Northridge Earthquake main, Las Vegas Sun, Jan. 16, 1997

After the shock Lisa Ferguson Thursday, Jan. 16, 1997 | 5:24 a.m. It was like being in a war zone, they say. Glass shattered with a deafening roar. Concrete crumbled. Buildings pancaked. Street lamps, stoplights and power poles toppled. Natural gas spewed from broken mains, its stench permeating the still morning air. Flames swirled from gaping fissures in the streets. Block by block, half-million-dollar homes exploded into fireballs. Sirens squealed in the distance, and helicopters rumbled overhead. Desperate cries for help came from beneath piles of rubble. And the shaking continued, never letting on whether the next jolt would be stronger than the last. As any Southern California resident who experienced the sights, smells and sounds of Jan. 17, 1994 will tell you, they indeed waged a war -- against Mother Nature -- that mild winter morning. The shot heard around the Southland was fired at 4:31 a.m., when a magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck the suburban Northridge area, 20 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles in the San Fernando Valley. It was felt as far south as San Diego and as far east as Las Vegas. As the dust was settling, the death toll was mounting: In all, 61 people lost their lives, and thousands more were injured. Damage estimates quickly soared into the billions. But in a place seemingly plagued by natural (and unnatural) disasters -- fire, floods, riots, an unstable economy -- resiliency is a way of life. And Californians have an uncanny knack for bouncing back. Or used to. Though earthquakes are a semi-regular occurance for Los Angelenos, the "Northridge quake" did more than just rattle a few nerves. The shaking and widespread destruction left not only physical bruises, but emotional ones. For many, it was the final blow in their arduous battle for peace of mind in the Golden State. Following the quake, a good many of them packed up what possessions they had left and fled to Las Vegas, seeking refuge from the aftermath and the chance to start over on more stable ground. Just how many, no one's sure, as an official California emigration tally specific to the quake was not kept. One clue, however, may lie in the more than 24,000 California drivers licenses surrendered at Clark County offices of the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles in '94, up 5,000 from the previous year, according to UNLV's Center for Business and Economic Research. Three years later, the Northridge quake remains an ugly, unforgettable memory for most of those who endured its fury. They were the lucky ones, though, able to pick up and move on. But for others, the 10-second shaker proved to be a life-altering event. They continue to grapple with the legal, financial and emotional aftershocks. Lingering effects are common among people who have "faced dramatic and traumatic incidents of a life-threatening nature," explains clinical psychologist Dr. Harrie Hess, a former UNLV psychology professor who has a private practice in Las Vegas. "People are different, and there are some segments among us which really are severely traumatized by events like this, whether it be an auto accident on the highway, thunderstorms, lightning strikes," he says. "We can't generalize because we've got to understand each case. Some of them may indeed be in something like a grieving process for years. "I suppose if we were able to do a count on everyone who went through the Northridge experience that we would find scores of people that just shrugged it off ... for everyone who said, 'I've got to get out of here,'" Hess says. "People behave adaptively. It is adaptive, somewhat, to move out of an earthquake-prone area." Running Scared "It was terribly jolting, ugly," recalls Pat Garifallakis, a former resident of Burbank, about 13 miles from the epicenter. "We had some cosmetic damage on the outside of the house. It really wasn't much at all. But I had had enough," says the England native, who had lived in LA for 20 years. So, nine hours after the quake hit, Pat and her toddler son boarded a plane for Las Vegas, leaving her husband, Nick, a carpenter, behind to tend to repairs and sell the house. "I couldn't take it, I packed up and left with my child. Vegas was closest to my family," but far enough away not to feel the 5.0-plus aftershocks that continued to rattle Southern California, she says. Mother and child lived in Strip hotels for two weeks before renting an apartment. Nick followed three months later, and the couple purchased a home in Spring Valley the following year. Still, Pat's fear persists. "The slightest movement sets me off," she says. Once, when a bird landed on the roof, "I jumped out of bed and held onto my son. I was petrified. "It's affected my health." Just thinking about the quake sends her blood pressure skyrocketing and starts her heart pounding. "I remember the fear and the panic. My husband wanted to go to counseling, but I didn't want to go." The homemaker hopes, instead, that time will heal her emotional wounds. "I've got my house and I've settled in, and as long as I don't think about it too deeply, I'm all right." Expensive reminder It's harder for Charles Mitchell to forget about the destruction: He's still paying for it. The retired LA County deputy sheriff had moved to Boulder City in 1986. But he and his wife, Marlene, returned to the Valley that year to care for his ailing parents and then, following their deaths, oversee probate proceedings on their hillside home in the upscale suburb of Sherman Oaks, eight miles from Northridge. Just as things were wrapping up, the quake struck. "Sherman Oaks was hit very hard," Charles says. "My neighbors four houses down, their house collapsed, slid down the hill and they were killed. We tried to get them out, but they were pinned in. "It was the worst thing I ever went through. It was like an evil hand was shaking the house. I was convinced that this was the end and the house was going to go down the hill." It didn't. Instead, its staircase was thrust upward at an angle. Floor-to-ceiling mirrored walls shattered and ceiling tiles fell to the floor in pieces. City inspectors quickly red-tagged house -- deemed it unfit to occupy -- and it was demolished three months later. "We were fortunate that we had kept up my parents' earthquake insurance," Charles says, but adds the settlement was much less than he had expected for the prime parcel of land overlooking the San Fernando Valley. "Now, I can't even sell that property." Because of its location and the amount of damage that occurred in the neighborhood, "Realtors won't even touch it," he says. If he doesn't find a buyer soon, Charles -- who has since moved back to Boulder City -- will be forced to turn the lot over to Los Angeles County, as he can't afford to continue paying the high property taxes attached to it. The quake "sure turned our life around and destroyed our ambitions and hopes," he says. "All of our plans went down that morning. At least we're still alive, and that's certainly cause to be thankful." Still, "We'll probably never recover from it," he admits. "I don't like to go into Los Angeles at all. I know it's an unreasonable thing, ... but it burned into my psyche." Home in tow And it almost burned down Carol Kehl's house. "It went down with a bang," the 66-year-old says of the mobile home park where she resided in the Santa Clarita Valley, 16 miles from the epicenter. "I think 95 percent of the homes in the park went off their jacks. I saw smoke and flames from the fires" sparked by broken gas connections. In all, 11 mobile homes burned to the ground. But Kehl was lucky. The worst of her damage occurred when her back stairs shifted, landing against her car. "Some people were just abandoning their mobile homes," she says. "The first couple of days (following the quake), there were a lot of people that were moving out." Kehl stayed, at least for a while, until her insurance claims were settled. "But I thought, 'If I could just get out of the park and go someplace else.' I had some contractors give me estimates on repairs," who also advised her that the home was stable enough to be moved. Because her daughter and son-in-law live in Henderson, Southern Nevada was the obvious choice for Kehl. She arrived two months later. Her home was delivered to a mobile home park in East Las Vegas shortly after. "The first summer I was here must have been the hottest summer," she says, "but I told everyone that I'd rather bake than shake." So she had a place to live. Finding a job, on the other hand, wasn't as easy. Before the quake, Kehl had worked for a mortgage company originating loans. "I've found that employers here are reluctant to hire someone who's new to Vegas." Also, "I couldn't go with a (real estate) job that was (straight) commission." Kehl's currently working as an office manager for Junior League of Las Vegas. "I'm plugging along," she says. But moving her home proved to be more costly than it was worth. Kehl recently put it on the market, "so I can get rid of the payment and rent." Looking back, "I think that I should have just walked off, forgot about the mobile home, but I've tried to protect my credit. It's been tough." At ground zero Doug Nebelsieck knew it was time that he escaped from LA. "I was getting paranoid," the former Northridge resident says. His apartment building -- not far from the infamous Northridge Meadows apartments, where 16 people were crushed to death when the building collapsed -- was also red-tagged. "I was (living) like one of the homeless for about five months. We got a little bit of my clothes out, but that was about it. They were afraid it was gonna collapse," he says. The 58-year-old post-polio patient was a longtime LA resident. Because of his condition, "It was hard for me to get around, and the damn aftershocks kept knocking me over. I couldn't handle that anymore." Six months after the quake, Doug made the move to Las Vegas. He'd visited here several times before and knew friends who had retired here, so, "It wasn't like I was coming in cold." Also, "It's a lot cheaper than California. I guess that was the main reason." The retired city worker, who is now wheelchair-bound, lives in an apartment on the east side of town. He usually spends his days reading or visiting local casinos. "It takes awhile, but after a few months, you get back in a routine again," he says. A little homesick Mary Hedglin hopes so. She and her husband, David, a retired electrician, had lived in the same house on a quiet cul-de-sac in Chatsworth -- a former farming town that borders Northridge -- for three decades. Neighbors -- including western stars Roy Rogers and Dale Evans -- were like family. "We congregated in the cul-de-sac, and everybody was caring about everyone else," Mary recalls. It was status quo the morning of the quake. The Hedglin's home -- minus a few block walls -- fared well. Mary's $40,000 crystal collection, however, bit the dust. The couple opened their RV to family and friends, who stayed about a week. All except for Mary -- she lived there four months. "I wouldn't stay in the house. I'll tell ya, it was the most frightening experience that I've ever had," she says. And she likely would have stayed in the motor home for good had David not decided that a move to Las Vegas was in order. "The earthquake was the final nail in the coffin," he says. "The crime had gotten so bad ... I just wanted out of there." They moved into their new home, near The Lakes area, last spring. But Mary is still shaking -- off a case of homesickness, that is. "I don't like it here," the retiree says. "It's like you're in a different world." Meeting new friends -- especially neighbors -- has been tough. "You go outside and not a soul speaks to you, there's nobody out." Back home, "We had potlucks. When somebody was in the hospital, we'd do things for them, but not here." (Mary's convinced the family cat, which ran away from home shortly after the move, had the right idea. "I told (David), 'I didn't want to come and (the cat) didn't want to come, either.'") She also frets that two of the couple's three adult daughters who still live in the LA area will get caught in another quake some day. "I think if they would move out of there, she'd feel better, too," David says. "I know there's a monster everywhere you live," Mary says, "but that monster is something else."