The San Fernando Valley six A.M. that Way nine. Almost another day.
Most of last asleep. The Late Shift is about to call tonight.
The early risers already on the freeways heading for work.
Captain Bill Hall of the Los Angeles Fire Department
author Mickelson
and Milton gone two definitions in a pickup truck heading out just before dawn to
install a microwave relay station in the mountains six o'clock.
Another day
just before dawn a massive shock rippling out of the mountains just north of the
San Fernando Valley getting here missing there
but shaking most of Southern California like an angry parent takes a screaming
child on her center downtown headquarters
for the Los Angeles police
think you know full story. Back
when next
door the city's nerve center for all disaster operations the emergency control
center is swinging into action.
Already on hand Police Chief David commander kinsmen Bill Frank de los Angeles
civil defense cordon it sounds like they've got trouble everywhere.
Yeah
but with the band ride on a little bit of light business no
one knows if yet
but the clients by the blaze hardest lines at the northern end of the ballot in a
suburb called Sylmar
and the little city of San Fernando the shocks magnified enormously here gas mains
are exploding helping sewer lines crumbling in the city ruined running through the
heart of town.
The first to arrive a time for Nando's city hall near Palm easy
and Margaret Moran civil defense.
Outside the building looks unharmed.
Inside.
But emergency operations plan under others are rallying police rescue units
the first volunteers the San Fernando is in deep deep trouble
are generated
but not the top down your survival about a man so matters are going to
come from the dead about your you want to do it better
but emerging about all of them all the old bollocks.
So I'm going to twenty four twenty five money out of the.
I know no one knows how extensive the damage is
but quickly volunteer rescue teams are being organized moving up the search the
road in downtown
Los Angeles state civil defense the California Office of Emergency Services is
swinging into action have
already been enormous cooking on the state capitol in Sacramento
and to Washington D.C.
The president's Office of Emergency Preparedness the agency responsible for
coordinating all federal assistance in time of major disaster. Governor right.
I'm calling for the crowd told me to resign
and be you on the grounds of need will be helping you in every way we can
right now I want to go there in this situation still unclear
but obviously serious enough for George Lincoln the director to begin mobilizing
disaster specialists from all over the country
and dispatched top aides from Washington to the scene.
I will call the vice president
that was on top of the other start
right away.
In the Pentagon the director of the defensive a preparedness agency.
Johnny Davis offers for support. All right.
Find out what they need
and get it to them monthly in the Hollywood Hills rescue truck from the
civil defense training center are starting down the mountain.
Downtown police are cordoning off the danger points for bad well
known.
Thank you to conduct
rock like rock.
Thank God and the Golden State
and San Diego freeways to the north are in a state of collapse.
This is where Captain Howell barely escaped with his life
and the two men in the pickup truck fires everywhere
going one or can you see the fire department's communication center.
Emergency calls are funneling in from everywhere except the northern valleys we
find I probable heart attack one hundred fifty five eighty nine miles you know the
first word from Sylmar leaks through. Right.
What he said during class
that they got about five hundred people with them both
and everything we have in the area.
I'll leave you a brand new forty million.
A hospital dedicated just six months ago the coast overland teetering but
when I walked out of the whole wing of the band five
or three are dead. The rest of the patients being hastily evacuated.
You know they want to have it just to have conception shuckin the world has opened
up. It's good. So you know out of me.
I ran to buy bad propaganda to grab a hold of it.
Now
that I thought I could now helicopters
are fanning out to find out what else has happened to the valley pretty good about
the one deputy fire chief kind of long ago that's just a matter of the lab
always going on.
If you
look at that building down there. I started out there at that grassy area.
Find out what's going on the
tragedy center here at San Fernando Bedouin hospital long known as the garden spot
of the whole Veterans Administration system to assemble buildings have collapsed
burying nearly a hundred patients
and members of the staff under a crashing concrete bridge there.
Doctors
and nurses are pulling victims out of the ruins digging their hand at the rubble
trying to free the rest at seven twenty four people on some accomplice that's down
on the line and the staff doctor runs out to meet him.
Very
happy happy.
All right.
The fire and rescue units for it but desperately needed it.
Heavy construction equipment to cut through the concrete roof.
Luckily it's close at hand in Thai hunger can get the Army Corps of Engineers has a
construction crew working on a special project for the Office of Emergency
Preparedness within an hour. It's been moved to veterans.
The thing now to get rid of
them for tomorrow
when I'm not far away
and other crisis than not
when the dam the huge reservoir in the northern tier the concrete roadway across
the pumps collapsed the earth while behind it.
I'm going back up on the lower bound by eleven million tons of water enough
to start another gun combine and eighty thousand.
People living in the valley just below the sea and have to be made and soon.
And when the streams and was going to come and went on a matter of minutes
and some
are willing that way when I saw the first broadcast what was left of the day
or two feet up but not enough others less so.
Is that on your end of that right.
Of I got out and about in the garage so I don't have to let out.
Whatever not out
and soon.
Everyone's moving out like a dog I believe I'd like
a dog and I don't mind for the city of Los Angeles
and Los Angeles County to disaster response.
It is a basic it is like a scale operation.
Both have enormous resources of the cong modern equipment.
Good communications thousands of firemen police other trained professional
or little San Fernando civil defense is something else.
A handful of city employees
and a disaster plan depending largely on volunteer help from groups like Red Cross
Salvation Army the citizens emergency mobile patrol
and now the radio and they found the dead spot on their dial.
I'm moving in to fill it since early morning.
San Fernando been cut off from the world
but now communications are being restored and the burst phone call.
I'll go downtown to the opposite emergency services.
Communication nothing we can is any kind of middle age and then we're on
and now people are flying in to help with the job from Sacramento.
For example with the governors that I'm from Washington D.C.
They're all Trent deputy director of the Office of Emergency Preparedness. I care.
I don't think it was a present what happened to make your back.
Of the van on the van in the back of the back
when it's a bonnet on a probably the most damaging situation I have right now is a
van aren't they. I'm a big prize there and they are going as quick break.
Along with the water around the announcement saying no Democrat.
What about the people under the man on the thing it is
that we empower them our Crassus Modena setting up six emergency
shelters in the area in school and maybe in the night or ems
but a great deal of them will probably have friends.
What about the veterans' hospital I was sure they have everything they need
Brattleboro I mean back away from everybody.
They can separate at that moment came back
that we got here I don't know what I was glad I had to get right.
Governor Reagan's arrived from Sacramento.
And rescue crews have just uncovered a park where some of the kitchen workers are
cracked there's a woman by the name of Helen and that.
Well they've been talking or Apparently she says that she's all right.
But she did great beside are making good here.
Well from all indications the fireman says that she seems to be alright.
She's even asked for a glass of water that's no way.
All right.
Not quite right.
Right.
Not a credible.
I'm going to look at the thing I don't know anything about.
I don't know how I'm a mom I want to go out on my daughter.
There's a daughter I want to get
it on other than the name of the moment. Everybody.
I don't know whether it's right
it's OK.
Day turns into night night into night man in San Fernando my man tears are
patrolling the wreckage on the Mall.
And in the shelter evacuees are settling down for the night
by the second day early in the morning
Air Force two sweeps into Los Angeles Airport.
Bringing the body is president
and George Lincoln director of the Office of Emergency Preparedness to survey the
damage the next half an hour.
But it's a very terrible a concern as an earthquake himself
that they are going to what are your knowledge
and I think already very well in the Long Beach.
But of course he remembers very well a lapse of a high school auditorium
the damage to the grades ball
and said I don't want to be another one I feel better already.
The president's proclaimed the earthquake zone a major disaster area.
With all agencies of the federal government directed to render maximum assistance.
Downtown. Both state and federal people are working hard to deliver it.
And the new Disaster Relief Act just signed by the president has given them new
tools to work with.
Federal assistance is no longer limited to helping restore essential community
service.
Now it's been brought in to bring relief to individuals the disaster victims as
well
and six one stop disaster assistance centers are being set up where they can go to
find temporary housing rent free for those in direst need aid on mortgages
and rents for others in danger of losing their damaged homes legal services
liberalized small business and farmers home loans.
Unemployment Insurance reemployment for those whose jobs have been wiped out.
Food stamps
and surplus food for the hungry help in removing debris from private property
San Fernando still on its knees.
Was no water no water no
have any water here have put it out
and I think a lot of it already a cause gone into Joseph Quinn deputy mayor of
Los Angeles asking of San Fernando can borrow from the city's water system.
I'll go ahead and cut some of the Other than your hands
that will worry about them
and downtown
or of Engineers are already moving in like water
and sewage lines right on the street.
No helps arriving from another storm the Civil Air Patrol It could have sent a
number of black and rescue air supply
and communications units from wings all over Southern California are pouring in to
lend a hand till the emergency is over.
Gradually the town meaning ground to
major in the centers have been set up in San Fernando my salvation army in the
downtown area Red Cross in the spring in the Mexican American section the supply
food.
Clothing shelter
and other night in shelters.
When Naaman still too full for safety
and the natives are getting restless like
people here will be able to return home
and we are here at Pearl Harbor.
You haven't yet because I want to.
Nothing like oh thank
god just another very generous continual average doctor keeping everyone
on it
and the emergency control center at police headquarters is being overloaded with
caught
the boat to relieve the strain as citizens information center is set up by civil
defense in the Public Works hearing room at Los Angeles City Hall budget control.
Group in a way. California has been lucky.
It's been a medium sized quake even minor compared to what could happen someday
but if the shock could come a few hours later in the morning
when schools were full
and freeways crowded the death toll might have reached the thousands.
Instead of sixty five.
But more than thirty schools in Los Angeles alone will have to be demolished
and replaced the freeways rebuilt a billion dollars worth of damage repair.
On a federal government.
It means a record breaking expenditure under the new disaster relief act.
Nearly half a billion to restore essential services
and help people get back on their feet
and a long way to go before it's done at Veterans Hospital.
Rescue workers are into there. Fifty nine hours.
The last line victim to be pulled out of the wreckage.
Frank CARBONELL a sixty eight year old Baker on the kitchen staff is rushed to the
hospital is anxious finally brought to his side
there is a clinical nervous if
you thought of that area
and a very delicate right now is
and they rarely were really worried about that.
And when it was in any other
and I guess I learned the real difference
in the thing about when you were down there.
What were you thinking of
when you are now finally
the pumps have done their job.
Now. Going home.
But often the things like this.
Still. Now that you've lived through it all.
How do you think I don't think well prevail focus on a matter with a ball
and going home and so in a different way under thirty six patients
and ten members of the staff last the better in hospital.
By the
way.
Oh that's right.
I have a final service
or own soldiers who aren't supposed to die. But I may fade away.
Not
going.