Update: February 9, 2021 ~ 50 Years Ago Today

I’ve added a new post for the “Fifty Years Ago Today” and Randy finally did a post of his and his mom and sister’s rememberances of the “The Longest Day – February 9th, 1971”. I hope you enjoy stepping back in time with us as we remember that long hot day…and the days that followed. Please share your rememberances and stories, we would love to read them!

Update: February 9, 2016 ~ 45 Years Ago Today

Can you believe it’s been that long? Not me, seems like just yesterday…well not just like yesterday, but 45 years! Good grief! How the time has flown. I found this article at the Los Angeles Daily News and more pictures of the damage. I’ve added the photos from their article to the bottom of this post.

Extra Extra

Original Post February 9, 2008

At 6:01am I was still in bed. The night before I had finished reading a book on the bombing of Hiroshima, for a school assignment. When the quake hit, the sound was so loud, I thought we were being bombed. It was still an hour before sunrise, I just read that while I was looking for pictures to put up here, so I didn’t notice the huge crack in the wall of my bedroom till later. You could see into the garage where the crack started out vertically then went horizontally to the other side of the room, where I could see outside.
To read more…

My bedroom had a small alcove as you came in the door, and all my furniture, dresser, cedar chest, bed and other girl junk had moved in front of the door and was all just kind of jammed into the alcove. I was screaming for my mom and dad. I heard my mom hollering for me to get out of my room and get to the hallway. That of course made me scream all the more, feeling I was trapped and cut off from my family, that I would never get out of my room (I was a teenage girl). When she finally got to my room (before or just after the shaking stopped) she just pushed the door open! I still don’t know how she was able to do that, I was not able to move anything, it was jammed so tight. She sure exhibited some mother bear strength, and we have always chalked it up to adrenaline. Later she told of seeing my brother ‘riding’ his bed around his room. After getting me out of my room, my dad was gathering us to get us out of the house, and as we came down the hallway we could see a huge pool of water from the water heater. And laying in the the water were all of our encyclopedias. Mom stopped to pick them up and dry them off, my dad just took her by the arm and told her “we need to get out of the house, leave the books”.

Once we were outside, we saw that mom’s leg was covered in blood, and still bleeding. It took awhile for it to stop, even with pressure, which she said it hurt a “little”. A month or so later, the cut had healed over, but was still a “little” sore when she touched it. When dad looked at it he could see it was swollen and when he pulled on the area around where the cut had been it pulled apart and puss and blood came out. She then had him take a pair of tweezers and pull a small piece of glass out of her knee/shin. She had been in her bathroom when the quake hit, and all the stuff in her medicine chest fell out into the sink and shattered. In those days almost all medicines came in glass bottles. The shaking had thrown her down to her knees and that is how the glass got into knee. I don’t know how long we were out front, before we would venture back into the house. All the neighbors were out front, and we were all comparing damages. The street in front of our house had bucked up 2-3 feet. The next door neighbor’s pool water had all come up out of the pool, in one huge mass and then crashed back down cracking his pool and flooding the patio and then his dinning room. On the other side of us the block wall had been knocked down. My room cracked and one corner of the room had dropped, months later, after all the aftershocks, my Uncle Frank helped my dad jack that corner back up, and then we Spackled and painted. My parents decided to put in wall to wall carpeting instead of refinishing the beautiful hardwood floors, they were terribly warped and stained from the water heater dumping all it’s contents, twice, once with the initial shock-wave and then again a couple weeks later, after we had installed a new one, there was another big jolt. The kitchen was 1-2 feet deep in all the food from the refrigerator and every dish, bowl, pot, pan, glass, utensil, everything that was in a kitchen cupboard was in a heap of broken, smashed, bent junk, it was covered in leftover food, milk, juice, all the condiments (they were in glass jars back then) flour, sugar….it was a smelly gooey sticky mess. The linoleum flooring had to be replace because the glass smashed onto the floor with such force it cut big chunks out, some was so embedded we couldn’t get it out.

That first day we spent most of the day in the back yard listening to a transistor radio, talking with neighbors, and telling our stories. About 9-10 o’clock, still morning, I went to see how my best friend Judy Viana and her family had fared, she lived just around the corner from us. As soon as I knocked on her door, I noticed how eerily quite the house was and when no one was answering, I got so scared. I kept knocking and then I started looking in the windows and then I was yelling for them, nothing. A neighbor from across the street came over and said that as soon as the shaking stopped, he came out to see the Vianas loading up their car with some personal stuff, and they left for Missouri, that very morning! I saw her once when she came back for a visit right after I graduated from high school. There were other people we knew that moved after the quake. The most ironic was a young woman that worked with my mom at Farmers Ins. She packed up herself and young daughter and moved to a mid-western state. She hadn’t been there very long when the town she moved to was hit with a tornado.

My next door neighbor Curtis Howard, he was 18 or so, volunteered at the two hospitals, Olive View and the San Fernando VA, both in Sylmar. They had people trapped in them, and helped dig through the rubble. I remember one afternoon seeing him just sitting on the curb out front. He was so disturbed by what he had seen, he could hardly talk to me about it, I remember him saying the smell was just so overpowering and sickening. I’ll never forget how full of joy he was when they pulled the kitchen worker, Frank Carbonara, out of the VA Hospital, after more than 2 days.

More pictures from a 2016 Los Angeles Daily News article.

A news helicopter flies over a damaged section of the Van Norman Resevior. Hundreds of residents below the dam were evacuated.
A sheriff deputy outside the collapsed Olive View Hospital following the quake.
Workers remove patients belongings and medical equipment a little more than a month after the quake.
A Highway Patrol officer inspects the scene of the collapsed Foothill overcrossing on the northbound Golden State Freeway. Two men, Art Mikkelsen of San Fernando and his passenger Milton Gonne of Van Nuys were on their way to work.
Major portions of the Veterans Administration hospital in Sylmar lie in ruins following southern California earthquake in Los Angeles on Feb. 9, 1971. At least seven persons perished as buildings collapsed and authorities said another 54 were missing.
A hillside collapsed on to Foothill Blvd. near Wentworth Ave.
Arrows point to portions of Olive View Medical Center structure, torn loose from the quake’s force.
Quake-damaged Olive View Medical Center.
Rescue efforts at the Veterans Hospital in Sylmar.
The Peoples clothing store and the Mission City Hotel on the San Fernando Mall were severely damaged in the quake.
The Granada Hills branch of the public library as appeared the day after the quake. Library staff and Bureau of Public Buildings were able to get the library reopened before the end of February.
A sheriff’s deputy watches as a priest administers last rights to a victim killed in the quake at Olive View Medical Center.
A chimney collapsed from the quake.
Patients were moved to an open area at the Veterans Hospital following the quake.
The Golden State Freeway at the Foothill over-crossing.
A clock frozen at the time of the quake inside Olive View Hospital.
Senator John Tunney and Congressman James Corman discuss the damage at Olive View hospital on Feb. 11, 1971.
Block walls collapsed in a Granada Hills Neighborhood.
A section of the Golden State Freeway in Sylmar.
A worker sweeps broken glass during the cleanup efforts following the quake.
The Old Hubbard House located on the southwest corner of Fourth St. and Brand Blvd. in the city of San Fernando was severely damaged.
The Golden State Freeway at the Foothill over-crossing on the day of the quake.
Ambulances were crushed under the collapsed carport at Olive View Hospital.
Rescue efforts at the Veterans Hospital in Sylmar. Bill Walker, center, 22, a patient at the hospital was pinned to his bed following the quake. After he freed himself, he joined the rescue effort.
Equipment on its side at the Sylmar Converter Station following the earthquake.
Vice President Spiro Agnew visits the quake damage areas just days after the quake.
Aerial view of the Veterans Administration Hospital in Sylmar, 1966. On February 9, 1971 a devastating earthquake destroyed two wings of this hospital.
Veterans Hospital in Sylmar on the day of the quake.
Rescue efforts included cranes as workers searched through the rubble.
Part of the Old Olive View Hospital destroyed in the quake.
A slide onto Foothill Blvd. at Wentworth Ave.
Businesses were severely damaged in the 1100 block of San Fernando Road.
Injured victims at the Veterans Hospital are being prepared to board a helicopter bound for Holy Cross Hospital in Mission Hills.
A wall lies collapsed on the sidewalk at the Olive View Hospital.
Built in 1872, the Maclay House , on the northeast corner of Fourth Street and Brand Blvd. in San Fernando was severely damaged by the quake.
Bulldozers move debris at the Veterans Hospital in Sylmar.
Removing debris at Olive View following the quake.
View of the Veterans Hospital before the quake.
Newhall Pharmacy on the morning of the quake. View is of the rear of the building.
Structure fire at 11835 Wicks St. in Sun Valley as a result of the quake.
Structure fire at 11835 Wicks St. in Sun Valley as a result of the quake.
Structure fire at 11835 Wicks St. in Sun Valley as a result of the quake.
Rescue efforts included cranes as workers searched through the rubble.
Rescue efforts at the Veterans Hospital in Sylmar.
Old Olive View support station on Olive View Dr.

So what’s Your Story?

We’d love to hear your stories of where you were, what you felt, how you coped. And if you have any pictures of what you saw that day, that would be great! You can click here and scroll to the comment box, or click on the Please Comment above this post and scroll down to the comment box.

This was originally posted on February 9, 2008.