Too Busy for a Quake Festival

This is how bad it has gotten in Fillmore when it comes to natural disasters:

Residents and disaster workers do not have time to put down their brooms and shovels to attend today’s planned earthquake celebration, prompting officials to postpone it.

“You should see our streets,” said Delores Day of the Fillmore Chamber of Commerce, a co-sponsor of Earthquake Recovery Celebration. “It just wouldn’t work out. Our streets are a mess and everybody is busy cleaning up.”

Heavy rains Tuesday covered dozens of Fillmore streets--including Central Avenue--with mud and water. Officials had planned to close Central Avenue this afternoon for the celebration, where disaster workers and city officials were scheduled to give an update on the city’s earthquake recovery.

Residents need the weekend to dig out, officials said.

Fillmore Mayor Linda Brewster said organizations such as the Red Cross and the county Office of Emergency Services were too busy with storm recovery today to attend the event, which contributed to the postponement.

“We have too many people bailing out,” Brewster said.

Brewster said the event has been tentatively rescheduled for Jan. 21.

“If we get through this weekend, it should be a go,” she said.

Fillmore sustained more than $250 million in damage during the earthquake on Jan. 17, 1994. City officials estimate that $200,000 worth of city property was damaged in Tuesday’s storm, while private property damage could exceed $1 million.