A Terrifying Nightmare
On the night of April 17, 1906, the city of San Francisco held one of the most exciting events of its cultural season: the great Italian opera singer Enrico Caruso was in town to perform Carmen with the Metropolitan Opera Company. After a dazzling performance that was attended by many of the city's wealthiest and most prominent citizens, Caruso returned to his hotel room and went to sleep.
Early the next morning, his hotel room began rocking like a boat at sea. When Caruso looked out the window, he was met with a terrifying sight. Buildings were toppling and roads were cracking wide open. The city streets were filled with people running and screaming in terror.
The famous opera singer was visiting San Francisco during the great earthquake of 1906. One of the worst natural disasters in American history, the earthquake killed thousands of people and injured many others. More than half of the city's residents became homeless, and over 28,000 buildings were destroyed. As Enrico Caruso later wrote, the morning of April 18, 1906, was a "dreadful nightmare."
Crisis in the City on the Bay
In 1906 San Francisco was one of America's largest and wealthiest cities, with a rapidly rising immigrant population. Located on the San Francisco Bay, it provided an important gateway to the Pacific Ocean, attracting tourists, artists, and businesspeople. The city on the bay had experienced earthquakes in the past, but nothing like the one that began at 5:12 a.m. on April 18.
The powerful earthquake lasted for nearly a minute. The tremors were so violent that entire buildings collapsed, trains fell on their sides, and boats in the bay nearly jumped out of the water. People on the street were crushed by falling stones and debris, while others were buried in buildings. After the earthquake stopped, the fires began. According to an account from a mining journal, "Within half an hour . . . a hump of dark smoke appeared over the city, growing . . . until it rose . . . like the clouds made from a volcano." Caused by exploding gas lines and overturned stoves and lamps, the flames swept through the city, burning out of control for days.
Unfortunately the earthquake had also ruptured the city's water lines. It was nearly impossible to obtain water for putting out the raging fires. Organizing fire-fighting efforts was made more difficult by the fact that the chief of the fire department had been critically injured during the earthquake. City workers finally began using dynamite to create spaces between buildings in an attempt to keep fires contained. But most of these men were not used to handling powerful explosives. This led to more accidents and may have even spread the fire further.
Five hundred blocks of buildings and houses were destroyed by the earthquake and fires. Hundreds of thousands of city residents, now homeless, flocked to camps in areas such as Oakland, Berkeley, and Golden Gate Park. The housing crisis was so severe that many of these camps remained open for up to two years. Other citizens stayed behind in the city. Many went to Lotta's Fountain each day. The fountain was a city landmark that had become a meeting point for people desperately searching for missing loved ones.
On the Fault Line
After the earthquake many people wondered what had caused such a violent event. It was due to San Francisco's location near the San Andreas fault, a massive rupture in the earth's crust that stretches some eight hundred miles from southern to northern California. Faults occur along the places where tectonic plates—rigid sections of the earth’s crust—meet. As they move, there is a constant strain on the edges of the plates. Usually the plates' movements are slow and cannot be perceived except by sensitive instruments. But during an earthquake, the movements are sudden and powerful, as on the morning of the 1906 earthquake.
Understanding the Quake
Seismology, the science that deals with earthquakes, was in its early stages in 1906. It would be another thirty years before the Richter scale was developed, which is used today to measure the strength of an earthquake. Some experts have estimated that the 1906 earthquake would have measured around 8.0, which is very high on the Richter scale. The tremors were so great that they were felt all over southern California as well as in two bordering states. Although it was later referred to as the San Francisco Earthquake, other cities and towns, such as San Jose and Santa Rosa, were affected too.
In the days following the earthquake, a committee of scientists began meeting to study its causes. This resulted in the Lawson report of 1908, which is still considered the most important study of an earthquake ever written. More earthquake studies followed. The most significant theory was developed by Harry Fielding Reid, who unveiled his elastic rebound theory in 1910. His theory showed how energy builds up and is then released during an earthquake. Using this theory, scientists were able to better predict when an earthquake would happen. Reid also proved that earthquakes are the result of faulting. Today this still serves as the model for understanding earthquake dynamics.
Rising from the Ashes
After the earthquake money and food for relief efforts poured into San Francisco in very large numbers. Within a few days, millions of dollars had been raised by national and local organizations. The U.S. government also contributed money to set up food kitchens to feed the massive homeless population. Builders, plumbers, and other workers traveled to the city to help with the rebuilding effort.
Over the next nine years, the destroyed city slowly rose again. The original street grid was restored, new office buildings and homes were erected, and builders added a new civic center.
People also gained a much better understanding of how buildings could be constructed to withstand earthquakes. City planners and architects observed which buildings had withstood the earthquake. Soon new regulations were passed to make buildings better able to tolerate earthquakes. When another serious earthquake occurred in San Francisco on October 17, 1989, the damage was much less severe. The 1906 earthquake took place the morning after a great opera performance. In 1910, after years of recovery and rebuilding, another famed singer came to the city. This time, on a makeshift outdoor stage, the Italian soprano Luisa Tetrazzini sang for San Francisco. For many of the city's residents, her performance on Christmas Eve was a joyous occasion that marked the end of the disaster.
San Francisco has not forgotten the terrible tragedy that struck on April 18, 1906. Every year on this date, there is a memorial at Lotta's Fountain at 5:12 a.m., the exact time when the first tremor was felt. At the fountain people gather to honor the dead and remember the horror and destruction of the 1906 earthquake. They also pay tribute to the resilience of the city on the bay and its people.