KALAOA, Hawai'i — Kathy Ciriako and her family tried to tell themselves it was like camping when they set up tents in their back yard after Sunday's earthquakes left ugly gashes in their one-story brick and concrete home.

But on Monday it rained heavily through much of the night, opening leaks in their tents.

After a harsh 4.0 aftershock early yesterday morning, no one was in the mood anymore for pretending.

Duane Inouye, a county building inspector, gave the Ciriakos the verdict by noon, telling them their home was too unsafe for them to stay.

Ciriako, a stocker at Costco, her husband, Carl, who manages a tire store, and their 5-year-old son, Keola, thought they could find a place to stay temporarily while they figure out what to do next.

But it will be hard for Ciriako's mother, Rosie Cheek — who has been sleeping on two chairs pulled together on the patio — to leave.

"We got to go. We got to go," Ciriako kept repeating quietly to herself.

But Mom is going to have to be persuaded. She doesn't want to leave.

County inspectors and Federal Emergency Management Agency assessors fanned out across the Big Island yesterday, documenting the earthquake damage that will determine whether the state will qualify for more substantial federal relief than has been approved thus far.

Over the past two days, county officials have been mostly responding to some of the major problems from the quakes.

But building inspectors are now reaching into more neighborhoods, discovering some of the damage that previously had been invisible.

You can drive by many of the cracked and buckling homes and not realize anything is wrong, but many residents have been waiting for an assessment or some advice about what to do.

FROZEN WITH FEAR

Margie Freitas, a retired nurse manager who lives in Holualoa, was in bed on Sunday for the first quake and was so frozen with fear that she just pulled the comforter over her head while light fixtures and other debris rained down.

An ominous crack has formed on the concrete foundation of her two-story wooden house, which rests on a steep hillside overlooking Kailua Bay.

The downstairs bathroom is also cracked, and a lower portion of the house has bulged.

"We're kind of worried, because if we have another one of that kind of magnitude, I think my house is going to crack again and come down," Freitas said.

In upper Kona Heights, Pearl Simmons was cutting her husband Kent's hair in his workshop near the back of their house when the first quake occurred Sunday.

They ran to the front of the house and saw that their carport had collapsed on their 17 1/2-foot Boston Whaler and the back of Kent's silver Toyota Tacoma pickup.

"My husband's first thing was, 'Oh, my God, my truck!' He tried to lift the carport off of it."

The boat and truck were not seriously damaged, but the carport took out a fence that fell into a neighbor's yard.

Friends helped reinforce the carport, but Simmons said they have been frustrated by a lack of guidance from their insurance company and the county.

"We basically feel like we're on our own," said Simmons, an office manager for a pediatrician.

'IT'S JUST SO SAD'

At Hulihe'e Palace in Kailua, Gerry Miyamoto, a regent for the Daughters of Hawai'i, arrived from O'ahu to see the damage to the state and national historic landmark.

The artifact room, the sitting room, and Princess Ruth's and Queen Kapi'olani's bedrooms sustained extensive cracks and plaster damage.

Experts are scheduled to inspect the palace and gauge the extent of the structural damage.

"I have goosebumps, I have absolute goosebumps," Miyamoto said. "It's just so sad to see this."

The rainy weather on Monday and the aftershocks, particularly the strong quake yesterday morning, have increased the damage in some places.

Elton Suganuma, a marine cargo specialist for the state Department of Transportation, was catching a few hours of sleep on top of a desk in an office building at Kawaihae Harbor when yesterday's quake knocked him off.

"I got a flashlight and started walking the piers," Suganuma said.

The long crack in a concrete apron along Pier 1 that was detected Sunday had apparently grown from 13 inches to 15 inches in some sections.

On Pier 2, the main cargo pier, the apron had shifted downward by about 4 to 8 inches.

"There are areas where there is a discernible difference," Suganuma said.

TIME TO LEAVE

In Waikoloa Village, residents in a three-story, 12-unit building at the Paniolo Club condominiums were told by county building inspectors yesterday afternoon that the building was uninhabitable.

Units on the third floor had been deemed unsafe to enter, and units on the second and first floors were restricted to residents removing their belongings.

Vivian Clark, a retired engineer who lives alone at the Paniolo Club, had taken everything she could out of her first-floor unit Sunday and headed to a shelter in Waimea.

But the shelter was only offering a cot, so she paid $118 for a motel room.

On Monday night, a woman offered her a bed in a long-term-care home.

She was relieved yesterday when County Council member Pete Hoffman cleared a room in his home for Clark to use indefinitely.

"As soon as it started shaking on Sunday, I started saying my prayers," Clark said. "We have bumps in the road, and this happens to be a bump. I only hope that something good comes out of it."

Reach Derrick DePledge at ddepledge@honoluluadvertiser.com.