On Monday, January 17, 1994, at 4:31 a.m., the Northridge earthquake hit Southern California. Freeways, buildings and houses collapsed. Power and water lines were cut off. Gas lines exploded. Hillsides crumbled and fires broke out. Many people found themselves trapped in the wreckage of their homes.

AMY: I'm Amy Murakami. I was one of the kids trapped by the earthquake. I remember it was only four more days to my eighth birthday. My dad was at work -- he's a pharmacist, and he works at a 24-hour drugstore. Nobody was home but me and Nana Kimberly, who's my sitter. We were both asleep. I was in bed and Nana was on the couch in the living room. I remember hearing a really loud noise. It woke me up. I felt a big shake. It was like someone picking up my bed and dropping it, hard. Later, I found out that my bedroom ceiling had fallen down around my bed. I couldn't see anything. Everything was dark and quiet. It was hard to breathe. I couldn't move. It was like being closed up in a tiny box. I remember yelling. That was the scariest moment of my whole life.

TESSA: This is where I came in. I'm Tessa Franklin. I was eleven when the earthquake hit. My family was living just down the street from the Northridge Meadows apartments. My mom and my big sister, Jake, pulled everybody out of the house and into the street so nothing else would fall on us. One of the walls of our house had peeled away from the roof and you could see the sky through it, so we had to leave. I looked around our street and there was so much damage, I couldn't believe it. Then I saw Northridge Meadows. It was a three story building, but it collapsed down to a two story building. Fire trucks were passing by, but it took a while for anyone to notice that the whole ground floor was missing. It was buried under the rest of the building. I ran down the street and I remember hearing someone call out. It was Amy. I found the spot where Amy's voice was coming from, and I just stayed there and talked to her. It was pretty scary because of the aftershocks. But I kept Amy talking and helped flag down a police car to ask them to get help. Then I showed the fire department where Amy was trapped. They used big, hydraulic lifts to dig Amy out. Amy's nanny had to go to the hospital. Amy was cut and bruised, but she was basically okay. My mom said we could adopt Amy until we could find her dad, and we've been soul sisters ever since.

RACHEL: I met Amy and Tessa on a street corner. I'm Rachel Medina. I was ten when the earthquake hit. Later that morning, I rode around on my bike, telling people about the tent city going up in a nearby park. My mom and dad were organizing everything. People were camped out in cars, makeshift tents and campers. Amy and Tessa looked really lost, so I told them to go there. My family had lots of extra sleeping bags and stuff. So Tessa's mom said yes, and everybody came to stay at the park.

I'm Geri Henderson. When the earthquake hit, I was seven years old. I met Amy and Tessa and Rachel in the tent city at the park. My mom had the whole food thing covered, at least for breakfast, by the time everybody got there. Mom had pulled the big barbecue out of our camper and was cooking everything that had been in the fridge before it spoiled. Mom's always prepared for anything! We had enough food for an army, so we were sharing it with everyone. Rachel's mom made tortillas. It was great. We spent over a week together, camped out in that park. We had so much fun that we all decided to be soul sisters and stay friends, no matter what!

TESSA: The earthquake really scared everybody. A lot of people moved away. Amy and her dad went to San Antonio, Texas. Geri's family moved to Ortonville, Michigan, to be with her mom's relatives. Rachel's family moved to a farm in Vista, California, and my dad put in for a PCS (that's "Permanent Change of Station") and moved the whole Franklin family to Falcon Air Force Base in Colorado Springs.

RACHEL: None of us are great letter writers. We tried to stay in touch by phone, but that was expensive. So what we decided to do was use our parents' computers to send each other e-mail to keep in touch. We sent messages almost every day to tell everybody what was going on and to talk about problems and stuff. Then, Tessa had the idea of making a space for us where we could "hang out" together on the Internet. We'd do stuff like a real club, only do it in cyberspace. That way we can share what we like, stay in touch and make new friends too.

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