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Three days adrift
A first-person account of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire
 | People on Sacramento street watch smoke rise from fires after a severe earthquake in San Francisco, on Wednesday, April 18, 1906. The quake measured 8.3 on the Richter scale igniting fires that proved far more disastrous. |
Arnold Genthe / Ap File / AP |
How big was the 1906 earthquake? |
Levels of magnitude quoted for the 1906 San Francisco earthquake vary from the low sevens to the high eights. Which is correct? That's difficult to pin down, in part because data for the 1906 earthquake are often poor because of the relatively unsophisticated technology of the period and also because most of the few stations in existence back then were not in optimum locations. Two recent studies — one consolidating measurements taken at almost 100 observatories around the world and the other examining ground deformation caused by the quake — have put the disaster at magnitude 7.7 to 7.9. |
SOURCE: U.S. Geological Survey |
A Sunset writer gives a first-person account of the 1906 earthquake and fire.
Plus: Sunset's 1906 emergency edition
April 18 — Evening
In sand lot near foot of Van Ness avenue.
I’m writing by the light of the burning city. The fire is still twenty blocks from my house, but we came out here to spend the night because we have been afraid since the first earthquake shock. Then, the house swayed and creaked and trembled; rose and fell like a ship in a tempest. I couldn’t walk on the floor at all — had to crawl to the door on my hands and knees. Just as I opened the door my big plaster cast of “The Winged Victory” fell from her pedestal and smashed on the floor. She made a big heap of rubbish. I was too terrified to think. I tried to call to the Dixons, but couldn’t articulate. They didn’t hear a sound from me throughout those terrible forty seconds. I thought it was the end — but neither the beautiful dreams nor the horrors that are supposed to panorama instant death came to me.
My heart beat double quick somewhere up in my throat. I felt nauseated. But I managed to save my toppling mirror; saved it while all other breakable objects in my room went smash. I held on to it with one hand and braced myself against the door frame with the other and watched the crystal scent bottles slide off and spill their precious fragrance on the drunken floor; my statuette of Psyche fell from her shelf and broke her head off. But my little Aztec idol Huitzpochitle took his tumble like a valiant god-of-war without a scratch. He rolled about on the floor in an undignified way but her never changed expression.
The final jerk almost upset the bureau on top of me, but after that my house rocked regularly for awhile like a swing when you “let the old cat die.” I felt the ease which followed the cessation of great pain. When I felt quite sure that the floor was firm under my feet again I went out on the balcony. A cloud of dust rose from the city as though a race of giants were shaking their great carpet. Almost all the chimneys were down. Almost instantly columns of smoke began to rise from the other side of town.
We dressed. When we wanted to wash we found there was no water. Next, we hurried down town to see if Maynard Dixon’s studio was all right. On Union street the cable slot looked as if it had been run through a Chinese wash house fluting machine.
We had to walk, there being no cars.
In the Latin Quarter the streets were full of terrified people all crowding to keep in the middle of the street. It was the quietest crowd I was ever in. Scarcely any one spoke. The children didn’t cry. The fear of God was upon us all. Everyone was afraid of another shock.
Maynard’s studio was in chaos. The canvases were uninjured but his Navajo pottery was sadly smashed and mingled on the floor with the rest of his studio litter. A box of matches had been ignited by the shock and extinguished again by a vase of water spilling over it.
From the studio we went down Montgomery street to the Palace hotel. It was uninjured. Things inside seemed quiet and in order. There was no broken glass, no plaster — everything was quiet and in place. A Chinese servant in a white linen blouse was calmly dusting the furniture in the Palm Garden. Men were passing to and fro in the corridor, others were reading the newspapers in the office; the clerks were at the desk. The proud boast that the Palace was earthquake proof had been vindicated.
From there we went along Market street to Lotta’s fountain. The old buildings east of Sansome street were blazing. We saw the cupola on the roof of the “Fly in the Pudding” restaurant turn into a beautiful “set piece” and other old wood buildings of early days catch fire. People in the street were kept busy dodging the speeding automobiles. Suddenly there was another earthquake shock. The crowds scurried panic-stricken to the middle of the street. There they waited breathless for another disaster. But it never came.
By nine the fire had come up to the Grand Opera House. Third street was a mass of people from south of Market street trying to escape with their household goods. There were women pushing sewing machines in front of them, children carrying phonographs, men dragging trunks. The screeching sound of the trunks dragging on the cable slots went to my marrow. At the corner a fireman stood beside a hydrant from which trailed a string of empty hose. A woman darted out of the crowd and ran up to him.
“What’s the matter, Tom?”
“There’s no water.”
Up to now we had only felt fear, now we knew fear. No water, and fires on every side! The fireman kissed the woman and told her to go back to the folks, assuring her that he was all right. The woman did not cry but her lips trembled. She realized better than we could the terrible import of these words.
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