It was 4:31 a.m. of January 17th, 1994 when an earthquake, measuring 6.8 on the richter scale, changed my life forever.
The quake was epicentered in Northridge, California LOCATION: 34 12.80' N, 118 32.22'W, 20 miles west-northwest of Los Angeles; 1 mile south - southwest of Northridge. It had a depth of 18.4 km and the fault involved was the Northridge Thrust (also known as the Pico Thrust) which runs along side of the San Andreas Fault. This is where it all happened..
Go to Northridge Map
This is where I lived with my room mate on the 1st floor. I'm Steve Langdon also known in the cyber world as speedo.
For some reason I woke up, rolled over and looked at my alarm clock, it was 4:30 am. A lot earlier than I usually got up but I remember thinking to myself, might as well get up and start the water for the coffee, it was a Monday morning. So I got out of bed, I grabbed a T-shirt and a pair of underwear. I took a step or two towards the hallway when all hell broke loose. It was like no other quake I had been in. Looking back at it now, it was the longest 6 hours in my life.
The first thing I remember hearing a really loud explosion and trying to figure out where the hell it was coming from, then in the matter of seconds everything started to shake really hard in more than one direction. It felt like it was up and down and side to side, almost a twisting feeling. Right away I knew it was an earthquake but one like I had never been in before!! I remember standing in between both beds, looking around the room, watching things shake and fly through the room, it seemed like it was shaking in more than one direction.
Northridge Meadows Apartments after the quake struck.
I looked around the room and there was nothing for me to get under, so I headed for the doorway, something we were all taught in school. The dresser in front of me fell, or got thrown in my direction, hitting me in the chest and knocking me down to the floor. I was on one knee, with my arm on the bed, to help me up when the wall or ceiling fell on top of me. I ended up being trapped/pinned on my knees with my body bent over the bed. It felt like the building got picked up and shook around and dropped down again.
I could hear and feel what felt like the floors above me falling down and settling on top of me. I know I screamed obscenities from the pain. I yelled for Jerry and he answered. So I knew we both made it. He wasn't wearing his hearing aid so he couldn't hear me very well. I was on the bed, with the wall on top of me. My head was pinned, with my face looking down towards the bed, so I couldn't project my voice. Jerry couldn't understand me or hear me clearly so he devised this way for us to communicate, he would asked me yes or no questions, if the answer was yes I would make one sound and if it was no I would make two sounds. Depending on the pain I was going through I would yes once and no twice or make one or two noises. So in this way we both found out what kind of shape the other one was.
He was pinned on top of his bed and me in the position I explained above. While we were talking I was trying to get my head out of the position, because I could feel and see that there was more room underneath me. With a lot of effort I could move it from side to side but not much more than that, I tried and tried without any luck. It seemed like there was so much pressure on my head and shoulders, at the time I didn't know I had the 2nd and 3rd stories on my head and shoulders!! I remember getting myself in more uncomfortable positions, then working hard to get myself back to where I was so I could relax if that was possible.
Jerry told me that we were going to make it because we were alive. Something like 'If God didn't want us to make it we wouldn't be alive now'. You see, I'm not very religious, but i do believe there is a God, he has helped me many times. Jerry also said something about nothing else was going to fall, seeing that everything had already fallen. Easy for him to say, I thought. I remember hearing people screaming above us. I heard fire engines or police cars driving down Reseda Blvd. I couldn't see very much, there was no light coming in my room, it was real dark. Jerry said that he could see some light. I remember for awhile being worried about our air supply. I remember feeling around on the floor, finding some raisins which I ate from time to time, not knowing how long we were going to be there.
I found the telephone and got excited until I picked up and found that I didn't have a dial tone, damn! I searched and searched for the cell phone without any luck. I could feel glass on the floor. I remember feeling something wet on the side of my face, was I bleeding? My biggest fear was not being found, thinking back to the quake in San Francisco in 1989. With all the people they found in cars on the collapsed freeway, that couldn't get out, that's how they died. How horrible to survive the quake and then not to be found, this kept running through my mind.
Jerry asked me to yell every time I heard someone close to us and he would yell too. I remember thinking about a seizure, about fainting I had to stay awake it was the only way we were going to get found. Also how much damage was there outside, was this the quake that leveled LA, how many people would come to our apartment to search for survivors, how long would they look, so many questions, so much or so little time depending on how you look at it. I just had to wait there was nothing else I could do, and wait is what we did.
With each aftershock I could feel more and more pressure on my head and shoulder, thinking to myself how much more could I take. I can remember a few times having a real hard time breathing, trying to catch my breath. I knew I was in trouble after awhile, when I couldn't see any light. You see there use to be a window right next to my bed, why wasn't there any light in the room?? I asked myself over an over again. That would all become clear to me later.
Search and Rescue work to dig us out.
When I was yelling for help I would yell 'Help we are on the first floor, don't forget about us' or something like that. They had to know where we were trapped and alive down here. Someone finally heard us and found Jerry. I could hear them talking to him, God love him, he kept saying my roommate is trapped too, Steve's right behind me. It seemed to take a long time to get him out, I could hear chainsaws, a lot of talking and more aftershocks. Then it got quiet, they must have gotten him out, did they know I was alive ??
I could hear people above me. The rescue workers were hitting the floor with something, maybe an ax not real sure but I yelled out to stop. It was right above me and I could feel it more and more as if they were hitting me on the head and shoulders through the floor. I guess they were trying to find me and wanted to know where I was. Then someone yelled to me, "Where are you Steve"?, I yelled back that I was trapped on the bed with my knees and legs on the floor, with the wall or ceiling on top of me. I could hear the voice getting closer and closer to me. 'I'm right behind Jerry's wall' is what I said. 'Pinned on the bed, near the dresser'.
I saw the glow of a flashlight. A rescue worker had managed to get through a crawl space into my area. I saw his face, Lee Lewis I found out later, he tried to lift the wall and couldn't do it right away. Lee was handed pieces of 2 by 4's and he stacked them one on top of each other until they were higher than the dresser or as high as the dresser. He then lifted the wall up and set it on the 2 by 4's to get it off of me. He asked me to get my head out, but I couldn't so he moved closer and pushed it out for me. He said I was going to have to help him and crawl out, there was no way he could get any closer to me or get anyone else in there with him. We only had 18 to 24 inches of crawl space to work with. Lee told me later that when he finally got 2 me, my mattress looked like a blanket and that my head was oblong in shape.....due 2 the pressure and weight of the building on me for such a long period of time.
Crawl Space where I was rescued
Lee said "it was good to see someone who was calm." He asked me about the Super Bowl and if I knew what day it was. I remember saying to him, what super bowl and he said what? I told him with the Niners and Joe Montana loosing there wasn't going to be a Super Bowl, we both laughed.
Don one of the search and rescue workers who helped free me. You can see how hard it was to get to me.
I began to crawl out of there on my belly. As I got closer and closer to the outside I began to feel better. I remember how good I felt when I finally saw daylight. I was put on a stretcher of somekind and a neck brace on at the same time. I can remember all these people standing around outside with so many cameras, I could hear the clicking of the camera's. I remember seeing our apartment manager standing on the grass on my way to the ambulance. A rescue worker came to me, lean over an asked if I heard anyone else on the way to the ambulance and I told him the only sounds I heard came from above me. They covered me with a sheet.
My Rescue
Another photo of my Rescue
On the way to the hospital I began to feel a lot more pain, at first I thought I was going to the hospital just to be checked but would soon learn different. On the way to the Tarzana Hospital, Northridge Hospital wasn't taking any more patients, I was giving the driver a hard time I guess for using Reseda Blvd. and not another street. He asked why and I told him with all the stop lights on Reseda wasn't there a better street to take?? He laughed and said Steve there isn't anyone on the street now.
This is a photo of after I got out of the hospital. While we can not predict earthquakes we can at least try and Be preparedDon & I
Steve Langdon
