p. 4 | Earthquake and Fire

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · May 30, 1906

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 32, No. 21.

Earthquake and Fire

Earthquake and Fire.—Some of the papers in San Francisco have persistently endeavored to minimize the effect of the earthquake upon that city and to lay most of the damage to the fire. One statement is that only one per cent. of the damage was by earthquake; ninety-nine per cent. was by fire and dynamite. But many of the buildings and the people tell a different story. If the strong brick walls had been uninjured by the earthquake, they would have stood notwithstanding the fire ate out their linings of wood. But the simple fact is that most of the buildings were greatly damaged by the earthquake. Many of them had walls broken before the fire fiend came to complete the work of destruction. Many of the buildings were left by the earthquake barely holding together by the wood within them. When the hungry flames licked the interiors clean, the walls collapsed. A few skeletons of brick and steel and stone stand intact after the fire. Of course, the earthquake damage would not have been so apparent if no fire had followed. Many of the broken and cracked structures would have stood, and there were also many wood buildings in the burned district; but all told the earthquake was fearful and it did terrible work.

Said one gentleman, in referring to San Francisco’s horror: “I was here in San Francisco at the time of the great fire in 1855. I was there in 1868 when the earth shook for six weeks. I was there in 1892 and 1898, and all the troubles she has had; but if all these were multiplied by one hundred they would not compare with this in its awful horror, devastation, and destruction.” And so others will say.