The San Francisco Calamity

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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 repeated shocks, and the work of the demon of
ruin was done. People woke with a start to find themselves flung from
their beds to the floor, many of them covered with the fragments of
broken ceilings, many lost among the ruins of falling floors and walls,
many pinned in agonizing suffering under the ruins of their houses,
which had been utterly wrecked in those fatal seconds. Many there were,
indeed, who had been flung to quick if not to instant death under their
ruined homes.

Those seconds of the reign of the elemental forces had turned the
gayest, most careless city on the continent into a wreck which no words
can fitly describe. Those able to move stumbled in wild panic across the
floors of their heaving houses, regardless of clothing, of treasures, of
everything but the mad instinct for safety, and rushed headlong into the
streets, to find that the earth itself had yielded to the energy of its
frightful interior forces and had in places been torn and rent like the
houses themselves. New terrors assailed the fugitives as fresh tremors
shook the solid ground, some of them strong enough to bring down
shattered walls and chimneys, and bring back much of the mad terror of
the first fearful quake. The heaviest of these came at eight o'clock.
While less forcible than that which had caused the work of destruction,
it added immensely to the panic and dread of the people and put many of
the wanderers to flight, some toward the ferry, the great mass in the
direction of the sand dunes and Golden Gate Park.

The spectacle of the entire population of a great city thus roused
suddenly from slumber by a fierce earthquake shock and sent flying into
the streets in utter panic, where not buried under falling walls or
tumbling debris, is one that can scarcely be pictured in words, and can
be given in any approach to exact realization only in the narratives of
those who passed through its horrors and experienced the sensations to
which it gave rise. Some of the more vivid of these personal accounts
will be presented later, but at present we must confine ourselves to a
general statement of the succession of events.

The earthquake proved but the beginning and much the least destructive
part of the disaster. In many of the buildings there were fires, banked
for the night, but ready to kindle the inflammable material hurled down
upon them by the shock. In others were live electric wires which the
shock brought in contact with woodwork. The terror-stricken fugitives
saw, here and there, in all directions around them, the alarming vision
of red flames curling upward and outward, in gleaming contrast to the
white light of dawn just showing in the eastern sky. Those lurid gleams
climbed upward in devouring haste, and before the sun had fairly risen
a dozen or more conflagrations were visible in all sections of the
business part of the city, and in places great buildings broke with
startling suddenness into flame, which shot hotly high into the air.

While the mass of the people were stunned by the awful suddenness of the
disaster and stood rooted to the ground or wandered helplessly about in
blank dismay, there were many alert and self-possessed among them who
roused themselves quickly from their dismay and put their energies
to useful work. Some of these gave themselves to the work of rescue,
seeking to save the injured from their perilous situation and draw
the bodies of the dead from the ruins under which they lay. Those base
wretches to whom plunder is always the first thought were as quickly
engaged in seeking for spoil in edifices laid open to their plundering
hands by the shock. Meanwhile the glare of the flames brought the
fire-fighters out in hot haste with their engines, and up from the
military station at the Presidio, on the Golden Gate side of the city,
came at double quick a force of soldiers, under the efficient command of
General Funston, of Cuban and Philippine fame. These trained troops were
at once put on guard over the city, with directions to keep the best
order possible, and with strict command to shoot all looters at sight.
Funston recognized at the start the necessity of keeping the lawless
element under control in such an exigency as that which he had to face.
Later in the day the First Regiment of California National Guards was
called out and put on duty, with similar orders.


RESCUERS AND FIRE-FIGHTERS.


The work of fighting the fire was the first and greatest duty to be
performed, but from the start it proved a very difficult, almost a
hopeless, task. With fierce fires burning at once in a dozen or more
separate places, the fire department of the city would have been
inadequate to cope with the demon of flame even under the best of
circumstances. As it was, they found themselves handicapped at the start
by a nearly total lack of water. The earthquake had disarranged and
broken the water mains and there was scarcely a drop of water to be had,
so that the engines proved next to useless. Water might be drawn from
the bay, but the centre of the conflagration was a mile or more away,
and this great body of water was rendered useless in the stringent
exigency.

The only hope that remained to the authorities was to endeavor to check
the progress of the flames by the use of dynamite, blowing up buildings
in the line of progress of the conflagration. This was put in practice
without loss of time, and soon the thunder-like roar of the explosions
began, blasts being heard every few minutes, each signifying that some
building had been blown to atoms. But over the gaps thus made the flames
leaped, and though the brave fellows worked with a desperation and
energy of the most heroic type, it seemed as if all their labors were
to be without avail, the terrible fire marching on as steadily as if a
colony of ants had sought to stay its devastating progress.


THE HORROR OF THE PEOPLE.


It was with grief and horror that the mass of the people gazed on this
steady march of the army of ruin. They were seemingly half dazed by the
magnitude of the disaster, strangely passive in the face of the ruin
that surrounded them, as if stunned by despair and not yet awakened to
a realization of the horrors of the situation. Among these was the
possibility of famine. No city at any time carries more than a few days'
supply of provisions, and with the wholesale districts and warehouse
regions invaded by the flames the shortage of food made itself apparent
from the start. Water was even more difficult to obtain, the supply
being nearly all cut off. Those who possessed supplies of food and
liquids of any kind in many cases took advantage of the opportunity to
advance their prices. Thus an Associated Press man was obliged to pay
twenty-five cents for a small glass of mineral water, the only kind of
drink that at first was to be had, while food went up at the same rate,
bakers frequently charging as much as a dollar for a loaf. As for the
expressmen and cabmen, their charges were often practically prohibitory,
as much as fifty dollars being asked for the conveyance of a passenger
to the ferry. Policemen were early stationed at some of the retail
shops, regulating the sale and the price of food, and permitting only
a small portion to be sold to each purchaser, so as to prevent a few
persons from exhausting the supply.

The fire, the swaying and tottering walls, the frequent dynamite
explosions, each followed by a crashing shower of stones and bricks,
rendered the streets very unsafe for pedestrians, and all day long
the flight of residents from the city went on, growing quickly to the
dimensions of a panic. The ferryboats were crowded with those who wished
to leave the city, and a constant stream of the homeless, carrying such
articles as they had rescued from their homes, was kept up all day
long, seeking the sand dunes, the parks and every place uninvaded by
the flames. Before night Golden Gate Park and the unbuilt districts
adjoining on the ocean side presented the appearance of a tented city,
shelter of many kinds being improvised from bedding and blankets, and
the people settling into such sparse comfort as these inadequate means
provided.

A strange feature of the disaster was a rush to the banks by people who
wished to get their money and flee from the seemingly doomed city. The
fire front was yet distant from these institutions, which were destined
to fall a prey to the flames, and all that morning lines of dishevelled
and half-frantic men stood before the banks on Montgomery and Sansome
Streets, braving in their thirst for money the smoke and falling embers
and beating in wild anxiety upon the doors. Their effort was vain; the
doors remained closed; finally the police drove these people away, and
the banks went on with the work of saving their valuables. As for the
people who wildly fled toward the ferries, in spite of the fact that
ten blocks of fire, as the day went on, stopped all egress in that
direction, it became necessary for them to be driven back by the police
and the troops, and they were finally forced to seek safety in the
sands. And thus, with incident manifold, went on that fatal Wednesday,
the first day of the dread disaster.


OFFICIAL RECORD OF THE EARTHQUAKE.


It is important here to give the official record of the earthquake
shocks, as given by the scientists. Professor George Davidson, of the
University of California, says of them:

"The earthquake came from north to south, and the only description I am
able to give of its effect is that it seemed like a terrier shaking a
rat. I was in bed, but was awakened by the first shock. I began to count
the seconds as I went towards the table where my watch was, being able
through much practice closely to approximate the time in that manner.
The shock came at 5.12 o'clock. The first sixty seconds were the most
severe. From that time on it decreased gradually for about thirty
seconds. There was then the slightest perceptible lull. Then the shock
continued for sixty seconds longer, being slighter in degree in this
minute than in any part of the preceding minute and a half. There were
two slight shocks afterwards which I did not time. At 8.14 o'clock
I recorded a shock of five seconds' duration, and one at 4.15 of two
seconds. There were slight shocks which I did not record at 5.17 and at
5.27. At 6.50 P. M. there was a sharp shock of several seconds."

Professor A. O. Louschner, of the students' observatory of the
University of California, thus records his observations:

"The principal part of the earthquake came in two sections, the first
series of vibrations lasting about forty seconds. The vibrations
diminished gradually during the following ten seconds, and then occurred
with renewed vigor for about twenty-five seconds more. But even at
noon the disturbance had not subsided, as slight shocks are recorded
at frequent intervals on the seismograph. The motion was from
south-southeast to north-northwest.

"The remarkable feature of this earthquake, aside from its intensity,
was its rotary motion. As seen from the print, the sum total of all
displacements represents a very regular ellipse, and some of the
lines representing the earth's motion can be traced along the whole
circumference. The result of observation indicates that our heaviest
shocks are in the direction south-southeast to north-northwest. In that
respect the records of the three heaviest earthquakes agree entirely.
But they have several other features in common. One of these is
that while the displacements are very large the vibration period is
comparatively slow, amounting to about one second in the last two big
earthquakes."

If we seek to discover the actual damage done by the earthquake, the
fact stands out that the fire followed so close upon it that the traces
of its ravages were in many cases obliterated. So many buildings in the
territory of the severest shock fell a prey to the flames or to dynamite
that the actual work of the earth forces was made difficult and in
many places impossible to discover. This fact is likely to lead to
considerable dispute and delay when the question of insurance adjustment
comes up, many of the insurance companies confining their risk to fire
damage and claiming exemption from liability in the case of damage due
to earthquake.

Among the chief victims of the earth-shake was the costly and showy City
Hall, with its picturesque dome standing loftily above the structure.
This dome was left still erect, but only as a skeleton might stand, with
its flesh gone and its bare ribs exposed to the searching air. Its roof,
its smaller towers came tumbling down in frightful disarray, and the
once proud edifice is to-day a miserable wreck, fire having aided
earthquake in its ruin. The new Post Office, a handsome government
building, also suffered severely from the shock, its walls being badly
cracked and injury done by earthquake and fire that it is estimated will
need half a million dollars to repair.


FREAKS OF THE EARTHQUAKE.


One observer states that the earthquake appeared to be very irregular in
its course. He tells us that "there are gas reservoirs with frames all
twisted and big factories thrown to the ground, while a few yards away
are miserable shanties with not a board out of place. Wooden, steel and
brick structures hardly felt the earthquake in some parts of the city,
while in other places all were wrecked.

"Skirting the shore northwest from the big ferry building--which was
so seriously injured that it will have to be rebuilt--the first thing
observed was the extraordinary irregularity of the earthquake's course.
Pier No. 5, for instance, is nothing but a mass of ruins, while Pier No.
3, on one side of it and Pier No. 7, on the other side, similar in size
and construction, are undamaged. Farther on, the Kosmos Line pier is a
complete wreck."

The big forts at the entrance to the Golden Gate also suffered seriously
from the great shake-up, and the emplacements of the big guns were
cracked and damaged. The same is the case with the fortifications
back of Old Fort Point, the great guns in these being for the present
rendered useless. It will take much time and labor to restore their
delicate adjustment upon their carriages.

The buildings that collapsed in the city were all flimsy wooden
buildings and old brick structures, the steel frame buildings, even
the score or more in course of construction, escaping injury from the
earthquake shock. Of the former, one of the most complete wrecks was
the Valencia Hotel, a four-story wooden building, which collapsed into a
heap of ruins, pinning many persons under its splintered timbers.


SKYSCRAPERS EARTHQUAKE PROOF.


In fact, as the reports of damage wrought by the earthquake came in,
the conviction grew that one of the safest places during the earthquake
shock was on one of the upper floors of the skyscraper office buildings
or hotels. As a matter of fact, not a single person, so far as can be
learned, lost his or her life or was seriously injured in any of the
tall, steel frame structures in the city, although they rocked during
the quake like a ship in a gale.

The loss of life was caused in almost every case by the collapse of
frame structures, which the native San Franciscan believed was the
safest of all in an earthquake, or by the shaking down of portions of
brick or stone buildings which did not possess an iron framework. The
manner in which the tall steel structures withstood the shock is a
complete vindication of the strongest claims yet made for them, and it
is made doubly interesting from the fact that this is the first occasion
on which the effect of an earthquake of any proportions on a tall steel
structure could be studied.

The St. Francis Hotel, a sixteen-story structure, can be repaired at an
expenditure of about $400,000, its damage being almost wholly by fire.
The steel shell and the floors are intact. Although the building rocked
like a ship in a gale while the quake lasted, its foundations are
undamaged. Other steel buildings which are so little damaged as to admit
of repairs more or less extensive are the James Flood, the Union Trust,
the CALL building, the Mutual Savings Bank, the Crocker-Woolworth
building and the Postal building. All of these are modern buildings of
steel construction, from sixteen to twenty stories.

A peculiar feature of the effect of the earthquake on structures of this
kind is reported in the case of the Fairmount Hotel, a fourteen-story
structure. The first two stories of the Fairmount are found to be so
seriously damaged that they will have to be rebuilt, while the other
twelve stories are uninjured.

Various explanations are being made of the surprising resistance shown
by the skyscrapers. The great strength and binding power of the steel
frame, combined with a deep-seated foundation and great lightness as
compared with buildings of stone, are the main reasons given. The iron,
it is said, unlike stone, responded to the vibratory force and passed it
along to be expended in other directions, while brick or stone offered
a solid and impenetrable front, with the result that the seismic force
tended to expend itself by shaking the building to pieces.

Whether there is any scientific basis for the latter theory or not, it
seems reasonable enough, in view of the descriptions given us of the
manner in which the steel buildings received the shock. All things
considered, the modern steel building has afforded in the San Francisco
earthquake the most convincing evidence of its strength.

From Golden Gate Park came news of the total destruction of the large
building covering a portion of the children's playground. The walls
were shattered beyond repair, the roof fell in, and the destruction was
complete. The pillars of the new stone gates at the park entrance were
twisted and torn from their foundations, some of them, weighing nearly
four tons, being shifted as though they were made of cork. It is a
little singular that the monuments and statues in the city escaped
without damage except in the case of the imposing Dewey Monument, in
Union Square Park, which suffered what appears to be a minor injury.

In this connection an incident of extraordinary character is narrated.
Among the statues on the buildings of the Leland Stanford, Jr.,
University, all of which were overthrown, was a marble statue of Carrara
in a niche on the building devoted to zoology and physiology. This in
falling broke through a hard cement pavement and buried itself in the
ground below, from which it was dug. The singular fact is that when
recovered it proved to be without a crack or scratch. This university
seemed to be a central point in the disturbance, the destruction of
its buildings being almost total, though they had been built with the
especial design of resisting earthquake shocks.

Such was the general character of the earthquake at San Francisco and in
its vicinity. It may be said farther that all, or very nearly all, the
deaths and injuries were due to it directly or indirectly, even those
who perished by fire owing their deaths to the fact of their being
pinned in buildings ruined by the earthquake shock, while others were
killed by falling walls weakened by the same cause.

On the night of April 23d the earth tremor returned with a slight shock,
only sufficient to cause a temporary alarm. On the afternoon of the 25th
came another and severer one, strong enough to shake down some tottering
walls and add another to the list of victims. This was a woman named
Annie Whitaker, who was at work in the kitchen of her home at the time.
The chimney, which had been weakened by the great shock, now fell,
crashing through the roof and fracturing her skull. Thus the earth
powers claimed a final human sacrifice before their dread visitation
ended.



CHAPTER II.

The Demon of Fire Invades the Stricken City.


The terrors of the earthquake are momentary. One fierce, levelling shock
and usually all is over. The torment within the earth has passed on and
the awakened forces of the earth's crust sink into rest again, after
having shaken the surface for many leagues. Rarely does the dread agent
of ruin leave behind it such a terrible follower to complete its work
as was the case in the doomed city of San Francisco. All seemed to lead
towards such a carnival of ruin as the earth has rarely seen. The demon
of fire followed close upon the heels of the unseen fiend of the earth's
hidden caverns, and ran red-handed through the metropolis of the West,
kindling a thousand unhurt buildings, while the horror-stricken people
stood aghast in terror, as helpless to combat this new enemy as they
were to check the ravages of the earthquake itself.

Why not quench the fire at its start with water? Alas! there was no
water, and this expedient was a hopeless one. The iron mains which
carried the precious fluid under the city streets were broken or injured
so that no quenching streams were to be had. In some cases the engine
houses had been so damaged that the fire-fighting apparatus could not be
taken out, though even if it had it would have been useless. A sweeping
conflagration and not an ounce of water to throw upon it! The situation
of the people was a maddening one. They were forced helplessly and
hopelessly to gaze upon the destruction of their all, and it is no
marvel if many of them grew frantic and lost their reason at the sight.
Thousands gathered and looked on in blank and pitiful misery, their
strong hands, their iron wills of no avail, while the red-lipped fire
devoured the hopes of their lives.

In a dozen, a hundred, places the flames shot up redly. Huge, strong
buildings which the earthquake had spared fell an unresisting prey
to the flames. The great, iron-bound, towering Spreckles building,
a steeple-like structure, of eighteen stories in height, the tallest
skyscraper in the city, had resisted the earthquake and remained proudly
erect. But now the flames gathered round and assailed it. From both
sides came their attack. A broad district near by, containing many large
hotels and lodging houses, was being fiercely burnt out, and soon the
windows of the lofty building cracked and splintered, the flames shot
triumphantly within, and almost in an instant the vast interior was a
seething furnace, the wild flames rushing and leaping within until only
the blackened walls remained.


THE RESISTLESS MARCH OF THE FLAMES.


This was the region of the newspaper offices, and they quickly
succumbed. The Examiner, standing across Third Street from Spreckles,
collapsed from the earthquake shock. A flimsy edifice, it had long been
looked upon as dangerous. Another building in the rear of this alone
resisted both flames and smoke. Across Market Street from the Examiner
stood the Chronicle building, a dozen stories high. Firmly built, it
had borne the earthquake assault unharmed, but the flames were an enemy
against which it had no defense, and it was quickly added to the victims
of the fire-fiend.

Farther down Market Street, the chief business thoroughfare of the city,
stood that great caravansary, the Palace Hotel, which for thirty years
had been a favorite hostelry, housing the bulk of the visitors to the
Californian metropolis. Its time had come. Doom hovered over it. Its
guests had fled in good season, as they saw the irresistible approach of
the conquering flames. Soon it was ablaze; quickly from every window of
its broad front the tongues of flame curled hotly in the air; it became
a thrice-heated furnace, like so many of the neighboring structures,
adding its quota to the vast cloud of smoke that hung over the burning
city, and rapidly sinking in red ruin to the earth.