Time for San Francisco to think about the next great earthquake

Sunday is the anniversary of one of the greatest watersheds in the history of the Bay Area – the Great Earthquake and Fire that nearly destroyed San Francisco on April 18, 1906.

There is always a party at 5:12 AM, the moment of the earthquake, at the Lotta Fountain on Jerry, Kerney and Markt Streets. A small date has been set this year due to the pandemic.

But why do we celebrate a disaster 115 years after it happened, especially after the death of all people who had a vivid memory of the event? Mostly because the annual event does not refer to the destruction of San Francisco but rather a rebirth, a special place that descended from the ashes, like the phoenix, a mythical bird that is one of the symbols of the city.

April 18th is the time when emergency authorities remind us that we live in an earthquake country, on the western edge of the continent with two large faults in the region. Big earthquakes happen every few years, and we’re too late. Underground faults are there, the danger is there, and we have forgotten what a great earthquake looks like. More than 31 years have passed since October 17, 1989, the day of the Loma Prieta earthquake – the “big little” as Herb Caen called it. A whole new city has sprung up since then. The kid who was in high school in 1989 is now middle aged. It was so long ago that people didn’t even have cell phones.

There have been a couple of medium-sized earthquakes since, one in Paso Robles and Saint-Simeon in 2003 and the other in Napa in 2014, but very few of those small tremors have occurred every two years. So this might be the time to think about what an earthquake really looks like.

Native son with Carl Nolte

The first thing to remember is that it comes without warning. Everyone who has watched satellite news knows how tornadoes build up, sometimes for days. Everyone in California knows about fire weather. But earthquakes come from a vacuum – or rather, from deep within the Earth. Scientists have worked for years to predict earthquakes, and they talk about the probabilities of the next earthquakes. But the last big event happened before the World Championship match between the San Francisco Giants and Oakland Athletics. What are the odds of that? A zillion for one.

The second thing is that an earthquake is instantly recognizable: it is not an explosion, fire, or World War III. It is an earthquake. Nothing like it. And you never know how long it’s going to last. Sometimes an earthquake is just a small jolt, or roll, like the movement of a ship. Sometimes it can knock you off your feet. A small one is fast and sharp. A big one that goes on, stops, and returns again. Scary.

The first thing you think of an earthquake is yourself. Will I be okay? It is racist. But the second thing you think about is others. Is my family okay? My partner? Household? my world? This is where the next earthquake will be different. There are 7 million people in the Gulf region, and even young children have cell phones. When the ground stops vibrating, there will be millions of phone calls at the same time. Can the system handle this?

Will there be an earthquake? we will see.

There is also the eternal question of how ordinary people will act in the event of a disaster. Citizen Spirit of 1906 is an urban legend. In 1989, volunteer citizens joined the Marina fire brigade and helped patrol traffic after the lights were turned off. In Auckland, people climbed stairs to help motorists trapped on the wrecked Nimitz Highway. There have been hundreds of stories about ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

Think about how cities weathered a major earthquake. Since the last time, San Francisco and other cities in the Bay Area have literally grown up. Just look at all those glass towers. Look at this horizon. Will the famous Millennium Tower come? Would all of those earthquake retrofits over the past 30 years be worth the cost?

And what about all these wonderful survivors of the disaster of 1906 – the Ferry Building, the Emporium Building, the Ferry and Phelan Building, the Central Tower, which was once the tallest building in the West. Will they survive?

Everyone knows that cities, especially downtown areas, are in trouble due to the COVID pandemic. What will an earthquake do? Will there be a mass exodus from San Francisco?

What about the homeless? The 1906 earthquake displaced about 250,000 people in San Francisco, yet the city managed to create cities out of tents and build thousands of makeshift homes called earthquake huts. Few of them still exist, and many have been remodeled here and there in the old quarters. Is it possible to do this again?

There are unintended consequences of every disaster. In 1906 entire sections of the Victorian office buildings and southern market slums were destroyed. The survivors of the 1906 disaster built the New San Francisco, which we inherited. After the Loma Prieta earthquake, the damaged Embarcadero Expressway was removed, opening a new impressive northern waterfront. The old eastern end of the Gulf Bridge has been replaced by a single spectacular tower. A completely new ferry system has been developed. The great shaking had disastrous consequences.

The new city of San Francisco arose out of a fire and earthquake in 1906. San Francisco developed differently after the Loma Prieta disaster. So now we wait to see what nature has in store for us. It is in the cards.

Carl Nolte columns operate on Sundays. Email: [email protected] Twitter: Carlnoltesf

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