fuzzy, but in the days or weeks following, our whole family visited my dad's hospital to see the damage it had sustained.
The collapse of the 2nd floor was visible from the exterior. The ground floor also was impacted, but aside from a few broken windows, the upper floors (at least from the outside) oddly looked intact and unscathed. I'm sure that's not the case in its actual structure, but visibly in the aftermath, you'd never know those floors had also been through an earthquake.
What I don't have is any specific memory of the several thousand aftershocks over the following months. I do remember them happening and being slightly worried that one could surpass the shaking and damage of the initial quake, because that's what they were saying on the news, but I don't have any further memories tied to them such as where I was or what I was doing when any of them struck; that includes another large one that hit about 11 hours after the major earthquake. It would have been about 1:30 PM, but other than reading about it now, I don't remember it.
My mother's family members, I'm sure, were more acutely aware of the week's events, because my mom's aunt Sheila (and Sheila's son Ryan) lived in the heart of Northridge at the time. Surprisingly, neither of them was seriously hurt. A lot of other residents in the city were not as lucky.
Sheila recalls:
"I remember the day as it was yesterday. A terrifying experience. I've never been that terrified before or since.
We kept a gas shut-off tool in a drawer by the front door. As Ryan and I exited the house, he took the tool and went to every house on our block and shut off their gas. He was 15 at the time.
The aftershocks were frightening, as well. We went to Dean and Robin's house in Simi Valley. We ended up staying there for 3 months, because our house was yellow tagged on one side and red tagged on the other side where the fireplace had to be removed. It took about 6 years to get it all repaired/replaced."
My grandmother, Sheila's sister, left behind a journal from 1994 in which she recorded each day's activities that week:
"Jan 17 - Mon. MLK Jr's BD in the background 6.6 earthquake hit @ 4:31 am. Have not been able to contact Sheila or Dean. Tammy did call Carol from Lancaster. No major damage for any of us. Sabrina called. Lori called. Talked to Carol several times. Finally got thru to Dean around 6pm. Ryan + Sheila there. Sabrina called again - Beann + Franne are fine and no excessive Damage. Eileen + family also OK but lots of glass broken.
Jan 18 Mon Tues Lynn called. Death toll up to 34 now. Bright - sunny + cool this early am. TV is still only earthquake news. John called. Talked to Carol. Sheila called. Hasn't gone to work yet. Lots of clean up to do plus repairs. Does have Insur.
Jan 19. Weds. Another call to Peter Cody. Will get back to me; Ins. Co. says I had an accident in Nov 1992, so am waiting to see what to do.
Jan 20 Thurs Spent some hrs grocery shopping. Have more to do. Have most put away. Clinton in CA to survey the quake damage. Anticipate 30 billion dollars to repair the damage. St John's Hosp evacuated.
Jan 21 Fri..."
In total, the earthquake left upwards of 60 people dead and destroyed more than 15,000 apartments and homes. One apartment building near the epicenter accounted for nearly 30 percent of those deaths. It was certainly an event in California's history that my family will not forget having witnessed.
Even the inventor of the Richter scale (though already deceased prior to 1994) fell victim to the Northridge quake.
Sources:
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-01-28-me-16393-story.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1994/02/08/la-shaken-to-its-foundations/7ee6e034-0be2-4ae1-8cc9-e325f1401f81/
https://smdp.com/2014/01/17/santa-monicans-remember-northridge-earthquake/
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