On the 18th of April, 1906, a massive earthquake struck the coast of California.
The main quake would last for less than a minute, but in that time it would destroy
and change thousands of lives, and reduce to rubble thousands of homes and businesses.
Despite taking place more than a hundred years ago, the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake has
remained the most deadly natural disaster in the history of California.
Running almost the entire length of California is the San Andreas Fault.
A fault is a crack in the Earth’s crust where two tectonic plates meet.
Because tectonic plates move, there can be friction between them, which often manifests
as earthquakes, landslides or other geological activity.
These events worst affect the areas directly over the fault.
In 1906, the San Andreas Fault had only recently been identified, and its relationship to earthquakes
was not yet well understood.
The cities and towns which sat atop it had a history of earthquakes, although most earthquakes
in living memory were minor ones.
Of the cities along the Fault, San Francisco was the most significant.
It had grown rapidly during the gold rush in the mid-1800s, and had thereafter become
the largest city on the West Coast.
It was also an extremely important port, through which huge amounts of trade was done, and
which significant military force was moved.
For this reason it became known by many as the “gateway to the Pacific”.
On the morning of the 18th of April, 1906, at 5:12am, a foreshock shook the ground from
as far north as the state or Oregon, all the way south to Los Angeles.
It was felt inland as far as the state of Nevada.
This shaking would have been sufficient to wake many people from sleep… but there was
little time for anyone to react before – just 25 seconds later – the main quake struck.
This time, the shaking lasted around 45 seconds, during which time land on the eastern side
of the fault moved southward, and land on the western side moved northward, creating
a displacement of six meters (or nearly 20 feet).
In geological terms, this amount of movement in under a minute is huge, and the 45 seconds
of shaking which accompanied it was devastating.
Buildings collapsed.
Roofs caved in.
Chimneys fell through houses.
Roof tiles cascaded into the street.
Sewerage, water and gas lines all broke.
Electrical power failed.
Horses panicked and ran in terror.
Falling wreckage injured and buried hundreds of people.
Automobiles careened out of control.
People fell to the ground, were struck by falling masonry, and tumbled down stairs.
Vast sinkholes and cracks opened, swallowing up unsuspecting survivors.
After 45 seconds, the shaking ceased… but for many people the danger was only just beginning.
In the hours and minutes after the quake, hundreds of fires started in the wreckage.
In some cases this was due to lanterns being knocked over by the shaking, while in others
gas lines had broken, resulting in the leakage of flammable gas that ignited when survivors
lit candles or tried to kindle stoves.
One of the most destructive fires, which later came to be known as “The Ham and Eggs Fire”,
originated in a kitchen at 395 Hayes Street.
The building had suffered only minor damage, and the residents did not realise that the
chimney had collapsed.
When they attempted to make breakfast on the morning after the quake, the kitchen caught
fire.
Broken water mains made it difficult to control, and the flames eventually spread until they
had enveloped more than twenty city blocks, and destroyed what remained of City Hall.
These fires were far more devastating than the quake itself.
While the damage caused directly by the quake had destroyed thousands of homes, the out-of-control
fires would destroy tens of thousands.
They would burn for four days, blazing through the tumbled wreckage of the city.
The fire service in San Francisco struggled to cope.
To begin with, the city’s fire chief was injured in the initial quake, and died soon
afterwards.
Without his leadership, and with roads destroyed or blocked, it was a struggle to get fire
appliances to where they were needed.
Water mains had also been broken by the quake in many cases, leaving firefighters without
water to fight the flames.
Dynamite was used to destroy damaged buildings in order to create firebreaks and limit the
spread of flames… but the fire service was unused to using dynamite in this way, and
in some cases accidentally started new fires when attempting to contain existing ones.
New fires were also sometimes started by the residents of quake-damaged houses.
In some cases they would accidentally start fires while trying to cook food or heat what
was left of their homes.
In other cases, fires were started deliberately.
It was generally known that insurance companies would pay out for fire damage, but not for
earthquake damage – leading some homeowners to set light to their quake-damaged homes
to be certain that they would be able to collect on their insurance policy.
Looting was also a significant issue.
Some people saw the quake as an opportunity to make money by taking valuable goods from
damaged buildings.
Many looters were caught, and in some cases shot dead.
The army was quickly drafted in to provide assistance.
Their tasks were many: they assisted in evacuating people from danger zones, accommodating displaced
residents, distributing food and water, protecting shops and businesses from looting, monitoring
the spread of fires, and generally keeping good order in the disaster zone.
Parks and open spaces were quickly filled with makeshift tents.
People sheltered there in their thousands, drawing emergency rations and protecting themselves
from the rain with whatever they could find.
Fully half the city was now, in effect, homeless.
The army worked round the clock to construct wooden shelters for displaced residents to
live in.
Soup kitchens were opened around the devastated city to provide food for hundreds of thousands.
Aid was sent from all over the country, and indeed the world, to provide food, shelter
and resources as the shocked population attempted to rebuild.
As these scenes played out in San Francisco, they also played out on a smaller scale in
cities and towns across California.
Santa Rosa and San Jose were particularly badly affected.
Rebuilding was a difficult task from the very beginning.
By advertising the plight of the city, San Francisco could attract more aid… but at
the same time officials worried that doing so would deter businesses from investing in
the city in the future.
As a result the incredible damage to the city was sometimes downplayed.
An initial estimate that around 375 people had died has subsequently been discredited.
The actual number of dead was more likely around 3,000.
In addition to this staggering loss of life, more than 30,000 buildings had been seriously
damaged or destroyed by the quake and ensuing fires.
Rebuilding that much of the city would be no small task, and indeed some residents housed
in emergency accommodation would find themselves still living there years later.
Over the course of almost a decade the city would return to something like its former
glory.
Reconstruction was undertaken with a set of strict new building codes, designed to ensure
that the buildings which rose from the rubble could better withstand the next big quake
whenever it should come.
During this time, however, San Francisco had been struggling to compete.
Some of the trade that might have flown through San Francisco had been diverted to Los Angeles
instead, and Los Angeles went on to overtake San Francisco as the largest city in the state.
The San Francisco quake of 1906 was one of the first to be documented with film.
It was studied extensively, and our collective knowledge of earthquakes developed significantly
as a result.
This lead to new theories about how best to zone cities, design buildings and monitor
earth movements to minimise the damage caused by quakes.
Today, though no longer the largest city in its region, San Francisco is thriving.
Many of its buildings are strong enough to withstand, at least to some degree, the quake
that devastated the city in 1906.
Every year more buildings are proofed against earthquakes, and methods of advance detection
and emergency response become more sophisticated.
That another earthquake will eventually strike San Francisco and the surrounding area is
inevitable.
Many small quakes have taken place since 1906, but experts still await what they colloquially
refer to as “the big one”.
It cannot be prevented, and cannot be precisely predicted.
But, with sufficient preparation, it should be nowhere near as destructive or deadly as
the quake that changed the face of the city in 1906.