Well - Here's today's story - there are more accounts in it - I'll try to find yesterday's - I don't like posting whole stories here, but when they disappear... Oh yes - I think I did save a copy of that other one for myself - I'll post it next.

L.B. was shaken 70 years ago
By Tim Grobaty
Staff columnist (Long Beach Press Telegram)
Today and you likely are terribly aware of this already if you were in town seven decades ago is the 70th anniversary of the March 10, 1933, Long Beach earthquake, the most memorable episode in the city's history.

To commemorate the event, we asked readers to send in their recollections of that historic event, which killed 53 people in Long Beach and destroyed thousands of houses, schools and other buildings, particularly those of brick construction.

Because the event occurred so long ago, we figured to receive a handful of essays. Instead, we were inundated with more than 200 of them.

On Sunday, we excerpted several of the readers' memories, and we continue with another batch today. And even so, there were many that we simply didn't have room to publish. We're sincerely grateful to all who submitted essays and photographs, and just as sincerely apologize to those whose fine work didn't get in. Our beach house was on the beach at Dolphin Avenue in Seal Beach, but we were at home in Glendale when the quake struck. Dad loaded us in the 1930 Buick for a dash to the seashore to save our beach retreat. No one was home. The town was deserted. We had a nice sleep and, the next day, we discovered the Red Cross had served coffee and doughnuts all night up on the hill by Hellman Ranch.

There was extensive damage in Seal Beach. Our beach house, built my my grandfather, stood sturdy and strong. My mother always claimed it was the million nails he used putting the house up.

Jim "G.' Stangeland
Seal Beach
Yes, the quake was felt hardest in Long Beach, but it was also felt in Los Angeles in Solano Valley, over the hill from Chavez Ravine. Dad had packed the five of us into his Ford panel bakery truck for a visit to friends when the quake hit. We all still recall Dad's words, "Temblor, temblor,' as the truck shook. It was scary.

Val Rodriguez
Signal Hill
Seventy years ago, when I was 7 years old, my mom and dad decided it was time to settle down and for me to start school. My first seven years was spent traveling from state to state, and we had ended up in Florida. Of all the towns and cities in the country they had visited, they were most impressed with Long Beach, and it was on March 10, 1933, when dad pulled his big '32 Buick with spare tires on each front fender into the Texaco gas station to fill up and head for Long Beach.

While doing so, a kid was coming down the street selling "EXTRAS!' My dad bought the paper to see what it was all about and the headline read, "LONG BEACH CALIFORNIA DESTROYED BY EARTHQUAKE!'

It took a week or 10 days to arrive here, and we moved into an apartment on West Broadway. The front of the apartment house next door was all over the sidewalk. I still remember it, and I've lived in Long Beach ever since.

Dave Camp
Long Beach
My parents, Marie and Vincent Rinella, were married on Feb. 14, 1933, and were just starting their life together. When the quake hit, my father drove as quickly as he could to the little place they rented on 10th Street between Cherry and Orange avenues. Inside, he couldn't find Mom anywhere. She had evidently been cooking dinner in the tiny kitchen because the pots and food had slid from the stove to the floor. He was very anxious, fearing she had been burned or hurt from falling objects. He searched the surrounding area outside. She wasn't there! He decided to drive east on 10th Street and, about four blocks from home, he found her. Mom was waiting at a bus stop. When she saw him, she very emphatically said, "I'm going home to my mother!'

Although they spent several nights camping out near my grandparents' house, Mom and Dad did return to their little place to continue their lives. They moved several times, but always resided in Long Beach. They were married more than 60 years before my mom died in 1993.

Mary Robertson
Lakewood
My father, Don Tubbs, was 6 years old when the 1933 earthquake struck. A few days earlier, his mom had told him that God punishes children who misbehave. On the day of the quake, he had taken some doughnuts from the kitchen after being told by his mom to leave them alone.

Their house on LaVerne Ave., just south of Second St., was knocked off its foundation. When my father saw the devastation in his neighborhood, he thought he was responsible for what happened. He believed God was punishing him for stealing the doughnuts. Later, he walked from door to door in the neighborhood, knocking at each house and apologizing to whoever answered the door for causing the earthquake.

Donna Tubbs Pompei
Long Beach
My mom and dad were separated for days by impassable streets and downed phone lines, and for the rest of her life 68 more years! Mom insisted on accounting for the whereabouts at all times of everyone she loved "just in case something should happen.'

Jeri Livingstone
Long Beach
I was 9 years old and had "Jack Armstrong, All American Boy' on my radio, when the rumbling began. Grandpa Brown from the grocery store knew what it meant. He yelled at my Uncle Paul to get me out of the house quickly: An earthquake was going to hit. Paul rushed in and just threw me out on the lawn. I was so angry with him, until I looked up and saw everything waving back and forth. I could not get to my feet.

Dad was making home brew (beer) in a crock under the water heater. The crock broke and all the beer flowed through the kitchen, dining room and ended up on the carpet in the sunken living room where it stayed. The smell was horrible. I can't stand beer to this day.

Pat Olden
Long Beach
"God Save Us Jefferson Davis! The Devil's after us, Catherine!' screamed Mrs. Fletchers, our 35-year-old pianist and dance accompanist for Kiddie Mac's Dance Studio. She was screaming to owner and teacher of fine arts, 25-year-old Catherine McCoy. The location was upstairs in a building on American Avenue (now Long Beach Boulevard) around the corner from KFOX radio station on Anaheim Street.

Our dance teacher, "Kiddie Mac,' didn't like what she was seeing in the rehearsal for the coming dance revue to be held March 15, 1933, at the Long Beach Municipal Auditorium. She said we were to stay over and start at the beginning! All 36 students, ages 5 to 16, including some parents.

All of our whining came to a halt when this terrible, roaring freight-train sound started to move the dance floor, which then became one gigantic wooden slide to the first floor below! Slamming into the buildings and glass plate store windows with the upright piano and Mrs. Fletcher trying to hang on to it, tumbling along with the drinking-water jug fountain tumbling behind.

Where we landed was where we stayed. None of us were able to stand, yet alone walk. We were seated outside on the street sidewalk, just a few feet from the "popping- jumping' crackling hot, electric power lines that broke away from the damaged Pacific Electric Red Car line, torn from overhead power lines. The train tracks of steel were twisted like peppermint ribbon candy over the street.

Waterlines were busted with the water shooting high in the air like Old Faithful. Across the street, the store buildings had completely covered all the cars parked on the street with the red bricks that had built the stores. Buried!

Margot Burns Wintermote
Seal Beach
I was 5 years old when the earthquake hit. My mother, father, sister and I were living in a small home in North Long Beach at 5374 Orange Ave. The area was mostly open fields with a few houses scattered throughout.

Our father was returning from the Surplus Food depot on Anaheim Street on the bus. He got off with a shopping bag in each hand and walked past Lindbergh Junior High. He was adjacent to a freshly plowed field when the quake hit. "I looked up and saw the top of the telephone poles going around in circles, so I ran out across the field to avoid them when I saw a wave of plowed ground coming toward me. When it hit, it flipped me into the air, scattering groceries all over the ground,' he said.

For the next several weeks we lived outdoors cooking on wood and coke fires, watching for wild animals and visiting neighbors doing the same. What an adventure for a 5-year-old boy. I loved every minute of it.

Ken Miltenberger
Long Beach
I was 15 years old and never felt an earthquake or knew anything about them.

I had stayed after school at Jefferson to watch a play, and I was sitting on a bench waiting for the little trolley that went to Naples. I learned about earthquakes on the bench one second and face-down in the middle of the street the next. No one at home knew where I was, and I knew I was in trouble.

There was another girl waiting for the same trolley. We just grabbed each other and screamed. Out of the dust and falling brick came a wonderful man in his ice truck. He picked us up and took us home. My dad was so glad to see me he didn't blame me for all the disturbance, which, for some crazy reason, I felt was all my fault.

Barbara Phillips
Long Beach
On March 10, 1933, Juanita Reese, Lois Itson and I left Edison Junior High School at Seventh and Daisy to go to the docks in Long Beach to see the battleship Old Ironsides. Along with children across the nation, we collected pennies to have Old Iron sides refurbished, and we were privileged to actually see and tour the ship. We had a great time and headed home by bus, Juanita and Lois heading toward the east side while I took a bus to Signal Hill.

It was just before 6 p.m. and Mom was just beginning to serve dinner as I walked in the door. Wham! Slam! The house began to shake and roll. We fought our way out the door, and we were in the driveway that ran between apartment units, when someone yelled, "Get out of the area, there are cesspools beneath the driveway, and they might cave in!' So everyone headed toward Junipero Avenue, but someone else yelled, "Don't go that way, it's too dangerous! Live wires will electrocute you!' So we went to an empty lot across the alley from our home. That vacant lot became our home for two weeks.

Another story: Our friend's son-in-law drove a bus for the city of Long Beach, his route going up Pine Avenue. When the quake hit, the street buckled beneath the bus but he kept driving. People screamed at him to let them out of the bus. One woman started hitting him on his back and head, but he wouldn't stop until he reached State Street (now Pacific Coast Highway), where there were no buildings and he thought the people would be safe.

Doris Holliday
Long Beach
We were right across from Seaside Hospital, and we lived upstairs. I had just finished practicing my violin in the kitchen and had just left the kitchen when the house started shaking. The kitchen floor fell through, so it was a good thing I got out of there.

The hospital was all brick and the bricks all came tumbling down. You could see that some of the beds had rolled out of the second floor with, I'm sure, dead patients. You could see into the operating room and doctors were operating. When it got dark, they were using candles to operate by. It was frightening. They laid the bodies down on the side of the hospital. It stays in your memory.

Dorothy Price
as told to Dennis Morawski
As a 4-year-old boy, I remember the '33 quake quite well. I was staying at my grandmother's apartment at Seventh and Atlantic when the quake started. My grandma held me in her arms outside all evening, assuring me that she would take care of me and everything would be all right until my parents got back to town the next day.

When my father got to Long Beach the next day, he was stopped at the city limits by an armed serviceman and was told he could not enter the city. My father pled his case for some time with the serviceman, but was informed his orders were to let no one enter the city. Dad told the serviceman his son, mother-in-law and his printing business were there, and he had to get to them. The man said he understood, but was sorry. "No one gets in!'

With that, my dad took his wallet from his pocket, took out all his money (about $50) and said, "This is all I have, you have to let me in!' The serviceman looked left then looked right, took my father's money and said, "OK! Hurry on in and be on your way.

Ray Green
Long Beach
We were eating supper in our home at 2441 E. Seventh St. when we were interrupted by the earthquake. Most of the kitchen cabinets opened up and their contents were spilled out onto the floor. Our ice box (we did not have a refrigerator at the time) danced across the floor.

My parents decided we would drive up to my grandparents' residence in Compton and spend the night there. Since my grandparents' home was quite small, we were forced to sleep outside. My parents arranged this by placing a standard mattress on the ground in the front yard. They parked an automobile on each side of the mattress and spread a canvas tarpaulin over the two vehicles. I slept in one car, and my sister slept in the other. My folks slept on the mattress.

I vividly remember driving down Anaheim Street and observing the remains of the apartments there. Most of them had a brick facade, with the rest of the building used standard wood construction. The fronts of the apartments had collapsed leaving a structure similar to a full-size doll house. You could see living rooms, dining rooms, kitchens, bathrooms and bedrooms and all their furniture. It was an amazing sight that I, a 7-year-old, will never forget.

Willis S. Kerr
Long Beach
March 10, 1933 was my ninth birthday one that I'll never forget. We lived at Bennett and Broadway, and I was on the sidewalk when it hit. We spent about two months sleeping eight of us, six kids and two parents in a one-car garage. We ate food cooked off a neighbor's barbecue.

My birthday treat was a chocolate milkshake my parents bought for me that night from the drug store fountain that managed to remain open.

Jim Kaspar
Seal Beach
While my family's residence was in Long Beach, we just happened to be having dinner at my aunt and uncle's home in Tustin. The quake may have been centered in Long Beach, but I can tell you this 7-year-old girl was panic-stricken when it hit, and it didn't help to be pulled one direction by my mother and the opposite by my grandmother. Momma was heading toward the front door and Grandma toward the back.

Momma made a bed for me in the back seat of the car, and I slept there for several nights till I finally moved back into Grandma's bedroom.

Claire Lind
Los Alamitos
On March 10, 1933, almost immediately after the first shock of the earthquake, Roy Crutchfield, a Long Beach City fireman who lived on Gladys Avenue, left home and headed for the fire station to help out in any way he could. A couple of days later, Roy headed for home and upon his arrival he found his back porch roof had collapsed. While carefully removing debris he came upon the partially squashed cage of his pet parrot and the parrot said, "Where the hell have you been Roy, on a drunk?'

C.A. Blesener
Long Beach