Earthquake and Fire by L. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Apr 26, 1906

Earthquake and Fire

By L. A. S.

The following is a statement of facts obtained from press reports, descriptive of what is doubtless the greatest catastrophe in point of wide-spread destruction, that has occurred in modern times.

At 5:13 o'clock in the morning of April 18, a large section of central California adjacent to the coast was shaken by a terrific earthquake, several shocks following each other with diminishing severity, the first one being the most violent. The duration of the first shock was one minute, and in those places most affected the earth's surface was agitated during this time like a storm-swept sea. Many of the older and less substantially built structures collapsed, burying their occupants beneath the ruins, or were so damaged that they fell at the next vibration. Only the strongest modern steel structures were able to withstand the shock without serious damage.

San Francisco, the metropolis of the Pacific Coast, with its miles of lofty buildings and its four hundred thousand inhabitants, was of course the center of interest, destruction, and horror. The cheap lodging-houses and hotels near the water front, where the shock was worst, collapsed at once, causing the loss of several hundred lives. The collapse or wreck of warehouses, tenements, and other structures in the low-lying district of the city was general. Some of the largest buildings were likewise demolished. The great city hall, to erect which required seven million dollars and twenty years' time, was laid in ruins; likewise the new two-million-dollar post-office. A great section of the shell of the Call building, the tallest structure in the city, fell to the ground. The roofs or top floors of other large business buildings fell in, and only the fact that they were not occupied at that early morning hour prevented great loss of life.

Awakened, and in many cases thrown from their beds, by the first violent shock, the inhabitants of the city rushed into the streets with no thought but that of escape from burial beneath the wreck of their homes. Thousands did not take time to dress. In the streets they were still menaced by swaying walls, with each recurring vibration of the earth. It was impossible to reach a place of safety. All lights in the city were extinguished. Confusion and consternation reigned supreme.

When the first dread agency of destruction had spent its violence, another at once took up the work which it had begun. Fire, from crossed electric wires and broken gas-mains, broke out in a number of places. The water-mains had also been broken by the violence of the upheaval, and the water system of the city was rendered useless. The firemen responded to a general alarm, but were without water to fight the flames. The fire made steady and rapid headway, fanned by an east wind which carried it directly toward the heart of the city. There remained but the one hope of saving the city from destruction by the use of dynamite.

It was nine o'clock before the police, firemen, and the troops from the fort at the Golden Gate, had the populace under control, and then by order of the mayor the city was put under martial law, and efforts began to arrest the conflagration by blowing up buildings in its path. No building was spared if its destruction seemed necessary, but every effort to stop the advancing sea of flame by this last resort was fruitless. Van Ness Avenue, with a width of ninety feet, was selected as a place to make a determined effort, and along this avenue a mile of buildings were leveled. But when the flames reached it, they leaped across the intervening space. Finally the supply of dynamite became exhausted, and even this last hope of arresting the onward march of destruction was gone. The city was wholly given over to the devouring element.

As the fire's grasp upon the city became more complete, and it became evident that no section would be spared, the terror-stricken people sought the wide open space of Golden Gate park and the Presidio, the only remaining refuge from the flames, except the sea. Here the greater part of the population were sheltered in tents, or slept in the open air, being supplied with food and water by the troops. Exit from the city, or ingress to it, was prevented by the troops, acting under orders; but before martial law had become established, many thousands took

passage across the bay to Oakland, where the earthquake had not inflicted serious damage.

The streets of that city became lined with homeless, penniless refugees who had nothing to do but wait until some one came and offered them food and shelter. A description in the Washington Post says: “Every few minutes there float through the suburbs into the town these processions of miserable, smoke-blackened, haggard, weeping people which made yesterday the beginning of this hell. Now and then you recognize some man, dressed like a tramp, dirty, dragging a miserable woman, as a prosperous business man or a sleek clerk whom you have known in San Francisco. They come to us hungry, mainly penniless, fairly begging something to eat from the public kitchens which the soldiers have set up in the streets.”

Speaking of the futile effort to stop the advancing conflagration at Van Ness Avenue, this description says:—

“At four o'clock Mayor Schmitz and Chief of Police Dinan decided that the only hope of saving the western addition, with its forest of frame dwellings, and the Richmond district, with its thousands of homes, was to check the fire at Van Ness Avenue, which crosses the city from north to south, where the residences begin. This avenue is ninety feet wide, and the possibilities of checking the march of the flames there looked hopeful. Huge cannons were drawn to the avenue to aid the dynamiters in blowing up the mansions of the millionaires on the east side of Van Ness Avenue. Every available pound of dynamite was hauled to this point, and the sight was one of stupendous and appalling havoc, as the cannons were trained on the palaces, and the shot tore into the walls and toppled the buildings in crushing ruins.”

No account could portray in full the features of this appalling picture. “Marius, sitting among the ruins of Carthage,” says one writer, “saw not such a sight as presents itself. Ruins, stark naked, yawning at fearful angles and pinnacled into a thousand fearsome shapes, mark the site of what was three fourths of the total area of the city.” Of the mental condition into which the people have been brought by the catastrophe, a survivor says: “We are so drunken and dulled by horror that we take such stories [of heroism and fatalities] calmly now. We are saturated.” An observer in Oakland says: “People are crying, praying, muttering to themselves on the streets, and no one pays any attention. We have become a city of the mad.”

Of San Francisco, the proud metropolis, little is left that would suggest a former abode of human beings. The very streets are gone, swallowed up beneath the heaps of debris left by the destroying elements. The destruction is more terrible and complete than that which came upon Chicago in the great fire of 1871. Hundreds of thousands of its former inhabitants are left homeless. How forcibly is the truth of the Scripture shown, “Thou knowest not what a day may bring forth”!

At some other places the violence of the earthquake was as great as at San Francisco, and the damage sustained was proportionally almost as great. The entire business sections of Santa Rosa and San Jose were laid in ruins. The buildings of Leland Stanford University at Palo Alto were shaken down. Reports state that nineteen lives were lost at San Jose, and one hundred or more at Santa Rosa. Oakland, Berkeley, Santa Cruz, Healdsburg, and other places suffered from the visitation, though the damage was comparatively slight. Accurate estimates of the loss of life and amount of property destroyed are not yet obtainable, but all reports state that as regards the latter, this fire is the greatest in the history of the world, far outranking the great fire of London, and the destruction of Chicago in 1871. From $200,000,000 to $500,000,000 loss is the present estimate.

The one relieving feature of the situation is the promptness with which the entire nation came to the relief of the stricken populace of the ruined district, several millions of dollars being promptly subscribed for their relief. Supplies of provisions were speedily sent from all sides, and the danger of famine, which threatened the vast multitude camped in Golden Gate park and other open spaces of San Francisco was averted, but the problem of preventing an epidemic owing to the lack of sanitation, has become a serious one. The contents of the San Francisco banks were saved, and no one questions but that the city will be rebuilt.

L. A. S.