When this woman was badly injured in a car wreck, civilians took the place of overworked ambulance crews.
Throughout the earthquake zone, tales of neighbor helping neighbor, often with a unique California twist.
We all went around kicking doors and trying to get everybody out.
You know, you get adrenaline when you're scared and you're running and you have a little girl and there's little kids running around, screaming, let me out, let me out, and it's still shaking.
Yeah, we kicked doors in.
Californians discovered something about themselves in this time of trial.
We just couldn't get her through and it was pitch black and it was dark.
She was standing on that balcony screaming, there's no way to get her down, and I mean there was dust and all kinds of stuff.
And she was panicked, but we got a ladder and we got her down.
Everybody pitched in, everybody did a good job and that was it.
What some discovered, of course, is that enough is enough.
These college students lived at the epicenter of the quake and they're moving on.
It was so bad that I don't really want to spend another night.
For two years now, the promised land has been a disaster zone.
Riots, fires, and then the earthquake, one trial after another.
But it's also been a learning experience.
LA has sort of a negative vibe a lot of the time and it was just incredible how everybody's so sweet, how they wait for you, how they go their way to help you, etc.
So it's got another side to it.
Tom Brokaw, NBC News.
Tragedies can bring us the best in people, that's NBC News at Sunrise for this Wednesday morning.
I'm Ann Curry and I'll see you tomorrow.