Multiply the Yoskowitzes’ dilemma by tens of thousands and you begin to understand why L.A.’s quake may turn out to be America’s most expensive natural disaster ever. President Clinton promised $7.5 billion in federal aid-but with damage estimates ranging as high as $30 billion, that will only begin to rebuild the homes, highways and businesses left in varying degrees of ruin. Late last week some 1,500 people were still living in tents in city parks. U-Haul and Ryder trucks lined streets filled with the contents of apartments and houses. Accountant Drew Grey’s newly remodeled Sherman Oaks home was devastated; his Woodland Hills office was a “shambles,” but like many, he found the accumulation of minor hassles just as vexing: one urgent document sent overnight Jan. 19 didn’t arrive until six days later. “It’s hard to get a client to understand what you’re going through,” he sighed.
For many Angelenos, the sense of luck at having survived was fast giving way to irritation and alarm at the cost and complications of carrying on. Commutes that once took 45 minutes stretched to two and three hours. There were shoving incidents at some overcrowded relief centers particularly after word spread that some of those in line for food-stamp vouchers were mere opportunists. Curiously, arrests for muggings, robberies and other crimes dropped sharply after the quake. Thugs may have been scared straight - or perhaps they, too, were deterred by the traffic tie-ups. One trio of burglars took a getaway route that led straight into a parking-lot command post for cops and National Guard troopers.
Back at Burbank Boulevard Elementary, teachers ran safety drills and listened to kids’ stories. “The TV almost killed my little sister,” said Roy Arciga, 11. “The whole southern California was devastated,” wrote Sonny Elmore, perhaps having watched too much TV news. Asked why the quake occurred, one student cracked that “God was mad because the Raiders lost.” And in another sign that things were returning to normal, some sixth-grade boys stamped on the floor to scare classmates into thinking the Big One was rumbling through.
