Author / loma prieta

by loma prieta

Green Apple Books

David Lawrence

I was at Green Apple Books on Clement. When the quake hit, I was upstairs browsing the stacks. The books *flew* off the shelves in every direction and I thought “Oh fuck, this is IT”. I bolted downstairs and ran out of the store.

green apple books earthquake

Drove back home (I lived in the Haight at the time) and then got on my bike and rode around the city. Power was out and it seemed like the best thing to do. The next day, riding my bike on the closed, empty Embarcadero freeway was one of the best rides and views of the city I’ve ever had.

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St. Mary’s College

Rita Nazareno

I was a freshman at St. Mary’s in Moraga. I just had finished with classes that afternoon, excited for the World Series. My friend Chinggay and I got to my house to start preparing for our neighbors and friends who were to come over. I just had turned the TV on when the rumble started. Chinggay and I ran to each other and ducked under the kitchen counter. I clearly remember Chinggay holding my hands, her eyes closed, blurting ‘Hail Mary full of grace…’ as the house rocked, the television buzzing, transmitting static.

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UC Santa Cruz

Don Gates

The earthquake was on my 20th birthday, and I was attending UC Santa Cruz at the time, a few miles from the epicenter. We were in one of the biggest classrooms on campus, watching “2001: A Space Odyssey,” when it struck. Ran outside to see massive redwoods swaying like palm trees. Later that night, a few hundred people sang me happy birthday, all of us having been steered onto a local field and away from the rattled apartments where we lived. Alas, there was not enough cake to go around.

don's birthday cake

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Santa Clara University

Theo Gonzalves

That was the Fall of my senior year at Santa Clara University. I was the director of a student-run center on campus, which had its offices in the basement of a dorm. The ‘quake’s epicenter was less than 30 miles south of us. I was probably working at the front desk around that that time. It was normally dark down there; the only lighting came from pendants hanging at the end of 3 foot cables, all of which swung violently from the ceiling. When the ‘quake shook for more than a few seconds, a handful of us down there knew something was up. There’s only one entrance to the center. As soon as the shaking stopped, I ran up the stairs. Four, two-story dorms surrounded a swimming pool where I saw a small wave about five feet high gush onto the walkway. You could tell which students weren’t from California: they were the ones screaming the loudest.

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Noe Valley Video

Stan Heller

I was in a video store when the quake started. I stepped outside to look around and I saw the power lines dancing like rubber bands, I saw the plate glass windows expanding in their frames. I saw the sign over my head twist and make a very uncomfortable sound. And I thought to myself- “Stan, you are the dumbest man in the Universe”. And I turned around and went back inside.

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Geodesic Dome

Nicolas Gold

I was trying to take a nap upstairs in my parents’ house. It was a geodesic dome, and my twin bed was tucked into a corner where an internal wall met the downward arc of the roof. Just as I was drifting off, the bed began to rock and then shake. My first thought was that a mild earthquake was a nice way to be rocked to sleep. But the shaking continued to intensify. I quickly got up and went out onto the landing.

I walked downstairs as my parents appeared at opposite ends of the living room that spanned the dome. Hundreds of antiques shook and swayed. Outside, my mother’s car pitched up and down as waves rippled through the ground beneath it. The two young redwood trees behind the car shook violently. Of course it seemed to take several minutes before it had passed.

When it subsided and was gone, I assumed that it was no worse anywhere else and was prepared to go on with my day. My parents insisted that it must have made the news and turned on the radio. Sure enough, we soon heard that the Bay Bridge had collapsed (leading everyone to picture the complete destruction of the suspension bridge) and damage was widespread. Television news quickly showed the fallen deck on the cantilever section of the bridge, and for years people would wonder at the driver who headed toward the enormous gap at full tilt. The next drama was the damage and fire in the Marina district. The longest-running drama was the collapse of the Nimitz structure and the work to rescue those that were trapped, some for days.

The morning after the collapse, I remember having breakfast at Cafe Barbara in Lafayette and listening to someone at the next table describe having his flight diverted to Las Vegas and driving a rental car through the night to get back to the Bay Area. His daughter as working in San Francisco and was essentially trapped there overnight. That’s all I really recall. It must have been my first semester at Diablo Valley College, so I was probably too preoccupied with my Art History class with Ann Piper to pay much attention to anything else.

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Precita Eyes

Niki Magtoto

I was taking an art class at Precita Eyes and Mom and I had just walked to the car down the block to pack up art I had just made, so I was skipping down the street like any 6 year old might. Monica, my little sister, was KO’d in a ratty old armchair at my grandparents’ antique store (read: junk shop), Flying Machine Antiques on Church Street.  (At 2, Mony was a big snorer then- don’t tell her I said that. Though she might volunteer that info. Either way, she could sleep through anything, that’s how hard of a sleeper she was.)

As we headed back to the studio, Mom noticed the buildings wobbling a little bit, but it didn’t dawn on her what was happening because she was more concerned with everyone running out of Precita Eyes into the park so she figured some crack head (because it was a super cracky park then) or crazy homeless person had come in and created a scene because neither she nor really felt the ground moving. We walked over to the open field and sat there a while with all the other Precita kids and artists and random park people.

Though Mony was asleep, and the chair she was using as a bed was in the very center of the store (right under a support beam, probably the safest spot in the store), she apparently woke up and said to no one in particular, “Whoa, that was a big one!”

The rest of the afternoon and into the evening I remember being fascinated by the idea that if a power line was down we were supposed to jump on a car, and worrying about how Dad would get home from the UPS building.  For the next 6 years I knew I’d be judged by the kind of granola bar in my earthquake kit. Them green Natures Valley bars were highly coveted even tho they are dry as shit.

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Live Oak School

Nicole Hsiang

On October 17th, 1989, I was just a month shy of turning 6 years old and in the first grade at Live Oak School in the Castro.

This was just another day of after school day care for me where we normally make arts and crafts and play in the school yard. At the moment of the earthquake, the activity of the day happened to be making pomander balls,  which is an orange with cloves stuck in all around it.  I probably didn’t understand entirely the purpose of making a pomander ball but I do remember being very focused on piercing the orange skin with each clove. This is when the room started shaking. All of us kids went under the table and I held on to one of the table’s legs.

making pomander 1989

Then I remember asking my teacher what happened and he said, “There was an earthquake. We have go downstairs now.” I held his hand and we joined a sea of kids rapidly moving down the stairs. At this point I registered that something out of ordinary had happened, something of emergency-level importance.  This is when I got scared and started crying, from the sight of all the people rushing out the building.

Pretty quickly after we exited the building and walked next door to Eureka Valley Playground, I saw my dad walking towards me on the grass to pick me up. We got into his car and drove home.

When we got home, the sun was starting to set. The house seemed normal at first. In the bathroom however, items had fallen from a shelf above the toilet, and had cracked the toilet seat. There was soapy liquid all over the floor. I exclaimed to my dad that the toilet seat had broken and he came over to see. There was no electricity and soon the house got dark.  We used flashlights and lit candles.

At home, I remember that my dad and I were waiting for my mom to call for what seemed like a long time. We didn’t know where she was.  Eventually she called. I don’t remember what happened next, but she got home and we were finally all together.

The last thing I remember, is the three of us getting into my parents bed together, and I was sleeping in the middle between them. There was a candle lit on top of the dresser for a little while, and when I woke up the next morning the candle had been blown out.

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Picking Up Nicole

Bob Hsiang

As per usual, I drove over to the Castro district to pick up Nicole, who was in 2nd grade that day, nothing out of the ordinary. First I went over to the post office on 18th Street to purchase some stamps or to mail out some letters. While in line, the quake hit – it was quite a jolt as I witnessed power lines on the street swaying, the building itself was made unstable and it rocked for a long time.

After the temblor stopped, I left the post office and quickly walked over to Live Oak School to see if the structure and the students were okay. Apparently the staff had already ushered out the kids to the yard outside. I finally found Nicole and took her back home while the car radio reported the earthquake from field reporters. The first thing I heard was the Cypress Freeway in Oakland had collapsed! Then another report came in about the Bay Bridge also failing. Soon enough, other reports described the damage and fires in the Marina district and other parts of the city.

While driving home I looked for damage along Church Street. I saw a chimney that had fallen, I believe. Also the stop lights were out, obviously power was out in many areas. Traffic was very slow as drivers attempted to cross intersections by hand signals. When we finally got home I remember hoping the damage to our house wasn’t too severe. I breathed a sigh of relief as it was still standing at least. Entering the house, I quickly looked around and noticed a few things had fallen but nothing serious. A loudspeaker fell off its stand, something broke in the bathroom, I think it was the toilet seat. In general the house survived pretty intact.

I was then concerned about Nancy since it was hard to reach her, no cellphones then. After some time, she called from Walter Landor’s house, and I was relieved and somewhat jealous that she was actually enjoying her stay there with food and drink. The power was still out and it was getting dark outside. The Bay Bridge World Series was halted, of course as I remember my god brother and his son, (Denis and Derek) were at the game. Reports continued to describe how badly affected the Bay Bridge and Cypress Freeway were as I felt terrible that people must have perished. Luckily only a section of the Bridge failed, not the entire structure!  We arranged for me to drive over and pick Nancy up. Again traffic was tricky, still no lights in operation. Finally got her back home and we made do until power was restored. It wasn’t until then that we saw the CNN and local tv coverage of the devastation, it was pretty surreal watching those news video reports of the Freeway collapsed, the Bridge failure and the Marina fires and sunken buildings. We had just experienced a 6.8 quake – It then dawned on us how lucky we were not be in those particular areas. I later found out a red brick building a block away from my studio on Bluxome Street also partially collapsed where a pedestrian was killed by falling bricks. My own studio was spared, however the brick building was tagged unsafe. You could put your fist through one of the cracks of the walls. Consequently I moved from that studio to another space in the Mission.

Relatives from the East Coast were relieved that we were not harmed as they were watching the media report visually arresting images of the Bridge and Cypress Freeway. The media kept on repeating the same footage over and over, just like on 9/11 when the tragedies was compounded by this non-stop coverage.

After a few days things got back to normal as I began understanding more about the unsafe ground and the soil composition that much of San Francisco is built upon, especially South of Market, the Marina, some of the Mission as well. A process called liquefaction occurs during an earthquake, making the sand-like ground underneath many of the buildings unstable and allows the foundations to sink or become unhinged. This is particularly true in the expensive Marina area. Being in a working class neighborhood like Excelsior has some benefits, I suppose.

 

by loma prieta

California Flower Market

Nancy Hom

Over 60,000 people were watching the World Series at Candlestick Park. I was a graphic artist working in my studio on 5th Street, between Bryant and Brannan in San Francisco. My client, Lynn Landor, was discussing with me the layout of her book. She’s the daughter of Walter Landor, the brand design legend and founder of Landor Associates. Her boyfriend accompanied her that day.

The California Flower Market had several rooms upstairs. The walls were not sturdy and always damp with moisture from the Flower Market below. I shared a silkscreen/graphic design studio with artists Hideo Yoshida and William Roarty. Other tenants included graphic designer Tony Yuen, writer Chiori Santiago, filmmaker Steven Okazaki, and graphic designer Zand Gee, plus Kearny Street Workshop.

Tony, Presco (KSW poet), and Steven were still there when the earthquake started. I was with my clients in the common area, which had a big table. We all dashed underneath it. After a seemingly long time, the shaking stopped and we surveyed the damage. My studio looked like someone ransacked it. All three tall bookcases had fallen, one missing my new Xerox machine by inches. Tony went downstairs; then returned to tell us that the concrete in front of our door had risen over two feet and the storefront window was broken. We felt unsafe and got out of the building.

Outside, people wandered aimlessly in shock. Around the corner, the brick façade of Bob’s studio building on Bluxome Street had completely fallen. Luckily, he wasn’t there. He was picking up Nicole, who had after-school activities. My studio mates went their separate ways. I was anxious to get home but I had not driven that day. Lynn and her boyfriend offered to walk me to Mission Street to catch the bus. We walked along 5th Street, sidestepping the broken glass and raised, uneven pavement. Some people were clustered around cars tuned to the radio. We learned that a section of the Bay Bridge had fallen, and that the 880 had collapsed and there were cars trapped underneath.

On Mission Street, the MUNI buses were so full they were no longer stopping. It was rush hour. Suddenly, Lynn’s boyfriend jumped in front of an oncoming bus and spread his arms out. The bus screeched to a halt. He told the driver he wouldn’t move unless I was allowed on the bus. I hesitated, not wanting to be squished and ride the long way from downtown to the Excelsior District alone. After a few tense moments, Lynn said I could go with them to her father’s house in Pacific Heights.

We somehow made it there. I think Lynn had a car. Her parents’ house was on a hill. No one was home, but she had a key. The place was unscathed. From the deck we could see the Marina and the Bay. It would have been a beautiful sunset view, but we witnessed the damage that the Marina suffered, as it too was on landfill. I saw several fires. Some people were cooking on grills on their decks. There was no gas or electricity.

It was hard to get through on the phone; everyone was calling loved ones and some phone lines were out. I finally managed to reach Bob. He was buying stamps near Live Oak School when the quake happened. He was able to get to Nicole and drive back home safely. I asked him to come for me. By then it was dark.

Lynn found flashlights and candles. She brought some bottles of fine red wine from the basement. We drank and chatted in the candlelight until Bob arrived. I was pretty relaxed by that time. It took him a couple of hours to drive from the Excelsior to Pacific Heights, inching through unlit streets with Nicole in the back seat. We then had to make our way back home.

Thankfully, our old house sustained very little damage. A porcelain shelf over our sink broke. And there were cracks on our concrete stairs. But the trauma of those tremors and aftershocks stayed with us for a long time.