Jan. 17, 1994: The ground shook like never before in a populated Los Angeles. It was six months after Richard Riordan had become mayor, a leader now shaken out of bed at his westside home in the dark of early morning L.A.
There he was, amid the the city’s greatest natural disaster to that point, the city’s new mayor, running to his phone (a landline back then), which of course wasn’t working. Neither was the phone in his car.
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But eventually, after a 80- to 90-mph trip in his car to City Hall, he walked into an Emergency Operations Center downtown dealing with the chaos wrought by the Northridge Earthquake.
It was a seminal moment in a tenure with many, from the earthquake to dealing with the aftermath of the L.A. Riots, to an attempted break up of the city, to charter reform.
As Riordan told it, and as many remember, it was also a moment of intense urgency to break through the massive red tape between and within agencies at the city and state level. The swift action would define the style of leadership to which he long aspired as a businessman and a leader – an aspiration that attracted voters over his two terms as the city’s top elected official.
Unshowered, hair uncombed, but engaged, Riordan on that chaotic day immediately started a swift response that depended on cutting red tape to open up key transportation corridors and rebuilding collapsed stretches of freeway.
Accompanied by California Department of Transportation workers and Los Angeles Mayor Dick Riordan, second from left, President Bill Clinton squats as he surveys a crater on Balboa Avenue in the Northridge area of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles on Wednesday, Jan. 19, 1994, caused by Monday’s earthquake in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Marcy Nighswander)
When he learned that the only detour around a felled part of the Santa Monica Freeway consisted of three intersections going through neighboring Culver City, Riordan said “okay, fine, just take them over,” Riordan said in a 2015 reflection on leadership at the Brookings Institute.
“Another thing I learned through all this is perceived power can be turned into real power. People think you have power,” he said. “For example, on the earthquake, a natural disaster like that the state Constitution provided that the county would take over control of the emergency. I ignored that.”
When Riordan ran to become mayor of Los Angeles, in the aftermath of the 1992 Rodney King riots, his campaign motto was “Tough enough to turn L.A. around.”
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Little did he know at the time that Los Angeles soon would be confronted with more turmoil, brought by the 6.7-magnitude earthquake that would topple freeways, inflict $49 billion worth of damages to homes and businesses and kill dozens of Angelenos.
Known for wanting to approach government through a business lens – Riordan wished to cut through red tape and valued expediency – he’d often repeat the mantra about asking for forgiveness rather than permission in the name of getting things done, those who knew him say.
As devastating as the earthquake was, it was a leadership triumph for Riordan, in his still nascent mayorship.
“His big shining moment was responding to the Northridge earthquake,” said Joel Fox, who served as policy director for Riordan’s gubernatorial campaign when he ran for state office in 2001.
“Instead of waiting for the bureaucracy to rebuild (the Santa Monica Freeway), he went and did it,” Fox added. “He was a leader in solving problems.”
Frustrated by his early encounter with the city’s emergency operations, Riordan pushed to create what became the Department of Emergency Management, and voters approved a massive bond proposal resulting in the construction of the new high-tech Emergency Operations Center.
From Gov. Pete Wilson, Riordan was able to get engineers and architects out to determine the damage to bridges that first day and they developed the bonus program to complete repairs on the Santa Monica Freeway.
The work on that portion of the 10 Freeway was completed in 66 days.
“That response got his mayoralty off to a pretty good start, or at least the perception of the response – kind of a CEO in charge of this natural disaster. It was an opportunity for what was otherwise a pretty weak office to do something that was consequential,” said Tom Hogen-Esch, chair of the political science department at Cal State Northridge.
The earthquake response — and its lessons for current and future leadership — resonated Thursday, as power brokers throughout the city, even on the opposite side politically, reflected on Riordan’s legacy in the wake of his death.
“When the city was devastated by the Northridge earthquake he threw every ounce of his energy and managerial skill into the city’s recovery, and vital infrastructure was rebuilt in record time,” L.A. City Council President Paul Krekorian said in a statement.
That same swiftness in the face of an emergency did not pass the gaze of L.A. Mayor Karen Bass.
“In the wake of the Northridge earthquake, Mayor Riordan set the standard for emergency action,” she said. “He reassured us and delivered a response with an intensity that still pushes us all to be faster and stronger amidst crisis.”
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One impact of the Northridge temblor ended up, in a complex but brisk route, in the construction of the city’s showplace Catholic cathedral downtown. Cardinal Roger Mahony, archbishop emeritus of Los Angeles, recalled Riordan’s key role in the construction of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels beginning in 1998, following the severe damage incurred by its predecessor, the Cathedral of Saint Vibiana, in the Northridge quake.
“He not only rallied the private sector to assist in rebuilding the I-10 freeway and other buildings, but he also assisted us when the city red-tagged the former St. Vibiana’s Cathedral in downtown,” Mahony said in a statement.
“He was instrumental in working with County Supervisor Gloria Molina in acquiring the property on Temple Street between Grand Avenue and Hill Street. As he did with all major construction in the city during his eight years, he streamlined the process for permits and inspections which shortened the construction time. Both of them were key to the successful construction and dedication of our new cathedral.”
He was instrumental in working with County Supervisor Gloria Molina in acquiring the property on Temple Street between Grand Avenue and Hill Street. As he did with all major construction in the city during his eight years, he streamlined the process for permits and inspections which shortened the construction time. Both of them were key to the successful construction and dedication of our new cathedral.”
Of course, none of it was easy in an L.A. still reeling from the riots and simmering social and economic tensions of the era. Riordan, in his own memoir, acknowledged as much.
“…The next several years of rebuilding and reforming Los Angeles would be arduous work, and I had to continually earn the public’s trust,” he wrote in “The Mayor: How I Turned Around Los Angeles After Riots, an Earthquake and the O.J. Simpson Murder Trial.” “If my parents had told me when I was a child that I would be leading one of the world’s capital cities through these very trying times, I would have thought they were crazy. I had only wanted to play baseball for the New York Yankees.”