Earthquake: The Long Road Back : CSUN Athlete Narrowly Escapes Before Apartment Collapses : Survival: Softball pitcher flees first-floor unit when earthquake hits. Minutes later, it is destroyed.

By MIKE HISERMAN

Jan. 19, 1994 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

NORTHRIDGE — It was a restless night for Amy Windmiller, and she was up early for a snack--two reasons that she now says may have saved her life.

Windmiller, a pitcher on the Cal State Northridge softball team, was in the kitchen of her first-floor Northridge Meadows apartment--the same complex that collapsed like a pancake, killing at least 16 people--when the 6.6 temblor first started to jolt the 160-unit complex.

“It felt like I was being thrown around, but I thought it would stop,” said Windmiller, a senior from Sacramento. “It wouldn’t stop.”

The apartment’s ceiling collapsed just as Windmiller left the kitchen and headed for the front door. As she fled the building, Shannon Jones, Windmiller’s roommate and a Northridge teammate, broke out the window of her bedroom and jumped to safety.

Minutes later, the building collapsed and sank onto the bottom floor, leaving only the top two floors exposed.

“It was scary,” Windmiller said Tuesday as she tried to relax and regroup with seven teammates at the CSUN softball field. “And I don’t think all that happened has really hit me yet.”

On Tuesday, the death toll from the collapse of about 40 first-floor apartments reached 16. The complex, at 9565 Reseda Blvd., is less than half a mile from the campus.

Windmiller said she, Jones and the neighbors adjacent to them escaped unharmed. “We could hear people screaming and calling for help,” she said, “but there wasn’t anything we could do.”

For two hours, Windmiller, Jones and other residents huddled near the pool in the apartment’s court yard, amid the crumbled ruins. When the group was finally escorted between buildings by emergency crews, Windmiller said she received her first full view of the surrounding destruction.

“When I first went out the door, I thought maybe ours was the only building that collapsed like that,” Windmiller said. “But as soon as we started walking, I could see all the other buildings looked the same way.”

Windmiller lost her car, which was flattened when an underground garage collapsed, and probably her other personal possessions.

“As soon as we got out, there was no going back in,” she said. “It’s all gone.”

Windmiller is staying with softball teammate Jen Fleming at her family’s home in Reseda. Almost two dozen other displaced Northridge athletes have also sought temporary accommodations with the Flemings because their dorm rooms or apartments have been badly damaged.

Windmiller assumes that she will not rest much there, either.

“It’s weird. The last four or five days, I’ve been getting up at night a lot,” Windmiller said. “I was lucky.”