Northridge quake’s cataclysmic effect

We heard it before we felt it.

A roaring sound jolted us awake a second or so before the Northridge earthquake violently shook our house at 4:31 a.m. It was Jan. 17, 1994.

We live in Woodland Hills, 51/2 miles from the earthquake's epicenter which actually was in Reseda, not Northridge. And the ripple effects from that morning 20 years ago still haunt us.

Once the shaking started it lasted only 25 or 30 seconds, although I thought it wouldn't stop before the whole house shook apart. But the half-minute of a magnitude 6.7 temblor was enough to overturn furniture, shatter patio doors, empty kitchen dish shelves and spill food from the refrigerator.

We screamed to our 3-year-old twins sleeping down the hall to stay in their beds. Out a window I could see bright flashes as electrical transformers down the hill shorted out.

I looked for my shoes, which I'd left next to the bed the evening before. They were gone tossed somewhere in the darkness.

I ran in my bare feet to the kids' room, crunching on glass from framed hallway posters that had been thrown off the wall and smashed to the floor.

The kids were sitting bolt-upright in their beds, frozen in fear. I told them to stay where they were until we came back to get them.

I made my way to the kitchen to hunt for a flashlight. I stumbled over several basketball-size rocks that had been ripped from a stone fireplace wall that separated the living room and dining area. I found a flashlight that worked and picked my way back to our bedroom.

We threw on clothes and decided to carry the twins to one of our cars parked out front before any aftershocks could hit. But neither of us could find our car keys: they'd been shaken off bedroom dressers and had disappeared beneath other items tossed to the floor. We finally found one set buried under some books and a basket of coins and ran to the kids' room.

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Northridge quake's cataclysmic effect