We were still in bed.
It just kind of went, you know, home to home.
Homes collapsed, freeways buckled, fires, floods, landslides.
It will take some time for authorities to assess all the damage from the 6.6 earthquake,
but for a lot of people it's a nightmare that will not end with the morning light.
This is the San Fernando Valley and I'm sitting here in my own kitchen.
After years of covering natural disasters in this earthquake,
I was one of the victims.
There's no way to fully understand unless you've actually woken up in the middle of a 6.6 earthquake.
It was the day Southern California had feared, but hoped would never come.
Tonight, a hard copy special report. Nightmare in Paradise.
For Monday, January 17, 1994, this is hard copy.
This is normally one of the busiest freeways in the world,
running right to the heart of Hollywood's entertainment district.
But today, it looks more like a theme from a disaster movie.
From the Santa Monica Freeway, good evening, I'm Barry Nolan.
Welcome to this special edition of hard copy.
This morning, shortly after 4.30, people in Los Angeles,
at a time when typically you're at the deepest part of your night's sleep,
were shaken out of bed and awoke to a nightmare, a 6.6 earthquake,
that caused some major damage, and I can tell you from personal experience, scared a lot of them.
A rumbling that became a roar, and Los Angeles woke up to a nightmare.
It lasted only 35 seconds, but for many, it felt like it would never stop.
I was afraid. I was under the table. I was just afraid to god that nothing happened,
and I heard things falling down, but I didn't care as long as it didn't come on me.
It was the biggest earthquake of the century in Southern California,
felt from the beaches of Malibu to the deserts of Las Vegas.
And as the earth shook, the city felt fear like it has never felt before.
The uncontrollable force of Mother Nature taking control of the lives of the people of paradise.
We have buildings collapsed, major structure fires everywhere, gas leaks, water leaks,
and we have a lot of transportation and bridge collapse.
It hit the bedroom communities of the San Fernando Valley the hardest.
Nearby freeways collapsed, trapping motorists underneath cement and rubble.
The five freeways, the main artery connecting north and south, destroyed.
Reports are it may take months to repair.
And among the ruins, a local police officer, thrown from his motorcycle, killed instantly.
A pregnant woman lifted to safety. It was chaos on the overpass.
We were assisting a pregnant woman that had some third-century on a tailgate of a truck,
so the helicopter could take her away.
And about that time, because we were up here on the overpass, the clouds portion,
and up above, we saw these lights come, screeching, and then these lights come rolling off, flashing lights,
and the officer just, you know, he hit the pavement.
The smoke had barely cleared from the fires of last month, and once again, it is a city in flames.
A trailer park full of families on fire.
We've got to get out of here.
I think it started about two or three down.
See the lights, the flames flickering.
Just kind of went, you know, home to home.
The mayor.
The Oak Ridge Mobile Home Park has roughly 600 trailers.
Tonight, a third of them are burned.
Luckily, everyone survived, but the panic on the faces of the elderly here speak volumes.
One young couple returned to their home to find it on fire.
The gas main went, and the fire spread under the house when we were still in bed.
It was still shaking.
The fire spread under the house, and we just got out.
We had nothing.
I thought when the firemen got here, mine wasn't on fire yet, and I thought maybe they could get it,
but they're just moving too fast, and I don't guess they have enough water pressure.
Too hot.
They said the fire's inside the house now, and they can't get on there.
Inside the house is completely trashed.
Completely.
Everything is collapsed down, and everything is broken and shattered.
All the motel sets fell off and shattered.
The refrigerator doors were open and spun off the hinges.
That's pretty scary for a few minutes, but unfortunately, I don't think anybody was hurt in the park.
Looks like there's going to be a lot of structural damage here.
In Sylmar, an underground gas main exploded.
It was fireworks in the sky.
Meanwhile, in Northridge, a three-story apartment building partially collapsed,
one story on top of another, leaving residents inside trapped, fighting for their lives.
Rescue teams were chainsawing through the rubble to get to the victims.
Everybody get back!
Get back out of here!
Gun, gun!
Back!
I want to know who you're voting for.
Back up, back up.
Okay, let's go. We've got to get out of here.
Come on now.
Jerry, it's me, Jennifer. I'm here.
Just down the road, the local hospital was closed with just a makeshift emergency room outside to aid the wounded.
I've got a cut on my leg. Everything fell down, my whole house, the bookcases.
I think the TV fell on top of me. I don't know.
Bookcases fell down, and we were just lucky to get out.
Either I went into the little TV or the TV fell down and I have a deep gash in my leg.
And Hollywood has become the city of broken dreams.
We were in bed. Our kids were asleep, man. The whole building shook.
I was scared to death.
Murals of the famous have fallen.
These are people milling around this morning. One young woman, by the way, what they're looking at on the ground there,
that's the well-known mural that's on Hollywood and just south of Hollywood Boulevard on Hudson Avenue, James Dean and other famous.
It just peeled right off the building and people were scavenging, looking for pieces.
Most of the buildings held pretty good. Mine I was worried about. I thought the Lego would come down and it didn't.
It's an older building.
It's an older building. It held real good. Yeah, that's the one that Marilyn Monroe was in and Charles Bronson lived in there.
It used to be a very, very nice hotel, but it held together pretty good.
And other celebrity homes were destroyed. This one was once the home of Sonny and Cher.
Sonny and Cher lived in one of these homes about 20 or more years ago.
He says that's why he named his two dogs Sonny and Cher. There's a lot of history, a lot of LA history.
Throughout the city, the walking wounded assessed the damage, too frightened to return to their homes,
too stunned to deal with the reality of the destruction.
Couldn't stand up out of my bed and all the glass was flying and I just called to my daughter's room to get her.
And there was big sheets of glass, I guess, on the floor and I severed some tendons and things in my hands and my knees.
And I just really want to say that inside they have been incredible.
You've already been treated inside the hospital. You've been seen by doctors?
Yes, and they are working so hard. I mean, the nurses and the people helping and it's like a war zone inside.
I've been through earthquakes here in Hollywood before, and before it was more like a rockin' motion.
Before you kind of get up in bed and you kind of ride it out.
This one, right when it happened, you knew that it was time to get out.
It will take some time for authorities to fully assess all the damage from today's major quake,
but it's pretty obvious to even the most casual observers that the nightmare, at least for commuters, will continue for some time to come.
This used to be my exit.
We'll continue with our special coverage of Nightmare in Paradise in just a moment.
function
Fires, collapsed freeways, shaken nerves are only a part of the story.
For more of our special coverage of the nightmare in paradise, here's Doug Bruckner.
I've worked a lot of years as a news reporter covering natural disasters and interviewing victims,
but I never thought that the victim would be me.
My kitchen floor looked like ground zero in a war zone.
Glass, broken dishes, food. The refrigerator door flew open.
I love this lamp. It stands on this stand.
So you see how the, what had to have happened with the lamp was that there was so much shaking.
Like most of LA, I was asleep when the shaking started.
I woke up to see my television set being pitched onto the floor.
Thankfully, it didn't land on my bed.
You can see these, these are from the chimney right up here above.
And one of the big concerns is the chimney collapsing, which is exactly what happened to my next door neighbor.
I have no idea. My chimney is still upright. I'm not exactly sure what happened.
But when I began visiting my neighbors and took a look at their damage, I realized I was one of the lucky ones.
Across the street, I saw what my neighbor had told me about when he walked dazed into my house.
His chimney collapsed into his motor home. Inside, a prized antique collection, totally destroyed.
And then there was the district of three-story apartment buildings,
where panicked residents fled into the street, believing they were literally running for their lives.
Everything's gone. Everything's gone. There isn't anything that's, um, left.
Everywhere you looked, there was another sickening picture of loss.
The streets were lined with stunned and shivering people, their pets in prized possessions gathered around them.
I see these dogs now. My dad almost turned silent.
Do you know what he's going to do now?
No. No. No.
At almost every neighborhood shop, a display window broke.
And I saw that window coming out just like a, a lion. Absolutely a lion.
Just after the quake in the business district in the predawn darkness, parts of my neighborhood were burning.
You know, I can't even give you an idea. All I know is I got major problems right here.
As soon as they got the fires out, they had to cope with the floods.
Broken water mains turned streets into swamps.
This is a neighborhood of underground parking lots.
The brave residents ignored the rumbling aftershocks to drive their cars to safety,
and they turned the San Fernando Valley Boulevard into parking lots.
It was the ultimate L.A. experience, taking refuge from an earthquake aftershock in your heart.
431 a.m. That's a minute I won't ever forget.
The noise, the fear of how much worse it was going to get, but we made it through, and thankfully nobody in our neighborhood was hurt.
Thanks, Doug.
One of the interesting after effects of a disaster like this is that immediately after which people feel the need to talk about it, to share it with people,
they're immediately out on the street saying, how are you? Are you okay? Were you asleep? Is your place all right?
Myself, I was asleep, shaking out of it, and scared witless.
If anything good can come out of a disaster like this here in Southern California, perhaps it's that neighbors who didn't used to know each other now, at least they're acquainted.
We'll be back with more in just a moment.
The show must go on, meaning that even under the most adverse circumstances, you somehow just get out there and do it,
was originally said of the entertainment industry, but even more true of news organizations.
But today in Southern California, it wasn't easy for anyone to get the show on. Diane Diamond has the story.
Barry, the Paramount lot where hard copy is produced is usually bustling with activity, but the earthquake knocked out power, and today this lot looks like a ghost town.
The only way we were able to do a show today was with limited power from backup generators.
Our newsroom and executive offices still showing the effects of the 6.6 quake. No computers and very few lights.
Few employees made it into work today, too. Many were trapped in the San Fernando Valley, their days spent battling gas leaks, power outages, and the daunting task of cleanup.
Hello, boy. We're not used to this. We haven't lived in California long enough.
My morning began like every other Southern Californian, with a horrific jolt out of bed.
My house is tucked away in the Hollywood Hills. Only a freeway separated us from the epicenter of the quake.
Maybe the worst thing we lost was some of our wine collections. Yes, that's red wine on a beige carpet.
You know, it's really interesting because you come out and see this and glass everywhere and things that have flown off of the shelf landing up over here,
and then I see our whole China, our whole limo set. Not one piece was broken. Not one piece.
Everything that was on the walls and up on the shelves here just went flying in the bathroom. And of course, you have a lot of breakable stuff.
New hand lotions I'd just gotten for Christmas. But in the middle of it all, some of the old grandmother's antiques that survived.
Outside the Hollywood Hills area, makeshift hospitals, burning homes, a collapsed parking structure, a world turned upside down.
This entire part of Southern California was quickly called a disaster area.
I have spoken with Governor Wilson and with Mayor Riddon by phone.
I've assured them that we intend to do everything we possibly can to help the people of Los Angeles and Southern California deal with the earthquake and its aftermath.
We have problems ahead of us, but I feel that we have the type of people that can solve those problems and are state top of everything.
I congratulate the citizens of Los Angeles for the cool they've shown so far. Keep it up and God bless all of you.
Federal dollars will soon be flowing in to help the victims hardest hit. But for right now, it is the psychological effects people here have to grapple with the most.
It's hard enough being literally jerked out of a deep sleep. But add to that the destruction of family mementos, the ruination of the peace that is your home.
I just exited the staircase and the ground began to violently shake. Billy jumped out the second story window to avoid. Everything just went boom, man. Just fell quickly. Fifteen seconds. Boom.
One L.A. radio station brought on a psychologist today to talk to people about the shock of living through an earthquake like this. He told everyone to take a deep breath and calm down.
And just as everyone tried to do that, he then reminded us that this 6.6 quake is not the big one scientists have been predicting. Barry?
Thanks, Diane. I think for people that have never experienced a major earthquake, the closest thing to it that you might be familiar with is being in an automobile accident.
It lasts for only a few seconds, but you feel quite shaken for some time afterwards. Today, it was quite some crash. We'll be back with more in just a moment.
Here on the corner of Hollywood and Vine and all throughout the Southland, the recovery from the earthquake has already begun. We will continue our coverage throughout the week of the nightmare in paradise.
We'll also bring you the stories we originally intended to bring you tonight as well as much more. So hope you'll join us all this week. From a still shaky Los Angeles, I'm Barry Nolan. Thanks for joining us. And we were real glad we were able to be here.
Thanks for joining us.