Firefighters and law enforcement officers share their
memories
One of the most vivid memories for sheriff’s Sgt. Ed Nino of the
1989 earthquake was looking over at the old Rovella’s Gym location
downtown and seeing what looked like a life-size doll house.
”
It kind of reminded me of a doll house,
”
said Nino, of the business at the former Penney’s building on
Fourth Street.
Firefighters and law enforcement officers share their memories
One of the most vivid memories for sheriff’s Sgt. Ed Nino of the 1989 earthquake was looking over at the old Rovella’s Gym location downtown and seeing what looked like a life-size doll house.
“It kind of reminded me of a doll house,” said Nino, of the business at the former Penney’s building on Fourth Street.
“Its face was gone. You could look inside and see furniture and weights among the rubble.”
Like many law enforcement officers and firefighters who responded to the 7.1 quake in October 1989, Nino had been preparing to watch the World Series game between the Giants and A’s. He was off duty in Hollister, and immediately rushed home to Gilroy where he lived at the time to ensure his family was OK before rushing back to town.
“I didn’t have to call,” he said. “The phones were down. I just rushed back to Hollister and went to work.”
Nino described the Rovella’s destruction as a poignant memory, but he also spoke of how emergency responders circulated the county for much of the aftermath. He was, however, initially assigned to check on the convalescent hospitals, he said.
Fire Chief Fred Cheshire recalled how local firefighters approached the disaster by splitting the city into four sections.
“And we had one unit assigned to each of those four sections,” said Cheshire, then a first-year firefighter with the department. “Basically, we were out on patrol.”
Cheshire remembered how crews would look for people in distress or those who had flagged them down. They largely sought out potential gas leaks or other fire hazards, but they dealt with a long line of problems as they rotated firefighters on a 12 hours on, 12 hours off basis.
“We had everything from someone trapped in a home that had partially collapsed to, ‘Do I know the score of the World Series?'”
Looking back, Cheshire noted how responders have a plan in place and better resources, such as lifting tools.
“It just kind of strikes me we’re so much more prepared for something like that now, but we’re nowhere near as prepared as we should be.”
One thing that won’t change is cooperation among local agencies. Battalion Chief Paul Avila at the county’s Fairview Road station recalled how he had been working at the Bear Valley station at the time and how its firefighters were called in to Hollister to help out.
Like others, Avila noted how communication was a roadblock at the outset with phone lines down and the station’s dispatching repeater out. A lot of their responses were to gas leaks, residents trapped or minor collapse of buildings.
He said crews worked around 12 hours straight through.
“After it calmed down a little, we started taking calls here [at the Fairview station] and categorizing them on the white board.”
And while Marshal Robbie Scattini recounted how he also went out on patrol looking for people in need or other dangerous situations, he found himself in a predicament when the earthquake first hit.
Scattini said he had been arresting a suspect with a warrant. He had one handcuff on the man when the ground started shaking, he said.
Scattini recalled how he and the suspect were on the second floor of a downtown apartment building and that they half-tumbled down the stairs together during the temblor, before the man ran out the back alley. The marshal said he never saw the suspect again.
“I lost a guy and I lost a pair of handcuffs,” he said.
Share your memories
Submit memories of the Loma Prieta earthquake to the Weekend Pinnacle through e-mail, written letter or fax by Oct. 1. Limit word count to 75 words (longer submissions will be edited for space) and include your name, age, and city of residence.
E-mail letters to
mf*****@pi**********.com
; fax to 637-8174 or mail to: 350 Sixth St., Ste. 102, Hollister, CA 95023. Call City Editor Melissa Flores at 637-6300 for more information.
