How Dude McLean Survived the 1971 Sylmar Earthquake

How Dude McLean Survived the Sylmar Earthquake, 1971
Extract from “Self-Sufficient Home,” by Christopher Nyerges [available from Amazon]

ONE MAN’S STORY
In 1965, Dude McLean and his young family moved into a house in Kagel Canyon, located in the hilly northern section of Los Angeles County. He liked the house because there was a live stream behind the house which flowed year-round. “It was in the L.A. area, but I always felt distant from the L.A. craziness,” says McLean. Kagel Canyon is nestled right up to the Angeles National Forest, a small canyon community of about 200 families. “My children barely realized that they were growing up in the L.A. area,” says McLean.

FOOD PRODUCTION
McLean, a former U.S. Marine, wanted a place where he could be as self-reliant as possible, even though his property didn’t have a lot of land. He began doing French-intensive gardening – which required a lot of digging, and then switched to square-foot gardening and raised beds. He grew carrots, kale, corn, beans, squash and more in his garden. “We grew 90% of our own produce,” says McLean. He learned how to garden by doing lots of reading and lots of experimenting.

OTHER SUPPLIES
McLean wanted more than simply food preparation, so he began to build up the family’s supply of camping gear. “I already had a pickup truck with a camper on it, and I began to purchase camping gear such as Coleman stoves, lanterns, sleeping bags, an ice chest, and even a porta-potty. And we always purchased our gear used, if possible,” he says.

LIGHTING
Since his canyon home was somewhat remote, it would lose electrical power for various reasons. McLean purchased kerosene lamps for the home, and eventually had 35 gallons of kerosene fuel stored. He felt that the kerosene lanterns would ensure a more-reliable long-term lighting than would battery-operated lanterns. “Batteries can fail,” he commented. “Well, you can also run out of kerosene, but I felt that the kerosene was a better choice.”

He continued to obtain kerosene lanterns (eventually he had 6), extra tents, blankets, spaced out in the house, garage, and in his camper. His camper, fully equipped for camping, had been customized with dual gas tanks, and had a range of about 800 miles.
Part of what motivated McLean was the fact that his grandmother lived through the great San Francisco earthquake of 1908, and he had often heard her stories. He grew up in Burbank and had been through some earthquakes as a teenager. But he says that the then very-real threat of a USSR-USA nuclear exchange was a strong motivating factor in his home preparedness.

WATER
“We had our own water supply in the canyon, supplied by artesian wells, but it always bothered me that the water supply could be interrupted for various reasons. So I always liked the fact that we had this stream behind the house,” says McLean.

Still, he began to store water. He obtained two 40 gallon barrels, and started to store water by filling up used pop bottles (glass), with his goal being to supply enough water for the entire family. He eventually obtained 10 of the large glass Sparkletts Water bottles for water storage. He also collected rain water when he could.

FOOD
“We began to experiment with drying our own food, and we did so on old window screens. We put the sliced food on the screens, and put another screen on top to keep off the flies. Some of these experiments didn’t work out, but mostly they did and we stored a lot of what we dried,” explains McLean.

He then began to store canned goods, such as meats, fruits, vegetables, and other items they used. “You have to remember,” he says, “that we never had any extra money. I couldn’t go out and just buy a lot of stuff even if I wanted to. I had 3 children, and was self-employed. I would just spend a few extra dollars each time I went shopping and would store a little more food. I never went out and made some big purchase. It was all done little by little, and I often purchased canned items when they were on sale.”

He says that the only food he purchased in bulk were beans, rice, and red winter wheat. He purchased a crank grinder and would grind wheat as needed for their bread and other pastry items.

THE TEST
Then in 1971, when he and his wife were both 33, and his children were 2, 9, and 12, the 7.1 Sylmar Earthquake hit. “As the crow flies, we were only about 5 miles from the epicenter of this quake,” explains McLean.

It was early in the morning, about 5 a.m., and McLean pauses to recall the event.
“The noise of the quake was deafening. I can’t even describe it. It was like being next to a train going by and you can’t hear your conversation, but multiply that by 1000. The earth was grinding and moving, and it was like a giant shock wave hit the house. It was like some giant had wrapped his hands around the house and shook it every which way. It was very much like being hit with a bomb. My first words when the quake began was ‘They got us,’ thinking we were hit by a Russian bomb.”

But he just as instantly realized it was an earthquake. There was crashing in his house as stuff was falling everywhere, and he ran into the bedroom of his two youngest children, and while the house was still shaking, held one under each arm and ran them out of the house to a big field across the street.

“The house had four doors as exits, but I could only get one open because the others were jammed. So I took the two youngest to the field, set them down, and told them to stay. Then I ran back into the house, naked and barefoot, and got the older daughter out of the house.” McLean took her to the field across the street with the other children, and then went back to the house.

“My wife was turning in circles in the house,” said McLean. He explains that all the walls were lined with plates and bookshelves and everything was being tossed into the center of the room, falling over and breaking. In the kitchen, every cabinet had emptied onto the floor which was littered with broken glass.

“I don’t know how I escaped getting my feet cut,” says McLean, “but I just grabbed my wife, and we all went over the field and stood there while everything was still shaking. Other neighbors started coming out and some came to the field. I could see that all the transformers on the telephone poles were down, and some houses up the creek had been thrown off their foundations and into the creek.”

DAMAGE ASSESSMENT
McLean explains that when it got light, neighbors checked on other neighbors, and there were no major injuries or deaths. Some neighbors just stayed to themselves and wouldn’t check on others. The water line that provided water to the approximately 200 homes in the canyon was broken every 6 to 20 feet, and telephone, electricity, and gas lines were out. The main access road to the canyon had shifted about two feet, so you needed a truck to get in or out.

About 30% of the homes in the canyon were totally destroyed. Some people packed up and departed and never came back. About a dozen houses were shaken down to rubble piles about four feet high. Homes were down in the creek.

McLean’s family didn’t want to go back into the house, but they went back to get clothes since it was cold. Eventually, they all sat in the truck, and cooked some food on Coleman stoves for breakfast. Since there was no electricity, the family had no idea how bad the situation was beyond the canyon since they had no news. They got through that first day by cleaning up the living room, planning to use it as the bedroom that night. But when night came, no one wanted to sleep, so they all piled into the truck and drove out of the canyon to assess the damage.

There was electricity in Hollywood, and other places, and they learned about the range of the quake’s damage from scant news reports. The media focussed on a collapsed hospital, and the many bridges and overpasses that collapsed. “I believe there was much more widespread damage,” says McLean, “but we didn’t have the freeway through here then, and we didn’t have the instant media that we have now.”

The family came back home, and spent the first night at home. The next day, since they had relatives in the high desert, McLean took the family to the relatives and then returned back to the house. But because so many bridges and overpasses had collapsed, he only made it to the desert and back because he was so familiar with the old unused roads that were built before the freeway to the desert was constructed.

THE CLEAN UP
McLean worked on cleaning up the house for the following week by himself. He noted that it took four days for the government emergency services to get to the canyon bringing water supplies. It also took at least three weeks for the regular water supply to be restored, and at least that long for electricity to be restored. “The government can be very slow in reacting to emergencies, but we had plenty of supplies in food and water,” he says. “I had a porta-potti, and I could bury the contents in the yard when full. But our toilet was actually on a septic system that still worked if I poured water into the bowl.” He had a total of 120 gallons of stored water, some of it in glass containers that did not break because they were packed well.

“I took short baths with just a little water. I cooked on the Coleman stoves with the food we’d stored. Plus, I didn’t just take care of myself. I shared food and water with neighbors. I showed neighbors how to get water from the creek and boil it. It is still amazing to me that some people didn’t know to do this. In general, everyone helped those who needed help. Perhaps the best thing we had going for us was that most of the neighbors knew each other. We had a community center at the park, and there were regular meetings there with teen and adult activities. Knowing your neighbors is probably the best way to prepare for emergencies, beside storing things and learning skills.”

Eventually, little by little, the utilities were restored and life got back to normal.

“After the quake, I remember thinking, wow!, I did the right thing,” says McLean. “Here I was preparing maybe for war, for the Russians to bomb us, or maybe for unemployment, but not for an earthquake like this. And I was very happy to be prepared.”

McLean explains how he continued to study self-reliance and survival skills, and built up an extensive research library of over 600 books. “But all the books in the world are no good if you don’t put the information into practice,” he adds. “I got to the point where I had a whole room in storage, and if I didn’t have to go to the store for two years, I could have done that. We could have lived off the grid for two years, and I had back-ups systems for my back-ups,” he laughs. McLean, who was in the music publishing business, also consulted with many individuals and groups on how to prepare for emergencies and live self-reliantly. He was very busy during the panic that accompanied the Y2K fears during 1999.

ADVICE
According to McLean, “The most basic thing for people to do is to have at least a few weeks of food and water. Plan at least a gallon of water per person per day. And don’t store everything in one place, since you may not be able to get to your gear. Think through all your daily needs, make a list, and began to get your supplies for sleeping, shelter, eating, cooking, lighting – everything.”

With the pride of a father, he points out that all 3 of his children are very self-reliant today because they grew up that way, knowing how to camp and knowing how to deal with the needs of life. “Remember, I had to learn all this little by little, and we experimented,” he added. “Sure, we were also preparing for possible emergencies, but we all had a great time doing it.”