The San Francisco Calamity by Earthquake and Fire | Page 8

localities, and the bulk of the disaster, so far as the
earthquake was concerned, was confined to the low-lying region above
described.
THE BANE OF THE EARTHQUAKE.
From the origin of San Francisco the earthquake has been its bane.
During the past fifty years fully 250 shocks have been recorded, while
all California has been subject to them. But frequency rather than
violence of shocks has been the characteristic of the seismic history of
the State, there having been few shocks that caused serious damage,
and none since 1872 that led to loss of life.
There was a violent shock in 1856, when the city was only a mining
town of small frame buildings. Several shanties were overthrown and a
few persons killed by falling walls and chimneys. There was a severe
shock also in 1865, in which many buildings were shattered. Next in
violence was the shock of 1872, which cracked the walls of some of the
public buildings and caused a panic. There was no great loss of life. In
April, 1898, just before midnight, there was a lively shakeup which
caused the tall buildings to shake like the snapping of a whip and drove
the tourists out of the hotels into the streets in their nightclothes. Three
or four old houses fell, and the Benicia Navy Yard, which is on made
ground across the bay, was damaged to the extent of about $100,000.
The last severe shock was in January, 1900, when the St. Nicholas
Hotel was badly damaged.
These were the heaviest shocks. On the other hand, light shocks, as
above said, have been frequent. Probably the sensible quakes have
averaged three or four a year. These are usually tremblings lasting from
ten seconds to a minute and just heavy enough to wake light sleepers or
to shake dishes about on the shelves. Tourists and newcomers are
generally alarmed by these phenomena, but old Californians have
learned to take them philosophically. To one is not afraid of them, the

sensation of one of these little tremblers is rather pleasant than
otherwise, and the inhabitants grew so accustomed to them as rarely to
let them disturb their equanimity.
After 1900 the forces beneath the earth seemed to fall asleep. As it
proved, they were only biding their time. The era was at hand when
they were to declare themselves in all their mighty power and fall upon
the devoted city with ruin in their grasp. But all this lay hidden in the
secret casket of time, and the city kept up to its record as one of the
liveliest and in many respects the most reckless and pleasure-loving on
the continent, its people squandering their money with thoughtless
improvidence and enjoying to the full all the good that life held out to
them.
On the 17th of April, 1906, the city was, as usual, gay, careless, busy,
its people attending to business or pleasure with their ordinary vim as
inclination led them, and not a soul dreaming of the horrors that lay in
wait. They were as heedless of coming peril and death as the
inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah before the rain of fire from heaven
descended upon their devoted heads. This is not to say that they were
doomed by God to destruction like these "cities of the plains." We
should more wisely say that the forces of ruin within the earth take no
heed of persons or places. They come and go as the conditions of
nature demand, and if man has built one of his cities across their
destined track, its doom comes from its situation, not from the moral
state of its inhabitants.
THE GREAT DISASTER OF 1906.
That night the people went, with their wonted equanimity, to their beds,
rich and poor, sick and well alike. Did any of them dream of disaster in
the air? It may be so, for often, as the poet tells us, "Coming events cast
their shadows before." But, forewarned by dreams or not, doubtless not
a soul in the great city was prepared for the terrible event so near at
hand, when, at thirteen minutes past five o'clock on the dread morning
of the 18th, they felt their beds lifted beneath them as if by a Titan hand,
heard the crash of falling walls and ceilings, and saw everything in their
rooms tossed madly about, while through their windows came the roar

of an awful disaster from the city without.
It was a matter not of minutes, but of seconds, yet on all that coast, long
the prey of the earthquake, no shock like it had ever been felt, no such
sudden terror awakened, no such terrible loss occasioned as in those
few fearful seconds. Again and again the trembling of the earth passed
by, three quickly