Living in the aftermath: Napa marks 3-year anniversary of 6.0 earthquake

NAPA, Calif. (KGO) -- A post office that has not reopened may become a hotel. You look at Napa -- there is a lesson here.

It is one community still living in the aftermath of an earthquake and a likely microcosm for the rest of the Bay Area when the inevitable big one finally hits.

"Well it was easily the worst quake I ever felt," said Napa Mayor Jill Techel. " Fear, absolute fear by what I saw."

That's how Napa's 6.0 earthquake felt like and the images that have survived are freeze frames of a community's trauma -- three years to the day.

"The emergency work is one tenth of the job. Next is how you get through the next months and years," Techel told ABC7 News.

If you ask Tichel, she'll talk about the strength of a community pulling itself up together.

Earthquake scars still abound in Napa, as do fences like stitches healing wounds. Parts of downtown still look like a construction zone. Renovating the old courthouse, alone could cost $12 million.

At Irene Snow Elementary, they're moving the entire campus next year due to the discovery of a new fault directly beneath the buildings.

And with the presence of district spokesperson Elizabeth Emmit -- another reminder. On the one-year anniversary, we photographed her wrecked home -- the RV her family slept in, the reconstruction.

To this day they have yet to repair the backyard pool.

"The first thing I said to my husband is, 'Are we ruined?' He said, 'I don't know,'" Emmit added.

Now we know the answer -- on this third anniversary, Napa is far from ruined, but still with a way to go.

Keep scrolling for a photo story from Wayne Freedman on Twitter.