TREMORS STIR UP MEMORIES VETERANS OF 1994 GET JOLTED BACK.

Byline: Lisa Mascaro Staff Writer

CHATSWORTH - Ever since the cottage cheese ceilings crumbled to the floor of her house during the Jan. 17, 1994, Northridge Earthquake, Vivian Burns keeps an eye upward.

So when Monday and Tuesday's aftershocks to that devastating 6.7- magnitude quake hit, she couldn't help but look up.

``The first thing I did was look up at my ceilings - it's the first thing that comes back,'' Burns said from behind the cash register at the Cottage Rose gift store in Chatsworth, where she was working Tuesday afternoon.

``It seems like every January we get a wake-up call. We don't need to be reminded.''

No sooner does a sense of calm set in after weeks - or months - of quake- free days, than the rumble comes out of nowhere like an underground big-rig that just turned the corner into town.

This week's quakes started at 9:53 p.m. Monday with a trio of jolts, kicking off with the strongest one, a 4.2-magnitude temblor, followed up with a pair of 3-plus-magnitude chasers at midday Tuesday. The strongest was felt as far as the Grapevine to the north and into Orange County to the south and east.

As of late afternoon, some 30 quakes had rumbled through the region, all aftershocks to the Northridge temblor that hit at 4:31 a.m. Jan. 17, 1994, causing an estimated $20 billion in damage.

The reminders were enough to prompt Anahid Moradkhan to skip lunch at her desk.

``I'm just enjoying the moment - my coffee, my book,'' she said sitting with her cup of Starbucks regular in the midday sunshine.

``It's beautiful. We usually don't appreciate this,'' she said about the blue skies overhead. ``When the earthquake happened, I thought: I want to go enjoy outside.''

CalTech seismologist Kate Hutton said the quakes were centered in the mountains between Simi Valley and Valencia, maybe on the Santa Susana fault, though experts are still determining the epicenter.

They're the thrust kind of quake, and probably aftershocks of the Northridge Quake, which is pretty much what all the quakes in that zone get called until the frequency of incidents dips below the pre-Jan. 17, 1994 level, she said.

Though seismologists can't predict quakes, they can use statistics to figure out there probably will be some more temblors today, she said.

But as to why the quakes hit these January days, within a week of the anniversary of Northridge, there's just not such a thing as earthquake month, Hutton said.

``I can name plenty of other earthquakes that happen other than (in) January,'' she said.

Nix too, she said, the lore of earthquake weather.

While the ancient Greeks may have thought hot and muggy weather led up to quakes - because they believed the winds were underground about to wreak havoc - Monday night was about as cold and near-freezing as the Valley gets.

What causes quakes, Hutton said, is the motion of the tectonic plates.

``Where they interact on the edges, that's where the earthquakes are,'' she said. ``It sounds just as wild, but at least there's some scientific evidence for it.''

Hair stylist Erin Kramer said she's ready for another big one - her car stocked with granola bars and eight gallons of water.

But when the quakes hit Tuesday, she was just concentrating on doing her job.

``I was shampooing hair,'' she said, ``I was afraid the girl was going to jump out of the chair.''

If anything, she thinks another quake, like the Northridge temblor she lived through eight years ago, would help people remember the important things in life.

``Even as bad as it was, I think it brought everyone closer,'' she said. ``Just like Sept. 11, it takes things like that to bring the world closer.''

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