LOS ANGELES -- On Balboa Boulevard in suburban Northridge on Monday, a plume of fire erupted 75 feet high from a buckled street - the final roar of an explosion so hot it incinerated three houses and a car.
Down the road, at the Northridge Meadows apartment complex, resident Mary McDonald stood swathed in blood-soaked sweatpants as firefighters clawed away at rubble, trying to rescue an elderly neighbor. What had been the first floor of a three-story complex was now only a pile of glass and plaster.
The earthquake that rumbled the Los Angeles area awake Monday brought its full-scale force across dozens of miles through this basin.
And three hours after it struck, there was no mistaking that this small community in the northern San Fernando Valley was at the epicenter of the destruction.
At Granada Hills Community Hospital, where only two-thirds of the 120 beds were filled at daybreak, business suddenly turned so brisk that triage was performed on the injured in the parking lot outside the emergency room.
Inside was an even bleaker scene: Eleven elderly patients had been evacuated from second- and third-floor rooms after a pipe burst and soaked carpets with brackish water.
Patients lay on blue foam mattresses in a reception room, curled up in soiled sheets and blankets, staring vacantly as gurneys and wheelchairs whizzed by.
"We've been saturated here," said hospital president Richard Gold, unshaven and wearing red shorts he threw on before rushing to work.
At the housing complex, McDonald was one of the few who lived on the first floor who managed to escape death or injury. She said simply, "I was awakened with a jolt and then the ceiling came down."
Her friend, Annette Grossman, still wearing a pink robe, said, "I thought, 'This is the end of my life.' I yelled out, 'This is it, I'm going!' "
As the two women spoke, rescue workers finally pushed through with a stretcher bearing an injured resident of the crushed apartment.
"Oh, thank God he's OK," said Grossman.
Their building had collapsed as if it where a three-layered cake, the first floor disappearing under the weight of the top two floors.
Walls and glass were scattered across the parking lot. Balconies and window frames hung twisted, transforming the suburban complex into a surreal Dali painting.
The building's front lawn was littered with TV sets, furniture and clothing - thrown out windows by residents or rescue officers.
"We didn't get anything out at all," Jamie Lam, 19, said as firefighters ordered her roommate to stop looking for a wallet.
When the earthquake hit, it was just before dawn. After the quake, it was so dark that it was near impossible to see anyone on the streets, filled with a jumble of frightened residents, most still in nightclothes.
People who had stashed away flashlights just for this moment couldn't find them in the dark chaos left by the earthquake.
Even as the early morning rumble subsided, the streets were filled with an explosion of new sounds: car alarms, burglar alarms and sirens. Traffic lights stopped working and never came back on.
With the light of day, it was difficult to realize what had happened in parts of Los Angeles. Except for a traffic light here, or a crack in a foundation there, the streets showed little indication of a major quake.
Then, around a turn, came Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks: a once-bustling street of commerce now all broken glass, dropped building fronts, piles of merchandise strewn across stores.
Paul Leasom, 26, turned up with a camera to take pictures to send to his folks back in Wisconsin.
"This is like a war zone," he said.
The smell of gas was everywhere. And so were lines, at liquor stores, convenience stores, and cash machines.
By midday, aftershocks became so common that most people ignored them.
But they could not ignore the house without a side, or the trailer park where whole houses were burned down because one resident forgot to turn off a gas main.
Torrid heat in the high 80s added to everyone's misery. By noon, umbrellas and tarps were showing up all over town.
A semblance of normal began to return. Fires were burning, but they didn't seem to be spreading.
Through it all, there were constant reminders that there would always be a Los Angeles:
Joggers were still up and running on Santa Monica Boulevard.
And on Ontario Boulevard - as fire and water burst through the buckled street and a charred utility pole collapsed, bringing wires down with it - a skateboarder went whizzing on by.
