L.A. takes another lickin', keeps on tickin': massive Southland economy withstands another shock.

While the Northridge earthquake dealt a blow to the Southland, the temblor also accentuated the enormous scope of metropolitan Los Angeles and the resiliency of the area. And everywhere, with structures to gas lines to phone service, intelligent engineering and doughty repair crews triumphed over the ground shaker.

By last Wednesday, a mere 48 hours after the 6.6 magnitude quake struck the San Fernando Valley, services -- both public and private -- had largely returned to normal in nearly all parts of sprawling Los Angeles County.

By mid-week, oil giant Atlantic Richfield Co. had delivered fuel to all its open Southland gasoline stations, helping to avert any atmosphere of a "gas shortage." So did Unocal Corp. Major crude oil and product pipelines are functional, said Barry Lane, Unocal spokesman.

Also by mid-week across greater Los Angeles, United Parcel Service delivery people were making the rounds, electricity was restored, water flowed, mail was being delivered, the phones worked. In short, commerce resumed almost everywhere except within a mile or two of the earthquake's epicenter and a handful of other locales.

As has been shown again and again, riots, fires, droughts, and even quakes are but bruises and scrapes on the outsized Southland metropolitan body.

Even the highest estimates of total losses, property and business, from the quake -- $15 billion to $30 billion -- pale next to the assessed value of Los Angeles County real estate, which was $491 billion and still rising in 1992.

So far-flung is Los Angeles that several major parts of the region's infrastructure are entirely unscathed by the quake. For example, the Los Angeles International and Burbank airports barely flinched; ditto the huge Los Angeles-Long Beach harbor, the nation's largest handler of containerized cargo. All rails are back in service.

Downtown Los Angeles, the white-collar business hub where nearly 400,000 congregate five days a week, was barely touched.

While Northridge was hammered, it is but one neighborhood among the Southland's hundreds of communities. Malls near the epicenter of the quake may be closed for some time, yet there are more than 50 other major malls in greater Los Angeles -- shortages of consumer goods are nearly inconceivable in the region.

The quick resumption of normalcy is testament to hard-working firefighters and utility crews, and to construction codes now largely taken for granted -- indeed, there were only a few major structural collapses in a region of tens of thousands of buildings. Thanks to anticipatory engineering -- and the lucky, early-morning timing of the quake -- death was thwarted at most doorsteps.

Even more remarkable, given ubiquitous electrical and gas hook-ups, fires were scant and quickly extinguished. Honest building inspectors and the local construction industry can take a bow.

Other successes: Gas service was restored to more than 99 percent of Southern California Gas Co. customers by the day after the quake, and phone service seldom faltered, due to auxiliary power systems.

Again, construction standards that anticipate earthquakes are credited.

"We are very proud of the network; there was minimal physical damage," said Gary Sanders, Pacific Bell spokesman. Delays in service were caused by a too-high volume of calls, not physical damage, said Sanders.

To be sure, several hundred business buildings are now closed, a disruption that will take weeks to resolve.

And the countywide death toll of more than 50 is disheartening, but must also be viewed in context -- roughly 9 million people live in Los Angeles County. Onalmost any weekend, the local police blotters probably record more deaths due to routine mayhem and auto accidents.

A major challenge to Southland leadership -- which can't be blinked away -- will be the quick repair of broken freeways.

The Santa Monica (10), the Golden State (5), the Simi Valley (118) and the Antelope (14) freeways are all closed at key points.

But, while TV newscasters talked of a "city in gridlock" and showed images of the mess at the 10/Fairfax Avenue intersection, traffic was flowing on a wide cross-section of other freeways and streets.

Preliminary reports talk of up to 18 months until road crews have the damaged freeways up and running again -- a delay that will snarl important truck traffic and everyday business commutes.

From Southland factories, retailers, warehousers and commuters, the call will almost certainly arise in unison in coming months: fast-track freeway repairs, snip red tape, cut corners, do what must be done to get the routes open. Temporary or stop-gap repairs welcome -- perhaps even the Army Corps of Engineers could rig up some solutions. Attend to legalities and regulatory niceties later.

Of concern: The vast Los Angeles and Long Beach harbors handle 3 million containers a year, but already truckers are boosting rates to take goods seaside. Exporters could be harmed.

One trucker in the San Joaquin Valley has added a $150 surcharge on goods hauled to the ports.

The Santa Monica freeway shutdown promises daily tie-ups from the Westside to downtown every morning, and back again at night -- cutting hours of productive time out of the lives of 300,000 commuters. And the Antelope and Santa Clarita valleys' link with "mainland" Los Angeles will be tenuous for a long while, turning residents' lives topsy-turvy.

The longer-term impact of the 1994 quake remains to be seen. The Southland has been struggling for four years with the worst economic slump since the 1930s Depression.

There are nascent signs of recovery -- employment in the county, for example, has stabilized in recent months. Retail sales likewise have steadied.

And there are signs of the enduring attractiveness of Southern California. Even after quakes, riots, fires, drought, flood and the worst economic contraction in the postwar era, house prices here still exceed the national average by more than 70 percent.

"I don't think house prices will fall much more in 1994," said John Karevoll, publisher of the Running Springs-based Southern California Real Estate Observer. "The worst is largely behind us."