San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Remember 1906 quake to prepare for next one
Sunday is the anniversary of one of the great watersheds in Bay Area history — the great earthquake and fire that nearly destroyed San Francisco on April 18, 1906. There is always a ceremony at 5:12 in the morning, the moment when the earthquake struck, at Lotta’s Fountain at Geary, Kearny and Market streets. A small one was scheduled this year because of the pandemic. But why celebrate a disaster 115 years after it happened, especially when all the people who had living memory of the event have passed away? Mostly because the annual event marks not the destruction of San Francisco but its rebirth, a special place that rose from the ashes, like the phoenix, a mythical bird that is one of the symbols of the city.
April 18 is also the time emergency authorities remind us that we live in earthquake country, on the western edge of the continent with two great faults running through the area. Big earthquakes happen every few years, and we are overdue. The faults under the earth are there, the danger is there, and we have forgotten what a big earthquake is like. It has been more than 31 years since Oct. 17, 1989, the day of the Loma Prieta earthquake — “the little Big One” as Herb Caen called it. A whole new city has grown up since then. A kid who was in high school in 1989 is now well into middle age. It was so long ago that people didn’t even have cell phones.
There have been a couple of mediumsize quakes since then, one in Paso Robles and San Simeon in 2003 and one in Napa in 2014, but very few of those small shakers that used to happen every couple of years. So maybe it is a good time to think about what an earthquake is really like.
The first thing to remember is that it comes without warning. Everyone who has ever watched cable news knows how hurricanes build up, sometimes for days. Everyone in California knows about fire weather. But quakes come out of the blue — or rather from deep within the earth. Scientists have worked for years to predict quakes, and they talk about the odds for the next one. But the last big one happened right before a World Series game between the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland Athletics. What were the odds on that? A zillion to one.
The second thing is that an earthquake is instantly recognizable: It’s not an explosion, a fire or World War III. It’s an earthquake. Nothing like it. And you never know how long it’s going to last. Sometimes the quake is just a small jolt, or a roll, like the movement of a ship. Sometimes it can knock you off your feet. A small one is quick and sharp. A big one goes on and on, stops and comes back again. Scary.
The first thing you think of in an earthquake is yourself. Am I going to be all right? It’s elemental. But the second thing you think of is others. Is my family OK? My partner? My home? My world? This is where the next quake will be different. There are 7 million people in the Bay Area, and even little kids have cell phones. When the earth stops shaking, there will be millions of cell phone calls at the same time. Can the system handle this?
And will there be a tweetquake? We’ll see.
There is also the eternal question of how ordinary people will behave in a disaster. The spirit of the citizens in 1906 is an urban legend. In 1989, citizen volunteers joined fire crews in the Marina and helped patrol traffic after the lights went out. In Oakland, people climbed ladders to help motorists trapped in the ruined Nimitz freeway. There were hundreds of stories about ordinary people doing extraordinary things.
Think about how the cities will ride out a big quake. Since the last one, San Francisco and other Bay Area cities have grown up, literally. Just look at all those glass towers. Look at that skyline. Will the famous leaning Millennium Tower come through? Will all those earthquake retrofits over the past 30 years be worth the cost?
And what about all those splendid survivors of the 1906 disaster — the Ferry Building, the Emporium, the Flood and Phelan buildings, the Central Tower, once the tallest building in the West. Will they survive?
Everyone knows cities, particularly downtown areas, are in trouble because of the COVID pandemic. What would an earthquake do? Would there be an exodus from San Francisco?
What about the homeless? The 1906 earthquake left about 250,000 people homeless in San Francisco, yet the city managed to set up tent cities and build thousands of temporary homes called earthquake shacks. A few of them still exist, much remodeled here and there in older neighborhoods. Would it be possible to do this again?
There are unintended consequences of every disaster. In 1906 whole sections of Victorian office buildings and South of Market slums were destroyed. The survivors of the 1906 disaster built a new San Francisco, which we have inherited. After the Loma Prieta earthquake, the damaged Embarcadero Freeway was removed, opening up a splendid new northern waterfront. The old east end of the Bay Bridge was replaced with a striking singletower span. A whole new ferry system developed. The big shake had big consequences.
A new San Francisco grew out of the 1906 fire and quake. A different San Francisco developed after the Loma Prieta disaster. So now we wait to see what nature has in store for us. It’s in the cards.