1906 San Francisco earthquake

“ She happened to be visiting in the city on April 18, 1906, in the district burned. The step-daughter to whom she went first abused her and then sent her to Ingleside. The poor old woman while waiting to be given transportation to join her husband in Utah fell ill and just after the coveted transportation was given “died of disappointment.” No judgment can be formed as to whether there was unnecessary delay on the part of the visitor of the Rehabilitation Committee but after the shock of the earthquake, “disappointment” can scarcely be regarded as the chief cause of death. ”

“ The highest loss of life due to earthquakes in the United States occurred in San Francisco in 1906, when 700 people were killed. By way of comparison (in spite of the vast differences in building design and practices and socioeconomic systems) the devastating 1976 Tangshan earthquake in China caused fatalities ranging from the official Chinese Government figure of 242,000 to unofficial estimates as high as 700,000. Fortunately, building practices in the United States preclude such a massive loss of life. ”

“ Naturally, the great destruction wrought by the earthquake of April 18th, 1906, attracted the almost universal attention of scientific men especially interested in earthquake phenomena. We are, therefore, able to speak authoritatively about the probable causes.
The great San Francisco earthquake of April 18th, 1906, appears to have been a tectonic quake. Ransome, in an article entitled, "The Probable Cause of the San Francisco Earthquake," says:
"The region thus amply fulfils the conditions under which tectonic earthquakes arise. ”

“ The western American city of San Francisco, California suffered a huge earthquake on April 18th, 1906.
More than three thousand people are known to have died. The true number of dead will never be known. Two hundred fifty thousand people lost their homes. Just a few hours after the terrible earthquake, a magazine named Collier’s sent a telegraph message to the famous American writer Jack London. ”

“ Oxnard, with her husband was on the way to New York. At about noon of the 18th they heard, at North Platte, that there had been a severe shock of earthquake in San Francisco, and that the lower part of the city south of Market Street was on fire. They thought the report exaggerated, and at first declined to give it much attention; but when they met friends at Grand Island at about 3 o'clock they got information of such a character that it began to give them fear. At every place until they reached Chicago additional news was obtained, which indicated a very alarming condition of things here. ”

“ In this instance the best way out of it for me seems to be to put the blame on Baedeker, who, in his little red book, declares that "earthquakes occur occasionally in [ 485] San Francisco, but have seldom been destructive," after which he recites that in 1906 "a severe earthquake lasting about a minute" visited the city, that "the City Hall became a mass of ruins but, on the whole, few of the more solid structures were seriously injured." ”

“ In Part IV the chapters which discuss condition and status of families in camp cottages, and of those who took advantage of the bonus and loan plans, show that the handicap of ill health was heavy after the first few months.
Sickness was a reason for transporting some of the refugees. A man who had been hurt in the earthquake was sent to relatives as soon as he was able to leave the hospital. ”

“ THE best literary efforts possible have been exhausted in a vain effort to convey to those fortunately not in San Francisco on the morning of April 18, 1906, what terrible things resulted from the earthquake and the fire which left that city a complete ruin ”

“ The percentage of women breadwinners in the 500 cases, New York Charity Organization Society in the year 1908 is given as 40.8 per cent.
Of 1,375 married couples who had lived in the burned area 647, or nearly 47 per cent, had a rehabilitation record, while the majority of all the men applying were without such records. By actual count over 80 per cent of the single men who made the first application after June, 1907, had come to San Francisco within the year after the disaster, lured presumably by the expectation of work. ”

“ In the general appearance it resembles the country where a forest fire has swept, the chimneys and unburned telephone poles representing the standing trunks of trees. The loss of life is probably nearly 450. Many earthquake shocks were felt during the three days of the calamity, and for as much as two months we felt gentle reminders. ”

“ Sixteen per cent more are known to have been living in houses at the time of the registration, but as their addresses on April 17 were not given, it is impossible to know whether or not they had been driven out of their homes by the disaster. ”

“ The news came to London in English, and there cut down as brief as possible and translated into German, so the information was very brief. San Francisco people who were there sought one another for news. Within a week the New York papers came, which gave more particulars. While waiting for authentic information, such items as these were in circulation: "Golden Gate Park has been withered by the intense heat, and people are crowded to the beach," and that "Typhoid fever has broken out"; that a tidal-wave had swept over the city; that the earthquake shocks continued ”

“ Panic seemed imminent just before the shocks subsided. While earthquakes are by no means infrequent in these islands, this was more severe than any recorded in recent years, causing buildings to sway to and fro and partly demolishing some of frail construction.
If, as the majority of men qualified to discuss earthquakes seem to think, the San Francisco earthquake had no connection with volcanic action, but was caused by what is technically known as a “fault” in the formation of the crust of the earth, it seems easy enough to account for these wave motions travelling round the earth. ”

“ Most of the damage on the hills was done by falling chimneys. On Montgomery Street, half a block from the main office of the Western Union Company, the middle of the street was cracked and blown up, but during the shocks which struck the Western Union building only the top stories were cracked. Similar phenomena were experienced in other localities, and the bulk of the disaster, so far as the earthquake was concerned, was confined to the low-lying region above described. ”

“ They were forced helplessly and hopelessly to gaze upon the destruction of their all, and it is no marvel if many of them grew frantic and lost their reason at the sight. Thousands gathered and looked on in blank and pitiful misery, their strong hands, their iron wills of no avail, while the red-lipped fire devoured the hopes of their lives.
In a dozen, a hundred, places the flames shot up redly. Huge, strong buildings which the earthquake had spared fell an unresisting prey to the flames. ”

“ They flow to adjust themselves to changed conditions, but as the crust cools it condenses, hardens, and cracks, and occasionally the tremendous energy inside is manifested on the surface.
“When the semi-fluid rocks in the interior change their position there is a readjustment of the surface like the breaking up of ice in a river, and the grinding causes the earthquake shocks which are familiar in various parts of the world. The earthquake at San Francisco was probably local, although the center of the disturbance may have been thousands of miles away from that city.” ”

“ For one thing, earthquakes, interesting though they may be as demonstrations of the power of Nature, are not generally considered a profitable form of advertising for a city, although, curiously enough, they seem, like volcanic eruptions, to visit spots of the greatest natural beauty. For another thing San Francisco feels that "earthquake" is really a misnomer for her disaster, and that this fact is not generally understood in such remote and ill-informed localities as, for instance, the Island of Manhattan. ”

“ Shortly after three o’clock in the morning the explosive energy of the mighty mass culminated. The whole cone burst open with a tremendous earthquake shock, from the heart of the recently silent mountain came a deafening roar, and red-hot rocks, like the balls from nature’s mighty artillery, were hurled a half mile into the air, while a dense mass of ashes and sand was flung to three or four times this height. All the next day the terrible detonation kept up, and a hail of bullet-like stones poured downward from the skies. Rarely has a more terrible Sunday been seen. ”

“ A million dollars’ worth of property, noble residences and worthless shacks alike, were blown to drifting dust, but that destruction broke the fire and sent the raging flames back over their own charred path. The whole east side of Van Ness Avenue, from the Golden Gate to Greenwich, a distance of twenty-two blocks, or a mile and a half, was dynamited a block deep, though most of the structures as yet had stood untouched by spark or cinder. Not one charge failed. Not one building stood upon its foundation. ”

“ The Postal people were wondering if it was all the dream of some crazy operator or a calamity, when the wire woke up again. It was the superintendent of the San Francisco force this time.
“We’re on the job, and are going to try and stick,” was the way the first message came from him.
This was what came over the wire a little later:
“Terrific earthquake occurred here at 5.13 this morning. A number of people were killed in the city. None of the Postal people were killed. They are now carting the dead from the fallen buildings. There are many fires, with no one to fight them. ”

“ In the spring of the year that saw the outpouring of lava that invaded the villages of southern Italy, San Francisco suffered from a serious earthquake that ruptured the public structures of the city, dislocated miles of railroad tracks, ruined the beautiful Stanford University, shook out the fronts of buildings, and precipitated a fire that all but wiped out the Queen City of the Pacific coast. It has been feared that some such seismic terror might demolish the superb structures of the canal, and we are to learn to-night whether these earth movements threaten the new waterway at the isthmus. ”

“ It occurs to me—but I have no right to speak as an expert—that a house built of thick mud walls and wooden joists and rafters would be tolerably safe during an earthquake, unless it was a very severe shock; such a house would also be safer than a wooden one from fire, which has always been a great danger in San Francisco. ”

“ Sometimes these shocks extend over vast areas, and at other times are merely local. On October twenty-first, 1868, a severe earthquake occurred at San Francisco, swaying buildings and throwing down numbers in process of erection. The houses of the city are mostly built with a view to these disturbances of nature. ”

“ Whether cities less likely to suffer should do so is more doubtful. The effects of an earthquake in New York City would be appalling. The people would rush into the streets, too narrow to hold them, while the stones would be shaken down on their heads, the conditions being similar to those of a vast theater fire. But more lives are needlessly sacrificed in New York City each month than have been lost in the California disaster, and more money is wasted each year than is needed to rebuild San Francisco.
The causes of earthquakes are somewhat obscure and are doubtless of different kinds. ”

“ The loss of life was caused in almost every case by the collapse of frame structures, which the native San Franciscan believed was the safest of all in an earthquake, or by the shaking down of portions of brick or stone buildings which did not possess an iron framework. The manner in which the tall steel structures withstood the shock is a complete vindication of the strongest claims yet made for them, and it is made doubly interesting from the fact that this is the first occasion on which the effect of an earthquake of any proportions on a tall steel structure could be studied. ”

“ It will take much time and labor to restore their delicate adjustment upon their carriages.
The buildings that collapsed in the city were all flimsy wooden buildings and old brick structures, the steel frame buildings, even the score or more in course of construction, escaping injury from the earthquake shock. Of the former, one of the most complete wrecks was the Valencia Hotel, a four-story wooden building, which collapsed into a heap of ruins, pinning many persons under its splintered timbers. ”

“ The terrors of the earthquake are momentary. One fierce, levelling shock and usually all is over. The torment within the earth has passed on and the awakened forces of the earth’s crust sink into rest again, after having shaken the surface for many leagues. Rarely does the dread agent of ruin leave behind it such a terrible follower to complete its work as was the case in the doomed city of San Francisco. ”

“ The earthquake in San Francisco, which crumbled strong buildings as if they were made of paper, would have been terrible enough; but afterward came the horror of fire and of imprisoned men and women burned alive, and now to it was added the suffering of multitudes from hunger and exposure.
Public attention is fixed on the great city; but smaller cities had their days and nights of destruction, horror and misery. ”