"Where were YOU when...?"

Remembering San Francisco, 1956 & 1989

Updated 5/30/98!

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Losses

Near Misses

Joan: "I feel a need to ask any of you were you in the San Francisco Earthquake 7.1 in 89? Talk about Mother Nature! It is something I will never forget and felt it really necessary to share do's and dont's with my Oregon Family when I finally got back home to Oregon in 1990."

"Please be prepared; you can't imagine what one is like until you have been in one. The fire dept. I worked in was a six story building and the building swayed 5' one way and then 5' the other way. Glass all around was breaking. Thank goodness I was at home sick, but at home it was so bad. Glass breaking, things falling over, the rolling of the ground under you. You just start to pray that the ground will stop shaking. Stay away from windows, get under a table or stand in a well built door jamb. Don't run outside. If you are at the ocean or even hear of tsunami get the heck away. If you even see it you are a goner. Most of the incident reports that I took care of at the fire dept. were injuries from falling bricks, chimneys falling, broken glass etc. The hospitals had to go on emergency generators. The whole area was pitch black. People in cars said it felt like all their tires went flat. Stay in your car by the way. Turn off all electricity. Working for the fire dept if someone wants a list of things to do I would be happy to help get a list to you. I no longer work now but do have the information here at home. Please be prepared it could happen here in Oregon."

One thing I forgot to mention was the LONG term effect the earthquake had on me. Five weeks later I came down with shingles, a very bad case. The doctor said it was nerves. We had literally hundreds of aftershocks. Also when I moved back to Oregon I was in a restraurant and the floor moved when the waiter came across to take our order. I almost ran out of there when somone said,"This is the way the restraurant is built." This was a year later. I now am so tuned in to movement that I could feel the quake in Kalmath Falls from Corvallis. It is something I will never forget. (elefon@pioneer.net)

Marge: "My brother and his wife were at the World Series Game at Candlestick Park when the SF quake struck--got a real ride. Thank God and Mayor Diane Feinstein, the upper tiers of the Park had been recently reinforced. What was shocking to me was hearing of the real damage done--the Freeways closed and permanently removed, the old (and elegant) Post Office condemned (a quite solid structure), and other damage. Not to mention loss of life. Having a private stash of food, water, flashlight and blankets for 3 days in an accessible spot should your residence be uninhabitable is a minimum necessity."

"My brother and I together remember vividly the 1956 quake in S.F. (a 5.5). I was standing in my 5th grade schoolroom while the room swayed and the clock fell out of the wall and the teacher dived under the desk--but without telling us to! Rumors flew all day as some parents came to take children home. The local high school was said to have caved in (it didn't). Kids worked themselves into hysteria. There was a birthday party planned, to which many of our classmates had been invited. Needless to say, most did not go, although I did. Pretty glum group for 10-11 years-olds. We were all nervous and scared, although I don't recall a lot a aftershocks. My Mom, 4 year old brother and I all slept together that night; at midnight there was a 4.5 aftershock. I had nightmares for years about quakes, grabbing my brother and running for the hill behind our house because the quakes had dropped the city and the ocean was pouring in, or the Cathedral stones were falling all around and mudflows were overwhelming us. The scariest one of all was the most peaceful. The fog rolling in as usual, except I slowly realize it isn't fog, it's seawater, just quietly flowing into the city between the hills, and the houses are suddenly outlined in red--like looking through a bad refractor telescope--and the earth under my feet is muddy. But it's quiet; so quiet...and then noise. I turn and realize I am being stampeded by a panicked crowd... Boy, I woke up in a cold sweat from that one and moved to Seattle within the month! (1969) Was that out of the frying pan, into the fire?"

"There can be a true residual effect. I attended a private college (SF, 1964); one of the freshmen was a girl from Anchorage, Alaska who had survived the 8.1 quake there. Poor kid, we were in the dining room the first day of classes and the old boiler kicked on under our feet. She went ballistic and had a screaming fit." Marge Jodoin (mjjodoin@webtv.net)

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