Angelenos shaken by 1994 quake, but not stirring

By Deena Beasley

LOS ANGELES, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Five years after a major earthquake in the Los Angeles region collapsed freeways, crumbled buildings and killed 57 people, experts say residents are acting like it could never happen again.

And they are hoping that the anniversary of what is called the Northridge quake -- which measured a powerful 6.7 on the Richter scale -- will serve to remind Angelenos that it can and will happen again.

Seismologists and other students of after-quake psychology are reminding: The weather is good in southern California, but the earth moves!

The experts say some lessons seem to have been learned:
emergency response systems have been beefed up, and laws passed to tighten building and engineering standards. But few detect much change in the fault-riddled region's psychological climate of denial.

The Jan. 17, 1994, quake centered in the Los Angeles suburb of Northridge -- 24 miles (38 kms) northwest of downtown -- was the costliest single disaster in U.S. history, causing $12.5 billion in insured losses.

``Unless we have a good shaker every once in a while, people tend to forget about it,'' said Dr. Robert Butterworth, a psychologist specializing in trauma issues.

``That sets us up for big problems when the next one occurs -- that's when, not if.''

Although a lot has been learned in terms of seismic engineering since the Northridge quake, overall behavior patterns have barely changed, experts said.

After having to line up at the grocery store for rationed bottled water and finding the shelves empty of batteries and flashlights, many Angelenos were quick to stock survival kits after normalcy returned in the days after the 1994 quake.

But fear has waned after several years of only minor, or very distant, earthquakes.

``That's how people can function here,'' Butterworth noted.

After the 1994 quake, many people did opt to move, contributing to the net outflow of population from the Golden State that occurred in the early 1990s.

But the trend has since reversed, with California's population rising 1.4 percent in 1996 and 1.8 percent in 1997 to more than 33 million today.

Despite the damage inflicted on major freeways, the Northridge quake had no permanent impact on Southern California's reliance on the automobile, and it did little to boost use of rapid transit, the University of California at Los Angeles concluded in a recent transportation research study.

The Northridge quake measured 6.7 on the Richter scale, but its timing -- after four o'clock in the morning on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday -- went a long way toward minimizing the death toll.

In the years since the quake, hundreds of bridges and roadways have been retrofitted, house foundations have been bolted and water heaters must now be strapped to walls.

But scientists say knowledge gleaned from the Northridge quake, along with studies done over the past five years, may indicate an even greater potential for deadly seismic activity in highly populated areas of Southern California.

``Northridge reinforced the importance of thrust faults,'' explained Kate Hutton, seismologist at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).

Thrust faults -- as opposed to visible cracks in the earth like the San Andreas fault -- are caused when different layers of the earth push together, sliding one part over another.

The ground motion in these types of earthquakes is believed to be more than in quakes of the same magnitude where the earth extends and pulls apart.

Caltech is working to improve its ability to detect and respond to earthquakes.

``We had some problems getting information out quickly after Northridge,'' Hutton said. ``But we have been upgrading our systems.''

Caltech, along with Southern California Edison Co. and a number of other businesses, announced on Friday the launch of a large-scale project to install state-of-the-art earthquake monitors at some 600 sites throughout the region.

The so-called TriNet Project is aimed at enhancing the ability of utilities, emergency response teams and other infrastructure businesses to respond to a damaging quake.

Within 10 minutes of an event, TriNet will produce preliminary map information. Within 30 minutes, more detailed maps showing shaking intensity will be produced.

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