Los Angeles Times Special Quake Report: One Year Later : Still Shaken / Coming Back : Recovery Slow in Ventura County

The 6.7-magnitude shock struck Ventura County’s fault-line neighborhoods deeper and harder than anyone first thought.

Residents of Simi Valley, Fillmore, Piru and Thousand Oaks wanted to believe they could restore normalcy to their homes, businesses and lives within six months, maybe 12.

But a year later, many Ventura County residents are still finding damage and still suffering deep psychological wounds from a catastrophe they thought they had left behind.

At least one official has no illusions about how long recovery will last.

“Based upon what I’ve heard has happened in other areas--Santa Cruz, Coalinga, Whittier--we were told up front, ‘Expect at least five years before you’re fully recovered,’ ” Fillmore City Manager Roy Payne said.

“I think we’re doing better than that,” he said. “I think we’re going to see a significant amount of recovery in this next year, which would mean in two years we’d be back in business.”

But out in the county’s neighborhoods and shops, average folk are a little more shellshocked by it all.

Charlotte Maciel’s eyes moisten as she looks at the four cul-de-sac homes surrounding hers in Simi Valley’s hard-hit east end.

Empty and dark, the houses await demolition while the city tries to wrest rebuilding plans away from a tangle of FEMA restrictions. The last of the owners just moved out.

“It was OK until three or four nights ago, when Sally’s boys were there,” Maciel said. “That first night after they left, it was pretty bleak. She had all the lights and utilities cut off.”

At noon in Piru, a man with rope in hand slowly tows a boy on a big plastic tricycle straight down the double yellow line splitting Main Street. No traffic threatens them.

Out in Simi Valley’s housing tracts, cement-spattered city workers are mending fractured sidewalks while sweating homeowners continue rebuilding their block walls.

“The county’s never been hit this hard before,” said former Supervisor Vicky Howard. “I don’t think anybody realized the significance of the damage--and the hidden damage.”