The earthquake, one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history, took the lives of as many as 3,000 people, historians now say, and left 250,000 homeless -- more than half of the city's 400,000 population.

The SF Chronicle has been running a fascinating series of articles about the Great Quake for the better part of the past month, leading up to the centennial today. As a resident of this great city for more than a decade now, it's a stunning reminder of the history and danger inherent in being a San Franciscan. Spending time here, locals flippantly joke about the "next big one" with a morbid sense of realism. "If it comes, it comes," seems to be the prevailing feeling. "If the city can survive the last big one, then I can too."

The city certainly survived, and moreso. But not before the quake and resulting fire (which burned for days after the earth stopped shaking) turned the bustling metropolis into an immediate horror show

The Rev. Charles Lathrop, an Episcopal priest, looked down Market Street and saw the face of disaster: "I saw a wagon coming up the street ... the driver driving this way and that to escape the live wires hanging down across the street. He told me he was looking for a hospital, that there was a dying man, a policeman, in the bed of the wagon.

"I saw a man, flopping in his death agonies, mashed beyond recognition. Then the horror of the catastrophe broke on me.''

....
In the South of Market, poorly built wooden buildings used as hotels and boarding houses collapsed -- at Third and Mission streets, Fifth and Minna streets, Third and Folsom streets, and Sixth and Folsom streets. There, the Corona House Hotel fell, killing 40 people.

Sister Mary Joseph O'Leary, a nun stationed at a Catholic school at Third and Mission streets, near where the Museum of Modern Art now stands, looked out of the school gate on Minna Street and saw "bricks, plaster wood, glass, all in confusion, while immediately opposite our gate ... a household had caved in, and horrible to relate, the occupants were in eternity.''

The Valencia Street Hotel between 18th and 19th streets also collapsed, and perhaps 80 people died. Those on the fourth floor stepped out into the streets, but people in the lower floors were killed or trapped. William Bock, the proprietor of the hotel, was buried in rubble in his bed and killed, but his wife, who slept beside him, was unhurt.

And then, the fire started. That's when the stories of what happened go from tragic to downright chilling.

Fifty-two fires started almost at once across the city. The first, and most deadly, was the Chinese laundry fire South of Market near Third and Howard streets, a blaze that started after the quake knocked over heating fires at the laundry.
...
At the Royal Hotel on Fourth -- where the new Moscone West convention center stands now -- 60 people were buried alive. At a four-story flat on Fifth, now the site of a big parking garage -- 40 bodies were found later, charred bones, skulls. At the Portland House, at Sixth and Mission, dozens were trapped. "Agonizing cries for relief were heard a half block away,'' the San Francisco Examiner reported.

"Even now,'' Sister Eugenia Garvey, the principal of St. Vincent's School, wrote days later, "When I close my eyes, I see flames, nothing but flames."

At Third and Mission, a building had collapsed and a man was pinned in the wreckage. The fire was coming, and he was trapped. He pleaded for help, and bystanders tried to rescue him. They frantically tried to clear the rubble, but the fire was close and getting closer. It was a race the man could not win.

"Realizing that he would soon be burned to death, he begged for bystanders to kill him," said police Capt. Thomas Duke.

The southern fire line, where firefighters were finally able to connect to working fire hydrants and stop the encroaching flames, stretched along 20th street, which just happens to be where I live now. Certain hydrants along the fire line on all sides are painted gold to comemorate the fact that they stood tall while others failed. They saved additional neighborhoods and lives. There is one a few blocks from my apartment.

I'm typing this now in the library at my school. One hundred years ago today, this spot was ablaze, these buildings flanking me were rubble and almost everyone surrounding me would be dead. But today the city bustles like you'd never know the difference. San Francisco is what it is today in no small part because of the catastrophe 100 years ago. After the fire and quake shantytowns were set up all over the city wherein people of all SF's diverse cultures and economic backgrounds were forced to live together, to share experiences and to share culture. Perhaps without the quake, SF wouldn't be the bastion of tolerance that it is today. Perhaps.

Regardless, it's a city that I love with all of my heart. It's a city that I may never leave. The 1906 Quake is the central event in the history of that city. And for that reason and so many more, I raise my glass in memory and respect to you, my fair San Francisco.

[Edited on Apr 19, 2006 by Subrosa]

BellJar

I'm lost

February 2005

APR 18, 2006 03:49 PM

Cheers!

The spot where I'm sitting right now had probably already burned to the ground 100 years ago today.

Looking out the window, over the city, I know there's no place I'd rather be.

poptard

United Kingdom

November 2003

APR 18, 2006 03:58 PM

100 years ago today i wasn't alive

did you think of that!