I was on the third floor of my office building, the shaking was pretty good down here in SD.
I too lived in Northridge during that quake. Split my parents house literally in half - you could see daylight through the 2" crack in the ceiling. 10% deductible set them back 25k at the time and the repairs took forever. Fortunately we were up on a hill on top of solid rock, the houses in the valley basin got it much worse as they were on loose sand/sediment. I remember every block wall was tumbled down. My buddy in the National Guard got to stand on street corners with his rifle to "deal with" potential looters - it was a spooky site those first few hours and days.
I remember having to get water from a truck down the hill, and how excited we were when the electricity came on for a second, spluttered out, and came on again days (weeks?) after the quake. Running water was a true joy as well.