Earthquake: The Road to Recovery : Emergency Team Members Were Quake Heroes

In the dark hours following the area’s most destructive earthquake, a little-known network of highly trained workers sprang into action to rescue people trapped inside their homes, perform first aid and generally lead and comfort anxious neighbors.

They were not firefighters or police officers--they were ordinary citizens who are members of the Los Angeles Fire Department’s Community Emergency Response Team program.

Early reports indicate the teams performed very well in the crisis, but Fire Department officials say they want to get a full assessment of how the teams worked and learn how they can work better in the future. To this end, fire officials will be holding a debriefing and critique session for team members today, at 1 p.m. in the San Fernando High School gym.

“This was the first really big test of our system,” said Assistant Chief Frank Borden. “We’ll be looking for their experience to see if we can make the course more attuned to the realism of an event like this.”

Ironically, the program’s budget was cut in half nearly three years ago, down from two eight-person training units to just one for the entire city. Borden, the head of the department’s training and disaster preparedness division, said he hoped information gathered from the hearing would bolster the department’s efforts to get the program fully funded.

The efforts of the disaster teams in some ways mirrored those of Neighborhood Watch groups, which lacked disaster preparedness training but nonetheless helped organize neighbors after the quake. The performance of the Neighborhood Watch groups, which are organized by the Los Angeles Police Department, surprised and delighted public officials.

Councilwoman Laura Chick introduced a motion Tuesday calling on the fire and police departments to create a new citizens emergency response program that combines the infrastructure of Neighborhood Watch and the expertise of Emergency Response.

“My understanding is that the emergency response teams are kind of dispersed throughout the different communities but are not connected as part of a community team,” said Karen Constine, Chick’s chief of staff. “What is taking place now is that the ERTs are being integrated into Neighborhood Watch so that the community can be self-sufficient in a time of disaster.”

Participants in the emergency program are trained in teams of 50, and generally come from the same geographic area. In the event of a disaster, team members are supposed to work as a coordinated group if they happen to be together, said Capt. Ron Jackson, who heads the Community Emergency Response Team unit.

Some participants said they felt isolated from their fellow team members, so they acted alone or led untrained volunteers to respond to various problems that cropped up. Jackson said his program stresses independent action because often in a disaster, communication networks are scrambled anyway.

Indeed, some team members said their emergency training allowed them--and their neighbors--to be self-sufficient in the hours and even days after the quake.

At 9 a.m. on the morning of Jan. 17, team member Paula Elefante called a neighborhood meeting on her front lawn. Like an Army commander reviewing a battle plan, the Reseda resident spread a tract map of the neighborhood on a card table and located pools from which water could be taken and used to flush toilets.

During the next few days, Elefante conducted seminars on water purification, arranged for barbecue grills to be used on a communal basis on various nearby streets, and provided emotional support to her neighbors.

“I am so grateful that I had the training, that I was able to share information and answer questions,” said Elefante, 45.

Northridge resident Cheryal Caron bandaged a deep gash on a neighbor’s arm, and made her a makeshift sling from torn sheets. Earlier, the 36-year-old secretary helped rescue two disabled people from their homes. Caron and a neighbor pulled a fallen dresser and television set off a man who was hooked to an oxygen tank, and navigated a dark house littered with obstacles to reach an elderly woman who uses a wheelchair.

“In my opinion (the training) probably saved my life,” said Caron, who was pinned between her bedroom wall and a mattress upended by the quake. “If I didn’t know anything, my instinct would have been to panic. I probably would have brought on a stroke or a heart attack. . . . Now that I have the training and I understand and know what to do, (earthquakes) don’t scare me.”

Gregory Lang Springer knocked on every door on the third and fourth floors of his Woodland Hills apartment building, in some cases heaving stuck doors open to free the inhabitants inside. He helped many elderly people down the stairs and out of the building.

When one aged woman complained of shortness of breath and chest pains, the 29-year-old employee of a health maintenance organization recognized the symptoms of a heart attack. While another person called 911, Springer placed her on a couch, elevated her feet, covered her with a blanket and, before going to help others, directed some bystanders to stay with her and keep her calm.

“In that kind of situation, people tend to be real happy if anybody shows any kind of leadership,” Springer said. “I was very directive in what I was saying--that’s what they tell you to do. You don’t ask. You say, ‘You need to do this.’ ‘Take this person down and do that.’ ”

After Bob and Caryn Friedenthal of Beverly Glen got their children safely out of their wrecked house, they went from door to door to make sure their neighbors were OK. In some cases, they kicked in doors to allow people out, and shut off the leaking gas valves at almost every house on the street, Bob Friedenthal said. The owner of a computer supply company is a member of a community ham radio network, which he used to inform the Fire Department about gas leaks that they could not curtail.

The Emergency Response Team program was started in 1988 by Councilman Hal Bernson, then-Mayor Tom Bradley and Fire Chief Donald O. Manning, and was inspired by a citizens disaster preparedness program that Bernson had encountered on a visit to Japan. During the past six years, fire officials estimate they have trained more than 10,000 people, about half of whom live in the Valley. Borden said he believed at least 1,000 to 3,000 of those trained actually used the skills they learned during the earthquake.

Classes run for seven weeks, 2 1/2 hours per week, and cover topics including earthquake preparedness, fire suppression, first aid, light search-and-rescue, disaster psychology, team organization and utility control. Many Neighborhood Watch participants have already taken the ERT course. The program has also trained significant numbers of business groups and government employees.

Elefante, the Reseda homeowner, who happens also to be a Neighborhood Watch block captain, thinks integrating the two programs is an idea whose time has come.

“It is a more effective way to get disaster preparedness to the community,” she said.