An Earthquake Experience

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 21, 1906

An Earthquake Experience

IT was the greatest catastrophe of modern times, and writers gifted with remarkable ability in making word-pictures have been utterly unable to exaggerate in writing up the San Francisco earthquake. In fact, the simplicity of direct statement is the most impressive in this instance.

The following extract from a private letter tells briefly of the experience at a private sanitarium conducted by Sabbath-keepers;—

Dr. Lamb’s sanitarium was on the fifth floor of a block on the corner of Ninth and Market Streets. At the time of the earthquake their sanitarium was crowded, one patient being accommodated on one of the treatment tables in the operating room. The doctors and nurses were all in bed and nearly all asleep when the earthquake came. With almost the first shock one side of the brick building fell out. It was providential that it fell out instead of in. The doctors were in bed asleep, and the edge of their bed was within fourteen inches of the wall that fell out, and yet they were not touched. . . .

With the house rocking so that they could not stand on their feet they made their way to the back door, where they thought they could get out on the top of an adjoining roof, but to reach that roof they must go part way down the five stories of back stairs. Just as they opened the door, before they had placed their feet upon the landing, the whole stairway separated from the building, and fell in a heap five stories below.

Then they ran back toward the front entrance only to find the doors jammed so that every means of escape was blocked. From their windows they saw the collapse of the city hall and many other buildings and chimneys, and it seemed to them that the city was going entirely to pieces.

After the quake they went for their patients, and found them comparatively calm. Several of them were still in bed. The doors of three rooms were jammed so that they had to be broken down. The building was unsafe, so they began at once to remove their patients. They found rooms not many blocks away. In one case they had to pay five dollars for a room for one hour. Think of the love of money to such a grasping extent getting hold of the hearts of people so that in the midst of a calamity like that they would charge extortionate prices for shelter for invalids.

Every patient was removed from the building without injury, and of the furnishings they saved a quilt and a sheet with each patient. Dr. Lamb saved one of his diplomas, and a little hand-bag of instruments. That portion of the city was burned so soon after the earthquake that they were given little chance.

The more we learn concerning this earthquake, the more we are convinced that we have but the most inadequate conception of the real nature and extent of the disaster. If this is only the alpha of destruction, what will the omega be?