Finding Faults in California
Finding Faults in California
April 18, 1906. “At 5:15 this morning . . . I thought I heard the alarm go off. I reached over to stop it and to my great surprise it was rolling from one side of the stand to the other, & then to the floor. I looked out the window . . . in time to see a few chemnies [sic] sway around and fall. The picture & bed & dresser & chairs were dancing around the room. . . . A house caught fire about 5 blocks off. . . .Then to make matters worse, there was no water when the fire dept. arrived.” April 18. “Within moments, during this period of the city’s greatest emergency, the unusual silence of the [fire] alarm bell told its own story. The system was destroyed as was the function of the city’s 30,000 telephones.” April 18, 7:00 A.M. “The Federal Troops, the members of the Regular Police Force and all Special Police Officers have been authorized [by San Francisco Mayor E. E. Schmitz] to KILL any and all persons found engaged in Looting or in the Commission of Any Other Crime.” April 19. “I have seen the most awful sights to day that I ever saw in my life! . . . It is impossible for you to conceive or in any small degree realize the terrible disaster that has befallen San Francisco. I can’t & I’ve seen it. . . .When I left this afternoon fully 2/3 of San Francisco was in ruins. The streets have great cracks in them & the Car tracks are twisted by the earthquake & heat. The flames are spreading in all directions even against a fresh north wind.” May 5, 1906.“Day and night the dead calm continued, and yet, near to the flames, the wind was often a gale, so mighty was the suck.” May 13. “We have not got our thoughts collected since the big quake—not quite—it has been 24 days since the big awful earthquake and we have had more then 24 earthquakes in them 24 days, small ones.
Keywords: bends, continental drift, elastic rebound, fires, geomorphology, kinks, looting, masonry, paleoseismology
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