Quake Victims Relocated for Convention

SAN FRANCISCO--The shutdown of a shelter for earthquake victims to make room for a convention of plastic surgeons has angered some of the displaced and brought an angry defense by Mayor Art Agnos.

Most of the 1000 people housed in the Red Cross shelter at the huge Moscone Convention Center were moved yesterday to the Presidio army base and to a Navy transport ship, allowing time to prepare for the American Society of Reconstructive and Plastic Surgeons' convention Oct. 30, city officials said.

The relocation angered residents of the Tenderloin district, where hundreds of elderly and impoverished people were evicted from damaged transient hotels after Tuesday's devastating 6.9-magnitude quake.

"They should have the plastic surgeons postpone it for a week and let people get over this earthquake. I'm still shaking from this quake," said Keith Holyfield, 28, an unemployed man in a stained shirt and tattered green-and-yellow Oakland Athletics' cap who waited outside the Moscone Center on yesterday.

Mayor Agnos disputed the accusations that the city does not normally provide adequate shelter. He said San Francisco already pays for 2900 hotel rooms a night and that the city needs convention and tourist revenue to finance a new $17 million program to create 3000 additional dwellings for the poor within a year.

Meanwhile rescue workers euphoric over finding a survivor in a collapsed freeway resumed work at a frustratingly cautious pace yesterday, and earthquake-shaken Northern Californians mapped strategy for today's commute through gridlock.

More than 100 people were evacuated yesterday afternoon from an Oakland housing project located within 10 feet of a four-block stretch of Interstate 880 abutting the portion that gave way in the quake.

The evacuation came after a cement column fell from the structure and new cracks were discovered in the previously stable section of double-deck freeway.

Longshoreman Buck Helm, who spent four days in a tomb of I-880 concrete and steel, was in criticalstable condition at Highland General Hospital in Oakland with some slight improvement, hospital officials said.

Engineer Steven Whipple, hailed as a hero of the rescue, said he was checking the fallen double-deck free-way for stability on Saturday when he spotted the back of Helm's head with his flashlight, and then saw a hand wave at him.

"It stopped my heart. I thought maybe the wind was blowing and that's what caused it. I thought I might be losing it," said Whipple, 29.

The number of dead pulled from the I-880 disaster rose to 38, including a four-year-old boy, bringing the earthquake's toll to 59, with thousands injured and homeless and dozens still missing.

"We know there are more victims, more cars. But we don't know how many," said California Highway Patrol Capt. Mike Garver.

Damage estimates topped $7 billion, making the quake the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history, according to the Independent Insurance Agents of America.

Baseball commissioner Fay Vincent announced that the World Series would not resume until Friday night, three days later than originally hoped.

Crews sawed the fallen five-lane section of the upper deck of the Bay Bridge in half and lifted one section down to a barge for repairs yesterday. The vital link between San Francisco and Oakland is expected to be closed for four weeks.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Sunday reported major cracks in three dams within 5 miles of the epicenter--Lexington, Newell Creek and Lake Elsman--but said they posed "no public threat at this time" because water is low behind them.