For a second or two it was eerily quiet. Then the screams and moans began.

It took only 15 seconds of violent shaking during the Oct. 17, 1989, Loma Prieta earthquake to topple more than a mile of elevated freeway that ran straight through the heart of West Oakland.

Forty-two people on the freeway died that day. Many others were seriously injured.

Majors and several other West Oakland residents and workers at nearby businesses rushed to help before police and paramedics arrived, using whatever they had to remove the in-jured from twisted, crumpled cars, guiding them down from the shifting mass of broken concrete and rebar to safety below.

Majors didn't leave the freeway until after dark, when the evacuation and obvious rescue efforts at the northernmost end of the structure had been exhausted.

His legs were shaking when he climbed down from the upper deck. His right shoulder and thumb were dislocated hours earlier, when he broke the fall of woman who was dangling from a smoking hole in the rubble overhead. Her boyfriend was dead, their car engulfed in flames.

What was left of the freeway was quickly torn down and removed, and Majors has spent the better part of the past 15 years successfully pushing thosepainful memories aside.

But now, with construction of the Oakland Memorial Park scheduled to begin in spring, and the British Broadcasting Corporation calling for inter-views, the 51-year-old West Oakland artist, bass guitarist and antique stove repairman has once again braced himself for the inevitable questions and the nightmares.

Land for the earthquake memorial park — site of a former freeway onramp — is situated at 13th, 14th and Center streets. The 1-acre parcel faces Mandela Parkway, which was the old freeway footprint and is in the process of being turned into a long linear park with paths, trees, special lighting and benches.

The park has been designed by April Philips Design Works to honor both the earthquake victims and local heroes like Majors, who risked their lives to help the survivors.

Artists Steve Gillman and Katherine Keefer have created a soaring 40-foot sculpture that brings to mind the bent freeway and the makeshift ladders rescuers used to reach the wounded. A long, low wall will be inscribed with a seismographic wave, followed by the words "15 seconds," and interpretive signs about the 7.1 magnitude earthquake that struck at 5:04 p.m.

Mature redwood trees in the park space will be left alone and augmented with new Western redbud trees, low-lying hedges of rosemary and flowering vines. Concrete paths will dissect undulating berms of soft native grasses.

The park is designed to invite both quiet reflection and celebration of a community that came together after the freeway's collapse.

It will honor the victims and the heroes, without naming individuals. Many of the people who clambered up the jagged concrete to rescue people trapped in their cars remain anonymous to this day.

Majors worked alongside two men who vanished as night fell. He never asked their names. There was no time.

He never sought the limelight and the people he helped that day did not know his name. But his picture ended up in Newsweek magazine, the scorpion tattoo on his right biceps clearly visible.

A California Highway Patrol car pulled up in front of his two-story home one afternoon a couple of weeks after the earthquake. Chris went outside to see what was up, and the officer waved a copy of Newsweek and said if her husband had a tattoo of a scorpion on his right biceps he was famous.

That tattoo helped two women identify Majors as the man who helped pull them from their mangled van. Months later they sought him out, made him a cake and took him to lunch at Sizzler.

The CHP gave him an award, as did KRON-TV. But Majors felt miserable, the nightmares and thoughts of people suffering were unbearable. He hadn't had a drink in years, but he started drinking after the earthquake. His art, which had always been his emotional outlet, shut down and so did his music.

"When I was younger, I burrowed into a big snow drift pushed up by a snow plow, like a snow cave, and it collapsed on me," Majors said, "I would have died if a man hadn't seen it happen and pulled me out. It didn't bother me at the time, but after the earthquake I started having nightmares about being buried alive.

"People die, not to be too crass. But those people who survived for awhile, that must have been terrifying. In the dark, trapped, can't get out and scared. People dying and the smell of gasoline and burning rubber," he said.

Majors' life has returned to normal. The drinking stopped years ago, the creative juices have returned. The couple still live in the same house, although the vista without the freeway is very different.

Every so often he'll be working on an old Wedgewood stove and he'll catch the customer staring. "Don't I know you ...?" "Aren't you the guy ...?"

"Sometimes I'll lay in bed at night and listen to the traffic and it all floods back," he said. "I can't really express what I felt that day, and here it is, so many years later and I still can't describe how I felt."

The lowest construction bid for the park came back $139,000 over the $550,000 budget. The City Council voted this week to bump up the construction budget to $630,000 and gave city staff authorization to reject all bids and negotiate a new contract, said Sandra Washington, the city's project manager.

As a result, the plans for the park will have to be revised slightly to lower costs, while still maintaining the integrity of the overall design.

"We tried to (change) things that people don't see, such as the utilities, drainage, lighting, things you won't notice as much," said Tyler Fishman, an associate of April Philips. "We worked really hard with the community to get what they wanted, so we're trying to do everything that everyone asked for."

The total cost for the park, including construction and design, is $911,000. Caltrans is paying $630,000 and donating the land, $250,000 is coming from a state environmental grant and Councilmember Nancy Nadel (Downtown-West Oakland) is chipping in $41,000.

Anyone wishing to donate money to the project can contact city of Oakland project manager Sandra Washington at 238-7213 or email sfwashington@oaklandnet.com.

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