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By Frank Trippett

San Francisco may have established itself as the earthquake capital of the U.S., but seismologists have long warned that Los Angeles is the more vulnerable city. Because Los Angeles has not suffered a massive tremor in this century and has a much larger population, a major quake could result in far greater devastation. The Federal Emergency Management Agency estimates that an 8.3 magnitude temblor (16 times as powerful as the one that hit San Francisco) on the southern San Andreas fault near Los Angeles could cause $17 billion in property damage and between 3,000 and 14,000 deaths.

Galvanized by the fear that they may be next, Southern Californians are urgently reassessing their plans for coping with the Big One. "What was foremost in many people's minds," says filmmaker Gina Blumenfeld, "was the fact that the San Francisco quake could have just as easily happened here." Residents stocked their homes with bottled water, canned food, batteries and first-aid supplies, snapped up wrenches to turn off the gas and prepacked earthquake kits that sell for $30 to $210. Some of the preparations had an only-in-Hollywood quality. One woman whose emergency gear includes a butane curling iron says she is looking for a battery-operated hair dryer that can be used if electricity is knocked out. "Why look a mess even in a crisis?" she teases.

Experts are unnervingly in agreement that Los Angeles is overdue for a catastrophic shaking. "We feel there is a 60% probability for an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.5 or larger sometime in the next 30 years," says James H. Dieterich, a geophysicist for the U.S. Geological Survey. Last year the survey reported that the Los Angeles area overlies three fault segments, any of which is capable of producing an enormous quake. Since 1857, when a monster measuring 8.3 on the Richter scale strewed destruction from the Cholame Valley in central California to the Cajon Pass near San Bernardino, Los Angeles has experienced a succession of lesser tremors. Six quakes of at least 4.5 magnitude have been registered in the past two years, and some geologists suspect those rumblings are the prelude to a cataclysm.

The region has long been aware of its special vulnerabilities. Its water comes in by aqueducts that a big quake would fracture. Like the devastated Marina district in San Francisco, parts of coastal communities such as Marina Del Rey, Venice and Long Beach are built on sandy soil and landfill that could liquefy during a temblor, amplifying its destructive impact. State transportation officials last week handed the city council a list of 48 highway bridges and overpasses that need reinforcement to withstand a powerful quake. Cost: $32 million. Los Angeles' city engineer Robert Horii informed the city council that $100 million worth of shoring up may be required on the city's bridges and viaducts. Said Horii: "I didn't believe the urgency was there until what happened last week." Pointing to the collapse of Oakland's Interstate 880, some officials questioned whether an elevated section of the Harbor Freeway should be built; state transportation officials asked for an investigation to review the freeway plans.

In 1981 the city set tough standards for strengthening unreinforced masonry buildings constructed before 1933. Work has been done or begun on 4,000 such buildings, but 2,400 remain unrepaired. Mayor Tom Bradley acknowledged last week that the city has moved too slowly to demand compliance, and other officials vowed to pressure owners to speed up the work. Said Councilman Hal Bernson, author of the 1981 law: "If the money's available and they are not willing to do the work, then we as a city are going to have to step in and take control."

Los Angeles has developed a detailed "emergency operations master plan," specifying how various city agencies should respond to a quake. In the event of a disaster, the mayor and police chief would take charge from a strongly constructed operations center four stories below city hall. About 2,800 civilian volunteers have been trained to help in emergencies.

To prepare young children psychologically, a "Quaky, Shaky" van, which can mimic a tremor, is sent around to elementary schools. The county's emergency plans will soon be put to a big test. Sometime in the next few weeks, phone calls will go out to emergency workers in 60 to 70 municipalities, informing them that a magnitude 7 quake has occurred on the Newport-Inglewood fault. "If we find out that people were not notified or don't know whom to contact, we can correct the problem," says Bob Canfield, Los Angeles' emergency-preparedness coordinator.

In the past, Los Angeles' sense of urgency about preparation tended to end with the aftershocks of minor quakes. This time promises to be different. Long after the news out of San Francisco tapers off, Los Angeles will have a reminder. Earlier this year Universal Studios opened an amusement park-style simulator that shows how it feels to be tossed about by an 8.3 earthquake like the one that flattened San Francisco in 1906. The ride is called Earthquake: the Big One.

With reporting by Jeanne McDowell/Los Angeles and J. Madeleine Nash/Chicago