Despite Reassurance, Officials Quaking

County and city officials appeared less than reassured by a Caltrans official’s promise Thursday that the state would speed up work to reinforce Orange County bridges considered vulnerable to a major earthquake.

Work has yet to begin on 37 bridges identified as part of major arteries used by county commuters that are likely to become impassible if struck by an earthquake of the intensity of the temblor that jolted the San Francisco Bay Area in October, Caltrans officials said.

Frank J. Weidler, a state Department of Transportation deputy district director who oversees county operations, conceded that progress on the reinforcement program has been slow, blaming limited funds and the demands of more immediate highway emergencies.

But Weidler assured about 35 county and municipal officials that the agency has been reevaluating priorities in reaction to the Oct. 17 collapse of the Nimitz Freeway in Oakland, which killed 42 people.

“I’m certain that progress is going to be accelerated,” Weidler told the group assembled in a meeting room at Huntington Beach City Hall early Thursday. The group included county emergency planners and officials from the 2nd Supervisorial District represented by Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder.

Caltrans’ Weidler said later that along with speeding up the reinforcement program, the agency will probably expand the list of bridges to be retrofitted in a report due next June. The agency had placed less priority on reinforcement, he said, in part because of “the fact that we’d had only two highway deaths related to earthquakes.”

Wieder was clearly troubled by the assurances.

“The list is a year-and-a-half old. Very little has been done,” Wieder interjected during Weidler’s remarks.

“That means,” she said, “we’re still in trouble.”

In March, 1988, Caltrans identified 700 bridges out of more than 11,800 throughout the state as likely to become impassible in an earthquake. The state agency has estimated the cost of reinforcing the bridges at more than $300 million.

Of those vulnerable bridges, 36 are within the county. One--a span of the San Diego Freeway where it crosses the San Gabriel River--is just over the county line in Long Beach.

None in Orange County have been scheduled for retrofitting. The San Diego Freeway overpass in Long Beach--considered No. 8 in need of repair in the entire state--is to be reinforced early next year. The cost of bridge improvements is estimated at $900,000.

At Thursday’s meeting, Caltrans’ Weidler noted that while the county’s most vulnerable bridges could be knocked out in a serious earthquake, none is believed to be in danger of collapsing as the Nimitz did.

Weidler said 57 county bridges identified in an earlier study as being in danger of crumbling and killing motorists in a major earthquake have already been strengthened.

“I feel confident that nothing is going to collapse on traffic,” he said. “If we feel a bridge is dangerous, we will close it.”

But he conceded under questioning by Cypress City Councilwoman Gail H. Kerry that Caltrans had also retrofitted the Nimitz Freeway as part of the same program--and that the agency had pronounced the double-decked road safe.

“Well, what happened?” Kerry asked. “Was it incorrect?”

Weidler responded: “I don’t know what happened. . . . We were totally awe-struck.”