Five years after the Northridge earthquake rousted everybody on Nashville Street out of bed before dawn, it did it again Sunday.
This time, though, neighbors along the cul-de-sac in Chatsworth got up voluntarily to toast their good fortune at 4:31 a.m.--the precise moment the earthquake struck on Jan. 17, 1994.
After the quake hit "we were all out sitting on the curb in front of our houses waiting for the sun to come up. We're doing the same thing now, except the curb is new and the houses are new," said Chuck Clark as he popped open a bottle of champagne.
Like much of the San Fernando Valley, the area around Nashville Street was devastated by the 6.7-magnitude temblor. Thirty-seven of the neighborhood's 44 homes were left uninhabitable.
But nobody was killed or seriously hurt. And after their houses were repaired or rebuilt, all but three families returned to the cul-de-sac.
That's why two-dozen residents set their alarm clocks so they could gather Sunday at 4:31 a.m. After counting down the seconds to the precise moment the quake hit, they raised their glasses to salute the positive aspects of the earthquake.
"We have good neighbors," explained Randy Cressall, whose family lived in a frontyard tent for two weeks after the quake. "The fellowship and friendship that came after the earthquake was unbelievable."
On Sunday, residents could laugh at what they went through in the first terrifying moments after the quake--and during the frustrating months that followed.
Barbara Koteles remembered she was in the kitchen getting a glass of grapefruit juice when it struck.
"Everything just exploded. Boom. Things came flying out of the refrigerator," she said. "The fireplace caved into the den. The whole side of the house went. I had to make my way back upstairs to get my daughter Jennifer. We got some blankets and got out on the lawn."
Elaine Frawley told of how a wall collapsed on her and husband Kevin as they lay in bed. When they pulled themselves free from the rubble and made their way outside, neighbors were already pounding on doors to check on victims.
Kim LaVere, now 14, remembered a neighbor from across the street coming in with a flashlight to help her family.
"We couldn't get to my daughters," explained her mother, Linda LaVere. "The garage was leaning. Furniture was blocking the doors."
