Quake-Battered Town Faces Bleak Christmas

During most Christmas seasons, Sandra Wallace loves to visit Paso Robles and share the holiday feeling in this town of 27,000 residents. Just not this year.

The celebratory mood has been deflated following this week’s magnitude-6.5 earthquake that killed two people, flattened historic buildings and caused $100 million in damage.

“I’m brokenhearted,” said Wallace, who runs an alpaca ranch outside of town. “It’s typically a joy to come downtown this time of year. It’s a gathering point. It makes you want to cry. It’s just hard to say happy holidays.”

Downtown’s usual bustle of last-minute shoppers was replaced by bulldozers and crews clearing debris from roads and inspecting businesses to determine whether to allow owners to retrieve valuables.

Monday’s earthquake struck north of coastal San Simeon and rumbled southeastward through San Luis Obispo County countryside, causing the worst destruction in Paso Robles and scattered damage in other small towns including nearby Atascadero.

Paso Robles officials estimate the quake caused more than $100 million in damage. City Manager Jim App said the figure was derived from damage to 82 buildings and their contents in a six-by-nine-block radius in downtown.

Nearly two-thirds of the $100 million estimate represents loss of structural value, while one-third is an estimate of lost contents. City officials believe it will take years to rebuild the downtown area.

Federal Emergency Management Agency inspectors were expected in town on Friday.

A small bouquet of yellow flowers marked the spot where the bodies of Marilyn Zafuto, 55, of Paso Robles, and Jennifer Myrick, 20, of Atascadero, were found under rubble after the collapse of a 19th century clock tower building in Paso Robles.

“Christmas will be Christmas, but it will be hard,” said David Wallace, Sandra’s husband. “There will be a certain sadness for people’s losses and the loss of life. But the people who live in Paso will pick themselves up and move on.”