Aftershocks: Nobody Here
Believes in Terra Firma Anymore
by Judith Broadhurst

Aggression. Depression. Rocky readings on the emotional Richter scale register Santa Cruz County's struggle with a sense of loss and uncertainty as the one-year anniversary of the Loma Prieta earthquake approaches.

Photo: Wooden figures by a cordoned-off area where a building crumbled during the 1989 earthquake, which destroyed much of the historical district in downtown Santa Cruz

Jenny's only eight years old, but she's too old to be going through what she has been recently. The change came over her suddenly, it seemed, when her mother was dropping her off for a music lesson one day this July.

"She started to shake and she started to cry and didn't want me to leave," says her mother, Kate. "And then she started saying that she was afraid there's going to be an earthquake, and something's going to happen to her dad or me, and that we won't be able to come get her."

Jenny's getting better, Kate says, but she adds, "It's horrible that you try to be brave and tell kids that something's okay when you're not sure that it is."

Helping ordinary people cope

Jenny's regression is predictable, says Karen Krestensen, the Soquel-based counselor they've been seeing through Project COPE (Counseling Ordinary People in Emergencies). "Jenny's typical in that she's having the fears, but she's atypical in that she's talking about it. Parents tend to think that if kids aren't talking about it then it's settled down. What kids do is they go underground. They don't want to upset their parents or be sissies."

The parents are just as scared sometimes, says Krestensen. "One of the things that has really touched me is the anguish of the mothers. Their greatest fear isn't the house falling down around them or dying, it's keeping their children safe, being able to get to them in an earthquake.

"It's universal among women with small children, and it really shows in their faces and in their voices. Most of them have dealt with any guilt they had if they weren't with their children when the quake hit, but let there be a good 5.0 aftershock, and it reactivates."

Shaken to the core

Krestensen might as well have said that fear is universal in Santa Cruz County, the epicenter of last October's 7.1 temblor.

Wanda Harris, of Watsonville, has seldom slept in her bedroom, at the back of her house, since. She's taken a new job and apartment in San Jose, turning her house over to someone else. Harris' house has been livable all along. It is her sense of security that has been shaken to the core.

"I feel closed off in my bedroom, and worry that I can't escape," Harris says. "I'm real cognizant of where I sit when I go into a restaurant or nightclub. I'll never go into a large, enclosed stadium again. I have this fear of being trapped inside.

"Whenever I see newsreels of houses flooded or hurricanes, I cry. I cry when I least expect it. I'm very, very emotional now, whereas before, I was not."

Joann and Gaylord Forbes, retired educators in their late 50s, expect to be living in temporary housing for another ten months or more while their Loma Alta ranch house is repaired. They were in the house when it rocked off its foundation and the adjacent garage apartment collapsed and slid down the hillside. "We still have nightmares, and I feel it took a toll physically," says Joann.

"Every once in a while I'll have a day that's an incredible downer," adds Gaylord. "I've never really had that, and there's nothing that I can pin it on. The only way I can face it is to feel like five years out we're going to have a place as friendly and beautiful as it was. It's not going to be the same place. The mall was where our architectural heritage was displayed. But you can't dwell on what's lost."

PTSD spells "normal"

Many professionals would say Jenny, Harris, and the Forbes are suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). But Richard Gist, Ph.D., author of Psychological Aspects of Disaster and a consultant to disaster teams, cautions against blithely labeling someone with a psychiatric disorder when they're reacting normally to an abnormal situation.

According to Francis Abueq, Ph.D., a researcher at the National Center for PTSD at the Vet's Hospital in Palo Alto, most people are back to coping reasonably by six months after severe trauma. It's only when they're unable to function at home, work or school and get back to the business of living, that they may be in real trouble.

But both experts agree that a year is too soon to expect full recovery. A major quake is a life-changing event, they say, one that will affect each of our lives evermore, for better or worse.

"I grew up knowing on an intellectual level what the Big One was," says Gist, a Californian. "It's a specter that looms over us, yet it was never a part of our day-to-day life. This makes many of the fears that we were able to deny very real.

"By now, people are starting to see the parts of what broke that are not so easily fixed. It's like 'I can rebuild my house, but I can't rebuild my basic sense of security.'"

Rebuilding blocks

The nearer you are to the end of your working life, the harder it is to adjust. As Joann Forbes laments, "We thought we had our lives in order and structured financially for retirement and, suddenly, that was wiped out."

If you're 74 years old and a widower, like Peter, rebuilding anything seems hopeless. Peter lived in the now demolished Casa Del Rey retirement hotel. Like most downtown Santa Cruz residents and business owners, he was given 15 minutes to grab everything he owned, including the keepsakes of a lifetime.

"They allowed us 15 minutes again later," Peter says, "But by then I didn't care anymore. I didn't feel I had anything to live for. "I was thinking of killing myself, to be truthful, because I couldn't see any future."

In desperation, he called the Red Cross. "When I saw what a mess everybody was in, I volunteered to help," Peter says. He's still doing it, three days a week.

Like many in Santa Cruz County these days, Peter avoids thinking about his losses. "I just have to keep very busy," he explains. "The people at the Red Cross are just like my family."

It's the family feeling of Casa Del Rey he misses so much. Counting the hotel, Peter has had to move three times this past year, something no one handles well, especially the elderly. Of what's happened to his friends from Casa Del Rey — the ones he can find — Peter says, "They're just drifting around. They don't know where they're going."

It's not only the weakest among us, the very young and the very old, who are still so vulnerable. "It's especially difficult for people whose identity is built on being competent," says Margaret Newport, a private therapist who sees clients referred by the FEMA-funded Project COPE.

Mardi Wormhoudt, the Mayor of Santa Cruz, is a prime example. On the surface, she's doing fine. She's sharp and articulate. She looks great. She's calm, cool and collected. But, during our interview there was another jolt, and she bolted from her chair like she was spring-loaded. Like so many of the rest of us, she is.

"My emotions are very close to the surface," she says afterward, rather embarrassed. Then, with an edge of pleading in her voice, "This last year has been incredibly painful for me.... When you're trying really hard to keep other people from despairing, you don't have time to deal with your own feelings very well."

Working to recover

Neal Coonerty, the owner of Bookshop Santa Cruz who has risen from the rubble as a candidate for city council, reflects a common feeling. "It's heartbreaking. I think the community is still in shock over the damage and destruction that was done. The only way I can face it is to feel like five years out we're going to have a place as friendly and beautiful as it was. It's not going to be the same place. The mall was where our architectural heritage was displayed. But you can't dwell on what's lost."

Doris White, who coordinated Project COPE through January and was an administrator for a similar project after the Love Creek Disaster, the flood of 1982, says, "As a business owner you're given a lot more hope of help and outside rescue. The community want the businesses to recover quickly, so they band together and help. Just the amount of work that some of these people have to do will keep them from having to look at the actual impact on them personally."

John Livingston, who has owned Logos Books and Records for 21 years, had remodeled and expanded his store on Pacific Garden Mall, at considerable expense, just months before the quake destroyed it. Although he hopes to have his new store up by next May, and may be the first to rebuild on the mall, Logos is still operating out of what was an abandoned warehouse in an isolated area.

"It's rough, very rough," Livingston says. "We're treading water, and just trying to keep afloat, day-to-day. Right now I'm still paying the mortgage on the old property and paying rent on the current place....

"I think, psychologically, I spent a lot of time keeping other people propped up," he recalls, heaving a big sigh. His was a constant voice of encouragement and optimism, early on. But the winter doldrums really hit him. "It certainly did affect me. I'm aware of the tenuous nature of things anyway, and I feel it more strongly on a daily basis now. I've made a point of not thinking of anything too much but the present."

Quiet concern

That's what worries Dr. Abueq. "Some people are really getting tired of hearing anything about the quake, or there's a sense of just wanting to give up. It's that quiet group that I'm most concerned about."

Now, a year later, many people are realizing how hard the quake hit them, even if their outward losses weren't great. "For a lot of people, it brings up stuff that has never really broken loose before," says White. "The longer it takes till the person asks for help, the more difficult it is."

Newport agrees that it's not only the earth that's suffering aftershocks. "Sometimes it's the small stresses that compound. They'll say, 'I'll get the serving dish,' and then they realize, 'Oh, I don't have a serving dish anymore.'"

The powerlessness and vulnerability people are feeling on a personal level extends to the community level. Gist hardly needs to remind us that, "It's not the physical structures, but the bonds that tie a community together, that are disrupted."

For weeks after the quake, people talked repeatedly of losing "the heart" of their town. "It's a real loss that you can't absorb," says Jenny's mother, Kate. "A town always has a center, and ours is gone. What I loved was the beautiful old buildings, and I'm so afraid they're going to build a plastic, hard-edged place like Sacramento's mall."

In Coonerty's view, "Those are valuable fears, because that's what's going to prevent us from getting that type of development."

Lost in the process

The heart of the matter downtown, at the moment, is that basic, bedrock fear. Because the struggle to recover is nearly overwhelming, people are feeling helpless.

"Rage goes hand-in-hand with feeling helpless," observes Abueq. When the anger no longer works, it becomes depression."

The eventual reconstruction of central Santa Cruz is underway, but the deal making, brainstorming and inevitable battles are going on behind the scenes. Because people don't know about it, or don't trust it yet, they're feeling abandoned or betrayed — by city government; by the 36-member group optimistically dubbed Vision Santa Cruz, which was mandated to achieve consensus on guidelines for the new downtown; by businesspeople; by anybody and everybody.

"I think we were optimistic, and that was good, but I think we were naive about the enormous complexity of the problems," says Mayor Wormhoudt. "The hardest thing is the realization of how long it's going to take to put things back together, how hard that's going to be, and the fact that a lot of things are going to get lost in the process."

There are still critical shortages of food and housing for low-income people, but earlier grim figures (rape up 300%, domestic violence up 25%, marriages crumbling fast, drug and alcohol abuse on the rise) have leveled off.

"Things will get back to normal, but normal will never be what it was before. That's really what people are trying to cope with right now. What will normal be?"

Thankfully, the effects aren't all grim. Pacific Cookie Company has catapulted from a small, local outfit to contracts with international airlines. "We were very vulnerable, and our attitude toward growth became much more aggressive than before," says Larry Pearson. "We've grown tremendously since the quake. We're able to pay people more and create more career positions.

"I'm much more intense, busier, more focused. I have more of a sense of purpose than I did before. That has its drawbacks but, overall, it's good."

Cat 'n' Canary apparel, which was in one of the tents, is now back on the mall, after sensitive negotiations for a lease where another business had gone under. "Our business is up about 30%," says co-owner Kathleen McBurney, "and people are giving us encouragement for what a bold move it is, and being a leader. As an entrepreneur, you have to believe in what you're doing, and we believed."

Livingston is spending most of his days running hurdles to get his building in the ground, but he's making time for his weekly golf game again. "It has strengthened my desire to not waste a lot of time with things that I don't have any control over, and to enjoy myself as much as I can," he says.

Harris, too, has found some silver in the clouds. "My belief in God is much stronger. Before the earthquake, I thought everything in my house was valuable. After the earthquake I couldn't think of anything that was.

"The things that used to be hot buttons aren't anymore. I can make decisions now that I wouldn't have even tried to make before. There's a real black and white now. It's like, 'If another earthquake happened, would that matter?'"

The Forbes, who describe themselves as "acquisitive," also have new attitudes. "Those 15 seconds will stay with us for a long time," says Gaylord. "Our values will never be the same. Just being alive is much more precious."

Joann nods agreement with her husband. "It made us appreciate the value of each day and each other. We had a lot of things that are gone. But you get that kind of jolt - you realize you could have died - and material things aren't important. "We have had an awesome amount of support from family and friends. Those are the things that you really cherish."

So, although Santa Cruz still has the look and atmosphere of a war zone, the report from the front is that the way people are feeling is right on target. As Gist says, "Things will get back to normal, but normal will never be what it was before. That's really what people are trying to cope with right now. What will normal be?"

[The original article included a sidebar about recovery the historical district of downtown Santa Cruz, known as Pacific Garden Mall.]

Copyright © 1990, Judith Broadhurst. All rights reserved. Published in Pacific magazine, October 1990.

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