The Great Quake

From the Ferry to Van Ness,
you're a God-forsaken mess,
but you're the damndest finest ruins,
nothing more or nothing less.
-- Poem by San Francisco businessman Larry Harris, 1906.

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April 18th was the 100th year anniversary of the 1906 earthquake and fires in San Francisco. At about 5:14am, on April 18, 1906, the city was rocked. Modern analysist estimate it measuring between 7.8 and 8.3 on the current Richter scale.

(Around the anniversary, I became fascinated with the disaster and read a lot of articles and parts of books. This post got lost in my "drafts" box, so here it is, almost a month late.)

It's interesting to look back on this natural disaster in the context of Hurricane Katrina. How did the citizens, the city officials, the fire department, the military, the president, the media, and aid workers all respond to the destruction caused by the earthquake and the fires that followed? There were bad decisions that cost lives. The mayor and general tried to bring the fire under control by detonating blocks of buildings around the fire to create fire breaks, but the powder they used often set the ruins on fire which added to the destruction. There were tensions involving immigrants and the poor - and many of their deaths went unrecorded. 250,000 people - more than 60% of the city's population - were left homeless, living in tents and tiny 'earthquake shacks' (see picture). The mayor told police and troopers to shoot looters on sight, and roughly 500 people were shot.
There was disorganization in the government and the military, and the fire chief was fatally injured just after the quake struck, leaving the fire department scrambling for direction.




Below, the information in italics come from the timeline at
The Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco.

As with many major disasters, in the midst of all the confusion, disorganization, and destruction there are inspiring stories of citizens coming together:

"April 21, 1906
The fire that swept the Mission District was stopped at 20th and Dolores streets by three thousand volunteers and a few firemen who fought the blaze with knapsacks, brooms and a little water from an operating hydrant at 20th and Church."

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"April 23, 1906
Imperial decree on the 30th Day of the Third Moon from Empress Dowager of China to send 100,000 taels as a personal contribution to the relief of the San Francisco sufferers. President Theodore Roosevelt declined the offer, as well as donations from other foreign governments."

Why do governments often refuse offers of assistance from the global community? Is it pride? Politics? Are pride and politics really what suffering nations need to worry about? Grrr.

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Panoramic view of the destruction.