Earthquake Aftermath

Fewer & fewer people stood in lines before Red Cross relief camp kitchens in Long Beach, Calif, last week. More & more waited in cheerful queues at the Municipal Building to get building permits. No epidemic had erupted. Two minor shocks did not retard inspection of the city's gas mains, some of which were sprung by the earthquake two weeks before. Compton's main street and six blocks in Long Beach were still roped off, but elsewhere in those towns and throughout the stricken area refugees were returning to their homes as fast as the gas was turned on.

In Los Angeles County, firemen razed 435 badly damaged buildings. Insurance companies handled claims as quickly as they could get reports from their investigators, but motorists whose cars had been mutilated by falling wreckage found to their sorrow that earthquake hazard is not covered by standard automobile insurance.

Nobody went hungry, nobody was without shelter. The State had appropriated $50,000 for food and clothing for victims, $150,000 for repairs and debris clearance. Reconstruction Finance Corp. had been authorized to lend $5,000,000 for relief and repair.

With the 121 dead buried or in their urns,* with the injured mending in homes and hospitals, shaken Southern California could tot up its material losses. It was not surprising that small jerry-built structures had crumbled by the hundreds. But to many a citizen the architectural mortality among modern school buildings was appalling.

In Long Beach, 13 schools were completely demolished. Eleven more were so badly damaged that it was doubtful that they would be rebuilt. The board of education appropriated $260,000 for temporary school buildings. The Compton Junior College and High School were destroyed. In the unincorporated sections of the quake sector. 10 other school buildings were total losses.

In comparison with Long Beach. Los Angeles only got a good shaking. Nevertheless, of the 375 schools in the Los Angeles School District, 142 suffered earthquake damage. Parents could be thankful that the shock did not hit until late afternoon. Gimcrackery in the prevailing neo-Gothic style fell in cruel heaps, would have mangled children trying to escape.

Los Angeles County Supervisors, the Board of Education, Taxpayers' Leagues, representatives of newspapers and the Coroner's office joined in an investigating committee to fix responsibility for unsound building construction. Architects reminded the Board of Education that no major earthquake had been officially anticipated, that in a desperate effort to house the county's rapidly expanding school enrolments, many new buildings had been walled with cheap veneers which simply could not withstand seismic shock.

William J. Fox, construction engineer for the Supervisors, testified that school buildings were "covered with ornaments stuck on with chewing gum." The Los Angeles Examiner said that it had analyzed mortar used in school buildings, found it one-third to one-half as strong as required by law. Another engineer, W. M. Bostock, was of the opinion that "no moral or legal responsibility is to be fixed. At the worst the builders were greedy and wanted a little too much building for their money."

*No disaster which kills 121 people is unsensational. Nevertheless, some earthquake reports from some Los Angeles newspaper correspondents were exaggerated. Like many a newspaper and magazine, TIME received erroneous information:

1) The reporter who saw the tower of the Los Angeles City Hall "sway ten feet" was probably the victim of an hallucination. But Albert C. Martin, one of the building's .three architects, says that the tower might have swung five feet in any direction with little harm.

2) The old Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce did not "buckle, collapse." It lost chimneys, suffered cracks and a broken fire wall on the roof, but no structural damage.

3) Western seismologists have no record of a "seventh major temblor . . . at 7:55 p. m." Caltech observers say that the 9:10 p. m. shock was strong but not "more terrific than the first."

4) Union Oil Co. tanks at San Pedro did not, as reported, ignite.

5) Walls fell out of one ward at the Seaside Hospital, Long Beach. Ten people were brought to the hospital dead, laid on the sidewalk to make room for sufferers still alive. A reporter drew a hasty conclusion, sent out the erroneous report that ten people had been killed in the hospital.

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