Author / loma prieta

by loma prieta

54 Felton

Gabe Wachob

On the evening of Oct 17, 1989, I was a 16 year old senior at Lick-Wilmerding High School. When the earthquake hit, I was on the 54 Felton on my way home after a late day at school (why I was going home at 5, I don’t remember). It was a normal day, except abnormally hot as we all know, except about 2 minutes after we crossed Mission (on Persia), while at a stop, someone started trying to tip the old bus over. Or so we thought. It was a strange experience – those old diesel buses were not exactly lightweight… When I looked up (during the shaking) I saw “standing waves” in the electricity lines above. I knew it was an earthquake.

The bus continued on the route – I don’t think we knew the magnitude of what had happened. It was clear, as we continued on, that it was a serious event, however. Driving through a part of town with 2 story stucco-d houses with garages on the first floor, we could see big cracks in the stucco around almost every garage.

54 Felton 1989

It was *really* hot when I got home, and my parents and my grandfather (visiting from Bakersfield) were at Candlestick for game 1 of the World Series – it was a strange day, earthquake or not.

No major damage (though I distinctly remember a shelf speaker had fallen neatly in a garbage can – of all the random memories I have). So here I was, an only child, experiencing the earthquake (and more importantly, the big aftershocks by myself) while my family was stuck at Candlestick. This was before cell phones – so I had no idea what was going on. You couldn’t even make an outbound call without waiting 30 seconds for a dial-tone. The power was out, people came out on the street (which, for my neighborhood, was extremely rare). But strangely I wasn’t scared. I was in a 6 hour adrenaline rush that night..

We were lucky – by the next morning, the power was on, no interruption in water or gas service, etc. I spent the next couple of days hanging out with friends surveying the damage (school had been cancelled for a few days). I remember going to the Marina and trying to get on the national news reports by walking back and forth behind the live reporters, because thats what teenagers would do, of course.

Everything was exciting – it was probably a great time in my life to experience this – as a teenager, with relatively few concerns, but old enough to realize the magnitude of what happened, and the appreciate that I had lived through something historic, and survived. To this day, I still feel an adrenaline rush every time a truck rolls by and shakes the street… and yet I still slack on the earthquake prep kit. DOH!

Postscript: As a side note, at the time of the quake, I was just getting my driver’s license, and had not gotten a chance to drive across the bay bridge. When the bay bridge was repaired and re-opened about a month after the quake, I ended up driving across the bay bridge for my very first time about 20 minutes after re-opening. I now always feel a special connection with that bridge… but glad they finally replaced it 😉

by loma prieta

UC Berkeley Computer Center

Bob Callaway

I was sitting at the computer desk in my office, working at a Macintosh IIcx.  (Hard to believe now, but the processor speed was only 16 MHz!).  The office was on the second floor of Evans Hall at UC Berkeley, in those days the primary location for campus computer center staff.  Evans Hall is a 10-story concrete monolith.

Mac IIcx 1989

Just after 5:00 pm, the building suddenly jolted sideways.  It was a single, very sharp jolt.  I remained in my chair, hyper-alert for what might follow.  I turned toward my other desk and eyed the safe space below it.  But there was no further shaking. The power remained on.  I thought to myself, “That’s the strongest tremor I’ve ever felt.”  But I resumed work on the task at hand.

A few minutes later, having reached a good stopping point, I got up and went out into the corridor to chat with colleagues about the quake.  Quite a few people were on deck.  Some had heard alarming reports such as “the Bay Bridge fell down.”

Already a couple of colleagues had retrieved a TV set from a programmer’s lair and were setting it up in a corner office.  Soon we were watching the news.

As the scale of the disaster emerged, I knew I couldn’t to go home that night.  I arranged to stay with friends who lived in an Albany high-rise.  I also tried calling a neighbor in San Francisco but couldn’t get through because the phone system was overloaded.

I exchanged email with my niece on the East Coast, letting her know I was OK and asking her to inform my sister and others in the family.  My niece, a techie from an early age, was accustomed to sending Unix email on the Arpanet in the 1980s, as was I.

That night, like so many people, my friends and I sat transfixed in front of the TV set as shocking footage was shown over and over.

The next day I went to work.  The news seemed even worse, with reports of many deaths.   I tried to contact various friends.  I tried again to reach my neighbor, but couldn’t.  I had no idea what had happened to my apartment.  That night I stayed with my friends in Albany again.

Two days after the quake, I drove home to San Francisco via the Richmond and Golden Gate bridges.  As I passed near the Marina, my heart sped up as I remembered the images of collapsed apartments there.  My anxiety was reinforced by a disaster I had experienced in a different apartment building about five years earlier — an arson fire that had made all the tenants homeless one winter morning.

Reaching my building on Pierce St, north of Alamo Square Park, I was hugely relieved to find that it had suffered only minor damage.  In my own apartment, there were small cracks in a couple of walls, and some things had fallen off shelves.  A couple of bookcases had shifted several inches, but hadn’t fallen.  The only lasting damage was a triangular dent in the oak floor where a ceramic teapot had dropped six feet.  The minimal effect was a testament to our location, on bedrock.

Soon I confirmed that none of my friends were harmed either.  It was a bit surreal, that feeling of escape.

The neighbor I’d been trying to reach, who had been at home when the quake hit, gave me her report.  In her usual emphatic manner (blonde Italian from New Jersey), she said the building had vibrated like crazy.  No doubt the effect was amplified by the hundreds of tchotchkes in her apartment.

by loma prieta

Mountain Lake Park

Mayu S.

I was a freshman in high school at George Washington High School. I had left my dad’s house on 14th and California St. to walk my dogs at Mountain Lake Park. I was walking towards park when it hit. I didn’t see any trees swaying or the road buckling. Kind of anti-climactic. I thought “no biggie” so I just kept walking towards the dog run when this lady comes running down the street yelling at me. I don’t remember her exact words but she was hysterical enough to convince me that I should head home pronto.

On the way home all the street lights on Park Presidio Blvd. were out. Uh oh, this might be worse than I thought. When I got home my dad was out on the street talking to our neighbors and handing out candles. When it hit he was tuning into the World Series and got knocked flat on his butt. I helped him pass out candles to our neighbors.

We lived right off of California street so there was always bus and traffic noise but not that night. No school the next day. I rode my Huffy out to the Marina to see the fires and collapsed buildings. Oh that thing about dogs being able to predict earthquakes? Total crap, my dogs didn’t predict it at all.

 

by loma prieta

Pussycat Theater

Rhonda Winter

In October of 1989 I lived behind a razor wire chain link fence in a minuscule and squalid studio apartment right next to the 24 freeway that was also just a block from the old, pink Pussycat movie house at 51st and Telegraph in Oakland. Random seedy men frequently stood around the back alley of the porno theater near my house, furiously masturbating. I had just broken up with alcoholic #1, and was horribly disillusioned with the overpriced art school experience at CCAC; was about to start studying photography at SFSU in January (where I would soon meet my most excellent friend Eliza).

Telegraph_Pussycat_1989

Had just finished my dreary shift working in a one-hour photo shop cubicle on Telegraph Avenue; had just gotten home, was exhausted, lying on my lumpy futon mattress staring at the peeling stucco paint on the dirty ceiling, and feeling utterly depressed.

When the ground started shaking I nonchalantly thought to myself, “Oh, it’s just another earthquake.” Having grown up in California my entire life, these natural events were somewhat common, and not such a big deal. But the shaking continued, and became much more intense; when I tried to get up to go outside, the ground felt like trying to walk on an unstable sea of buckling Jello.

Once outside in the night air, I looked across the rush hour congested tangle of freeways and saw in the distance a massive section of the Bay Bridge just limply hanging down toward the sea, like some kind of horribly flaccid and broken erector set.

by loma prieta

Marina Green

Karl Brecht

I was 4 years old during the 1989 quake. I remember watching the TV shut off suddenly, and while I shouted “Hey!”, the shaking started. I had never remembered the ground shaking before, I remember the fear I felt; I remember hearing the walls crack open and a siren wailing, and my mother screaming at me but I can’t remember what she said.

When the shaking stopped, my mom turned on the radio in our kitchen after she got us together. She found out that all residents of the Marina district were being evacuated to the Marina Green. I remember crying. My mom had an earthquake kit: she grabbed that along with my one-year-old sister and me, and pushed us out to the Marina Green.

I remember my neighborhood being torn up, and more sirens, lots more sirens. I remember waiting a long time, and my mother crying when my dad finally found us out there on the Green. I remember granola bars, and taking showers in trucks.

Eventually life became normal again, but you don’t forget; you can’t.

by loma prieta

Holly Avenue

Jennifer Romo

In 1989 I was not quite 12, and attending Parkside Junior High in San Bruno. On this particular day, my dad had picked me up after school and we were at my grandmother’s house on Holly Avenue, at the top of what felt like a big hill – especially when you were on your bike at the bottom.

When the earthquake hit, I was sitting on the couch watching TV. My dad was on the phone with my mom, and my grandmother and great grandmother were both in the house. Being a well-seasoned earthquake veteran, I was prepared to ride it out. My dad was shouting for me to get outside, and I almost certainly said “Take a chill pill, Dad – it’s just an earthquake.”

I sauntered out while he collected grandmothers, and I could not believe my eyes. My grandmother’s concrete patio was rolling like a wave – I had no idea concrete could move that way without cracking. That is easily the part that stands out to me the most – as it was the moment I realized this wasn’t like other quakes I had been through.

The phone lines had gone down, so my mom was freaking out that she couldn’t get a hold of us, while we watched the impact unfold on the news. I couldn’t believe that something I thought was “just another little earthquake” had caused so much death and destruction.

I still try to remember what the city looked like back when the Embarcadero was covered by an overpass, and super seedy at street level, and I just can’t quite do it.

by loma prieta

Highway 101

Jenifer Wofford

I wasn’t even in town when it happened, ironically enough. Perhaps that’s why I’m so interested in others’ stories.

I had been down in San Luis Obispo for a couple of days, visiting James, Dave and Eric at Cal Poly, and had left there to return north around 4 pm, driving solo–one of my favorite things to do. I remember the road feeling a little strange for a few seconds (tremors were in fact felt pretty far south), but 101’s got plenty of hills and curves, so I didn’t even think anything of it. It had been a weird, emotional stay in SLO, and I spent the drive alone trying to figure some things out: getting a little teary here and there in that adolescent-girl way before triumphantly deciding that everything was going to be OK, and that life was just amazing.

As I approached San Jose around 7 pm, I was surprised at how badly snarled traffic was at that hour. It was pretty dark at that point: I remember puzzling over the endless strings of red tail lights in haphazard patterns. I never listened to the radio in my ’85 VW Golf, so I didn’t even think to turn it on for news or traffic updates: I had way too many awesome cassette mix-tapes to listen to, after all.

As soon as I walked in the front door of my parents’ house in Walnut Creek, I was confronted with the enormity of what I’d just missed. My parents had been panicked since they had no idea where I was when the quake hit, and were relieved to find out that I was fine. I just remember feeling an intense sort of cognitive dissonance, realizing that my self-absorbed teenage crises, musings and revelations on the drive up had absolutely zero connection to the actual disaster that had transpired at the same exact time.

by loma prieta

Jam Aisle

Ann Marie Lawson

That day was really warm, still. The light was the perfect golden haze that happens in SF in fall. I lived in Oakland and worked in SF but I had that day off. I had driven into the city to buy myself a birthday present, a pair of cowboy boots from this place over on Valencia. After I went out to the Sunset to meet a friend who lived out there. We walked out to Ocean Beach to lay in the sun and read books.

I had a big debate with myself on whether to stay in the city and enjoy the weather or head back to the east bay and beat the traffic from the ballgame. I decided to be sensible and headed home. I lived about 5 minutes off of the Bay Bridge in Oakland and I got home at 4:50 PM.

I had had just enough time to get in the door and turn on MTV when the quake hit. I got in a door way and watched the room sway. I keep saying “That’s enough, that’s enough.” It kept going. The electricity went out and a few things fell over, but not much because of the cheap paint that the shelves were painted with acted like museum wax.

When it was over I panicked: got a battery operated radio, turned it on and stepped outside. I thought there would be people running round, panicked and freaking out, but nothing. everything looked normal. I thought I was have some sort of freak out, that I had imagined the quake.

There was nothing on the radio for several minutes. I tried the phone. No dial tone. It was an old rotary phone and I pushed the “hang up” button until I got a dial tone. I called my family on the peninsula. Everyone was shaken but ok. I worked the phone again and got my brother at his auto repair . Thank God none of the cars came off the lifts. I worked the phone again and got my other brother who basically lived at the epicenter all OK. That made me feel a bit better.

Finally the reports started to come in. About the bridge, the fires, the freeway collapse. I walked over to the grocery store where my boyfriend worked and it finally looked like something had happened. All the merchandise was on the ground. I helped them clean up the jam aisle which was a sticky mess.

by loma prieta

Away from the A’s

Anne Stone

I had moved to New York to start graduate school at NYU a couple of weeks earlier and was sitting in my brother and sister in law’s living room in Jamaica, Queens, watching the baseball game. We’re passionate A’s fans from back in the 70s – I have almost zero interest in sports, but my oldest brother is a major Reggie Jackson fan and had drummed it into my head from an early age, using Rollie Fingers’ impossibly terrific mustache as leverage, that I should always tell people I was all about the A’s.

Away from the As 1989

So we heard Al Michaels say, “Ladies and gentlemen, I believe we’re having an ear – …” and then the TV signal went out so they threw it to commercial. I turned to my brother Rikk and said, “Call Mom.” He took the order without pause and grabbed the phone, dialing and looking at me like, What? It happened really fast. My mom picked up in Saratoga and was shaken but okay, her buffet had lurched and spewed dishes and glasses all over her kitchen. She was glad to hear from us and hadn’t really freaked out yet. She was already talking about getting a new earthquake-proof cabinet built, and she did it pretty soon after. We let her go and then after that we couldn’t get through until the next day because the phone lines were flooded with calls and in need of repair and whatnot.

All of my friends back in Berkeley were just sort of subdued and in holiday mode when I finally heard from them, there was no internet and no proliferation of cell phones yet and they were all just sitting around, some literally in the dark. I think I had to send postcards and get them back in order to find out what was up. I was crazy for information, dealing with being a new grad student, suffering survivor guilt and homesickness and heartbreak from following a guy, who’d told me expressly not to, across the country. My sense of displacement seems ridiculous in retrospect – I was wishing I was in the disaster area, getting misty at the sight of cheesy Jose Canseco and his wife, afraid of the leap I’d taken toward my next phase. All I could think about was the bay area, now that I had actually, after 20 years of wishing for it, moved to my beloved New York. I left town and it broke!

When I look back now the oddest part is that fact of being connected to people seeming to work completely differently in 1989. I still wrote letters. You watched television on a TeeVee set, not on a computer. If you agreed to meet someone somewhere, you couldn’t call and say you were on your way or parking. That moment when the earth shakes connects people, in a different way than digital technology connects people. That big earthquake was definitely a Before and After marker for the bay area and for the tech era, but human connection is stronger than technology or linear time. In the moment it feels like everything has been redefined, but random stuff like Rollie Fingers’ impossibly terrific mustache has a connection-forging life of its own that easily defies rationality. And we A’s fans gotta keep the faith ; )

by loma prieta

Civic Center

Michele Laber

I was walking in Civic Center at 5:04pm. The earth became unstable and I felt as if I was surfing cement. Oddly, I was in front of City Hall and the Civic Center Park where all the homeless gathered. They started cheering and clapping which I found surreal. I knew it had been an earthquake but everyone seemed to continue walking to where they were going without saying anything…blank stares as we passed each other.

I walked to my school and the electricity was out. People were panicking. I started to walk home (Tendernob). The corner stores had lines stretching around the corners …people were loading up on supplies.

I will never forget the thickness of the air. It was still and thick. Sirens. Everywhere. Phones didn’t work. No TV.