Remembering Northridge Meadows

LAPD Reserve Search & Rescue worker Don Stein, right, helps remove Steve Langdon from the collapsed Northridge Meadows apartments.  (Joel P. Lugavere / Los Angeles Times)

Jiyoun Sim checks a list of Northridge Meadows survivors at a church.  (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)

A man stares out from his wall-less home at the devastated Northridge Meadows apartments.  (Joel P. Lugavere / Los Angeles Times)

Alan Hemsath has the final stitches removed from his arm by registered nurse Nancy Chicca before being discharged from St. Joseph Medical Center on Feb. 12, 1994. Hemsath was the last victim to be pulled out alive from the collapsed Northridge Meadows apartment complex and the only first-floor resident to survive.  (Scott Rathburn / For The Times)

A section of the damaged Northridge Meadows apartment complex after the earthquake.  (Joel P. Lugavere / Los Angeles Times)

A doll lies amid the rubble in an area of Northridge Meadows where several bodies were found after the quake.  (Richard Derk / Los Angeles Times)

Flowers line a fence at the Northridge Meadows apartment complex a week after the quake.  (Julie Markes / For The Times)

A demolition crew begins work on the Northridge Meadows apartment complex.  (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)

Los Angeles city Firefighter Mike Henry, left, takes the hand of Jerry Prezioso, whom he rescued from Northridge Meadows. Prezioso received a certificate of appreciation from Northridge Hospital Medical Center, where he was taken after the quake for treatment of his injuries, at a fifth anniversary ceremony in 1999. In the middle is Prezioso’s friend Linda Chantland.  (David Bohrer / Los Angeles Times)

Alan Hemsath, left, Jerry Prezioso and Steve Langdon were the last survivors removed from Northridge Meadows. Langdon and Prezioso shared Apartment 106, which used to be on the slab on which they sit.  (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)

Parc Ridge Apartments, at 9555 and 9575 Reseda Blvd. in Northridge, was built on the site of the Northridge Meadows apartment complex, where 16 people died in the 1994 earthquake.  (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

Another view of the Parc Ridge Apartments, which replaced the Northridge Meadows apartment complex.  (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)