[. It Wasn't like LA Story.]

Do you remember what you were doing at 4:31 a.m. on Monday, January 17, 1994?

Well, I was sleeping. I was eight years old; there was no school that day, thank God, because it was a holiday. 
I was lost in a dream, when a previously unknown thrust fault in the northeastern San Fernando Valley, freight-trained itself through Northridge to the house in which I was living.

My bed was built in between a wall panel where I believe a washer and dryer belonged. To be honest, I didn't feel the earthquake. It was the loud banging that woke me up; I didn't know what it was, so I tossed up my blanket over my head frusterated and rolled over.
Suddenly, all of my Encyclopedias and statues began falling off the built-in shelves over my bed. One book managed to hit me square in the face, actually in the corner of my right eye, turning it into a bruise for the following week.
After it finally passed through, the shaking may have soon dissipated, but the house continued to sway back and forth with creaks and cracks while shedding various things. Pictures and collectibles and such continued to fall with bangs and shatters, echoing, underscored by a strange, surreal and incessant sound that to this day sends chills drag racing down my spine.
Then, there was complete silence. I wasn't afraid for myself, I began to panic thinking my parents were dead. I cried out for them, my mom shouted "Chels?! Are you all right?! D's coming to get you, stay in your bed!” My Dad walked through what I remember to be 4-5 inches of glass to get to my bed and carry me into their room. Luckily I wasn't so far away. I remember when he picked me up I asked "did the roof fall down?" I really had no idea. It was so dark, and still, so very silent. Not too long after, the birds began panicking and crying.. the phone started ringing off the hook. All of our relatives who had and hadn't felt the earthquake were calling, it was all over the news and our house was in the epicenter.
We received many calls from worried family members, fortunately none of them lived in the Valley.

The inside of our house... The kitchen was absolutely trashed. I remember the fridge doors being wide open and everything that had been in it was now on the floor. Applesauce was everywhere. I remember eating Frosted Flakes out of a box, once my mom checked the inside for glass, of course. That's funny, you can actually spot the box on top of the rest of the pile of ruined food.
In the living room, beyond the mountain of stuff on the floor, many drawers against the walls had emptied out hundreds of VHS tapes. Our television set had timbered down across my floor. I was supposed to have my two best friends stay the night, that night. I usually slept in the middle; you can see what would've happened to the three of us.
My bed was now littered with hardback books among jagged shards and pieces of those shelves. My parent's room was full of glass pieces from my mom's collection of porcelain dolls and my dad's statue collections.
We stayed at home until the aftershocks stopped. Each one was no smaller than a 5.0. I was too young to understand everything, so I wasn't sure if our house was going to crumble everytime the ground shook. Later on we went on a drive to check out the damage. And to pick up water and food. The sun had hardly risen yet, so it was very difficult to see how bad it really was. It still didn't feel very real to me, but as daylight began to show the destruction, it was clear that this was real. And it was tragic.
Severed gas lines hissed from broken foundations. In some areas, they turned into leaping flames destroying everything that came in their way. The Northridge Meadows apartments where ultimately 16 people lost their lives, was a prospect home for my Uncle, Aunt and cousins. Seconds after the earthquake hit. The first floor of the building collapsed under the weight of the top two stories. I learned that a section of the Santa Monica Freeway had collapsed, as had a transition from the Antelope Valley Freeway to the Golden State. We drove downtown where the Northridge Mall was destroyed; Bullocks Department Store in the mall had completely collapsed. One parking structure collapsed into a pile about twenty feet high, trapping a worker inside. We drove by numerous apartment buildings, one was white and I remember seeing a large, stuffed Pink Panther animal on the balcony. That has forever stayed in my mind.

We returned home after awhile to clean up what we could. That night we stayed with my Grandma in Monrovia, we felt somewhat safe there. And were very thankful to have somewhere to go. Many others didn't. I don't remember doing much else, besides watching the news with my parents. Each story was more horrifying than the last. The deaths from the collapse of Northridge Meadows, the motorcycle cop who plunged with his bike off the end of the Santa Monica Bridge, while racing in to duty. When the interchange was rebuilt again one year later, it was renamed the Clarence Wayne Dean Memorial Interchange in his honor.

The following days my Dad received calls from his customers asking him to look at their houses. They had been condemned. We drove into a neighborhood where my Dad had remodeled homes; the foundation was cracked, leaving a six inch gap between their living room floors. One man pointed it out to me and jokingly told me to "not fall into the Earth". All around these housing tracks, were families setting up tents and trying to clean what was left of their homes. Many doors had been red-tagged, indicating that an emergency inspection had been performed and found the house to be unsafe for entry or inhabitation.

We drove by CSUN, where a parking structure collapsed and three buildings were severely damaged and were unrepairable. Several other buildings of the college were damaged as well.
Balboa had flooded due to obstruction of the pipelines and there was a giant dust cloud engulfing the sky.

The one inspiring moment was when rescuers were able to bring out a worker alive who had been trapped in a destroyed Northridge Plaza parking structure. I remember my whole family watching the news, following this story, praying that he survives.

Aftershocks continued for days after the earthquake. My heart still stops when I feel a building shake, even though I'm now in Arizona and it's merely just the motions of people moving about.
I'll never, ever forget that day. We moved to Simi Valley not too long after that. A year later, my Dad died. One painful event after another. I guess those two years had a strong impact on my life.
I love California, my heart is there...but these images in my mind are sobering reminders that while California is a beautiful place to live, life can be unstable.

-C

Here are my Mom's memories of that day.

http://docs.google.com/View?id=dc77qx9_0g4trvpc4

(when she says "you", she is referring to me.)