1906 Earthquake Reasearch Paper

Table of Contents

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/02/27/san_francisco_revises_death_toll_for_1906_earthquake/

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/regional/nca/1906/18april/casualties.php

http://mceer.buffalo.edu/1906_Earthquake/social_turmoil/city-reeling.asp

http://www.nps.gov/prsf/historyculture/1906-earthquake-relief-efforts-living-accommodations.htm

http://1906earthquake.com/damage-effects/

http://www.sfmuseum.org/1906/06.html

http://www.sfmuseum.org/perished/who17.html

It was a rather cold morning while I was preparing to get ready for the day ahead of me. My usual 5 A.M. wake up time was met, but this day is going to be everything but a usual day. Before I could completely wake up, I felt the first one. It was a mediocre tremble that caused some things to fall off a dresser in the corner of my room which is part of a 3-room apartment building right on Main street. As I picked up the little damage left by this tremor, I was thrown from my feet by what felt like a wrecking ball hitting the side of my wall, but leaving no hole. I immediately crawled towards a table and the little protection it offered and grabbed the legs and held on for my life. Gravity was shifting up and down, left and right while pieces of furniture were being tossed around my room like pebbles. Something, maybe a dresser, landed on top of the table I was under and crushed it along with my helpless body. I don't remember the shaking ever stopping; whether I got knocked unconscious or it was just my body shaking after the ground stopped shaking, it felt as if it didn't stop until the morning light shown through my collapsed roof. With a throbbing pain in my head and shoulders, I managed to find a way out from under the furniture that fell on me, lucky to be able to walk. Through the damage, I made it out onto Main Street and the image I saw was unbelievable. From the top of the hill I could see hundreds of crumbled buildings, bridges, and roads. Families coming out of their houses with missing members and animals scurrying to find their families. Smoke was billowing off in the distance, and the one fire truck that could have possibly survived is heard. The most amazing thing of all was the sunrise occurring on the horizon with it's reds and oranges reflecting off the clouds and smoke and debris. This morning was figuratively, and quite literally, breathtaking. The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 produced many stories like mine. However, a lot of stories could not be told because there were some not so lucky individuals. Upwards of 3,400 people died in response to the earthquake; a drastic increase of the only 478 deaths reported in 1907 by San Francisco officials. A large number of the deaths are believed to be of immigrants and people on the lowest rug of the social ladder. People died during the minute long tremor by getting crushed by falling debris or by their own homes. Also, people died in the hours after the quake from fires that erupted. Gas pipes were cracked and leaking and just one spark lighted a whole building on fire, along with all of its occupants. Luckily, my building did not catch on fire. Furthermore, people died days or even weeks after the earthquake from just being trapped without food and water. This was the worst way to in my opinion. Just the thought that your relatives, your friends, your neighbors have no idea that you are still alive and can be saved if only they could look for you. And this is the only thing you can think of while you slowly wither away from starvation and dehydration. While some of my neighbors go crushed and burned, I was one of the lucky ones to get out on the street safely. Together, all the people on the street gathered together and took in what had just happened. Sadness and astonishment was written all over my neighbors' faces and non one had an idea of what to do except go through the rubble of our friends houses, hoping to find a survivor and dreading to find a victim. As I pushed through the rubble of the building just to the right of mine, my worst thoughts became reality. My neighbor and long time friend, Kat Gibbons was laying motionless under what looked like a piece of her roof. She lived at 660 Post street and I was at 661 while her husband, and also great friend, Joseph Gibbons lived just down the street. Instinctively I went to find Joseph. The look on his face was heartbreaking when I told him what I saw and I could not help but think of how many people in the city of San Francisco and beyond had the same devastated expression on their own faces at that very moment. Then I thought of my family, who lived in Southern California, and wanted to be with them at that very moment more than ever. As strong as I felt it, I would not be surprised if my family felt it as well at a much lesser magnitude. These initial feelings I felt were like nothing I have ever felt before and I am sure of it that no one who experienced the the same thing has ever felt anything like it, both physically and emotionally. The only thing more substantial then the lives lost and the feelings felt both during and after the fact was the damages caused to the city. An estimated $400,000,000 of damage was caused because of the earthquake and fires, and $80,000,000 in damages just from the earthquake alone. When taking inflation into consideration, today the same damages would calculate to a loss of about one billion dollars which would cripple the United States today. Most of these damages were to buildings and homes just like mine and the Gibbons houses. An astonishing amount of 90% of the buildings in San Francisco were destroyed by this 8.3 magnitude earthquake, including Stanford University pictured above, and the fires that followed. The fires actually contributed more damages then the earthquake did. A 4.7 square mile fire burned everything in its path and contributed more than $300,000,000 in damage. In all, the total number of buildings destroyed comes out to upwards of 28,000 which led to thousands of people without a home to live in. In fact, over half of the 400,000 people living in San Francisco at the time were left homeless, including myself and all but three of my neighbors. Living in a middle class type of neighborhood, I can not even imagine how the poorer neighborhoods held up during the intense shaking. I remember looking towards the top of the hills where the richer part of the town was and I could still see standing buildings. It goes to show what money can do. For three days fires raged through the city and some of the buildings on the hills were not there anymore. Instead, smoke and ash took their place. By this time, I made to one of the camps set up along the beach for all the survivors. Camps gave been set up on the beaches near Oakland and Berkeley. Some people stayed under the care of these camps for two years. Life in these refugee camps were not desirable, but luckily I was able to move back south with my family. For the days I spent at the refugee camp I was always hungry. The food rations were not very big due to the mass of people in one camp, the sanitation conditions were beyond mediocre. However, later I read in a newspaper that, in fact, these refugee camps became very well maintained. They became o look like small, highly organized towns with numbers on each “house” and street corner directories. Also, people living there were becoming more happier and content as if they were on a vacation. In the first few months I was there, incredible survival stories were told by some and every night you can hear a different person weeping over the loss of a loved one. The close quarters caused many people to become friends and it also felt as if all the survivors were one big family united through this devastating event. We were all in the best interest of the people and the reconstruction of the city and of our moral.