Page 7 - sg_earthquake1994

RICH SHVEYDA
Dousing the flames
Firefighters Steve Toledo and Pat Perez battle a blaze at Greenbrier Mobile Home Park, where 14 homes
burned to the ground when gas lines were severed by the earthquake.

go," said Mary Flickinger, an FREEWAYS COLLAPSE severed bridge shortly after
82-year-old resident whose Perhaps the most lasting the quake.
mobile home burned. "I just image of the January 1994 Miraculously, there were
grabbed two things: clothing earthquake is that of the no other fatalities on local you just pick
... and a little box of valu- Highway 14-Interstate 5 freeways.
out one fire at
ables. I don't even have a junction, where steel and Traffic came to a screech-
a time and work on it.
purse or identification or any- concrete came crashing to the ing halt as several hundred
Our big thing was to
thing. They're all burnt up." ground. feet of the overpass crum-
When firefighters arrived, A 75-foot-high overpass bled, choking off the valley keep the ones next
there was little they could do connecting Highway 14 to from points south. door from catching."
for homes already engulfed, 1-5 collapsed at the onset of "The freeway started
Steve Reed
so they concentrated on sav- the quake, crushing cars and buckling and then the whole
Fire captain
ing those not yet on fire. causing the death of Clarence section in front of me just
"You just pick out one W. Dean, a 46-year-old Los went over the edge," said
fire at a time and work on it," Angeles police officer who Mark Southerd, a San
said fire Capt. Steve Reese. drove his motorcycle off the Continued on page 25

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