Earthquake Epicenter Update: The wall falls in fall

[Lois Feldman <ab189@LAFN.ORG>]

        It's funny that the group is discussing the Irish,
Jewish + folktale *It Could Always Be Worse* because I'm
living it.  Our daughter lives in a condo in Sherman Oaks,
the second hardest hit area in the Northridge earthquake.
Last month she learned that all 118 units had to be evacuated
for nine months while the foundation was repaired.  After
looking at tiny, expensive apartments, she accepted our
invitation to move back home.
        The day before going to Multimedia Schools '94, I
emptied bookshelves--for the third time this year--so her
movers could take them out of her bedroom easily.  When I
returned, she had filled them up with her stuff.  Now I'm the
only person who can fit into the room with the computer.  But
we're getting along okay.
        During the last two weeks on October the city of Los
Angeles hired a demolition crew to knock down the Northridge
Meadows Apartments directly behind our house.  That's where a
parking structure collapsed and 16 people on the first floor
were killed.  Los Angeles is prosecuting 7 people who claimed
they lived there for fraud--they tried to take belongings out
of the building.
        The parking structure had two levels and at its back
was an 18' high wall running along the back of our property.
The wall held, but the city engineer's (a nice guy--we talked
to him several times) supervisor determined that the entire
wall had to be demolished.  They covered our back yard carefully
and although our whole house shook while the wall came down, our
yard was not damaged.  In place of the wall the city has put up
an 8' high chain link fence.  The November to April Northridge
windy season has just begun, and ghostly rubble is blowing into
our yard.



--
                                        Lois Feldman
ab189.lafn.org                          Birmingham High School
Former home of the Valley girl          17000 Haynes St.
Fer sure, fer sure                      Van Nuys, CA 91406