by loma prieta

Dumbarton Bridge

Michael Tebow

I was young during the Loma Prieta Quake. Turned 7 that year. My family lived in Newark, in the East Bay towards the south end of the bay. There was 6 of us total, mom and dad, my older sister, older brother, me and then my younger sister. All us siblings were two years apart, so you can imagine the crap my mother had to deal with. My mother grew up in Palo Alto, so most of our time was spent there, including doctors and dentists appointments. That day was a Tuesday; we were all headed back to Newark from the dentist. My mom was a stay-at-home mom, so a day spent with all of us was very stressful.

We were on 101 almost to the exit to get into 84 and make our way across the Dumbarton Bridge and head back to Newark. My mom was upset about the noise we were making and then felt her car shake. She cursed and pulled over and at the same time noticing a motorcyclist and other motorists pulling over as well. I think she all at once realized what was happening. As a California/Bay Area native she had felt earthquakes before, and having seen no damage in our immediate area, she pulled back onto the freeway and we continued home.

Not long after we got over the bridge did my mother realize how large and potentially deadly this earthquake had been for her four children. The KGO transmission towers that were a symbol to us kids as “we’re almost home” had been heavily damaged. My mother’s first thought was that she just took her four young kids over a bridge that might had been damaged as well. She later realized that the bridge was closed to traffic soon after we made it across. Mostly because of the severe damage to the SF-Oakland Bay Bridge.

We made it home without a scratch and realized the full destructive power of the earthquake. Our house was fine except for some cracked sheetrock and a few pictures that had fallen. Watching the news, we knew that we were extremely lucky.

KGO towers 1989

by loma prieta

Highway 17

Jamie Batt

I was on the bus heading home after a day of school at Los Gatos High…we were about halfway up Hwy 17 when I noticed that something was amiss. I gazed out the bus window with a growing sense of confusion: the trees on the hillside to the right of the bus were swaying wildly- I couldn’t remember any wind that day, I looked out the left window and the confusion turned to awe and fright very quickly.

The cars on the other side of the road were rolling, and the center divide was cracking before my eyes. This is when I realized that the motion of the bus was not at all normal. The other kids on the bus were exclaiming and moving chaotically from one window to the next trying to figure out what was going on…the bus driver had stopped the bus but it was still moving, she kept telling us to stay calm and that everything would be OK.

Once the rolling stopped- the bus driver decided that she had to get us all to our bus stops and safely home…so up we went. The hardest area to traverse was on Summit Road where a giant fissure had opened up- but that bus driver was able to maneuver us safely around it and to the last stop.

When I made it home, everything in the house was on the floor: the wooden legs of my bed had scratched circles into the wood floor from the motion of the quake. I will never forget how out of control everything felt- or how small and insignificant I felt…nature at its scariest.

Downtown Santa Cruz was never the same after the quake. Some of my favorite old buildings were now blocks of rubble behind chain link fences…the buildings that eventually went up to take their place have no soul- no sense of history and time…I walk down the Pacific Garden Mall now, I don’t think it is even called that any more, and see everything that is missing…shadows of the past, and I feel an overwhelming sense of not right-ness.

I don’t visit Santa Cruz much any more. It just isn’t the same.

by loma prieta

Walking Home from SF State

Jeffrey Linn

When the quake hit, I was studying in the library at SFSU. I felt the first slight shaking, and wondered if it was an earthquake, but as it got stronger, I knew that it was. The lesson of many years of California elementary school earthquake drills kicked in, and I dove under the heavy library table. Seconds later, shelves were jumping up and down and books were falling down all around me. I was horrified as the thought came to mind—“I’m in the old part of the library!” Fortunately, the structure held, and when the shaking stopped, I looked out from under the table. The piles of fallen books had released decades of accumulated dust, and a cloud was slowly rising to the ceiling. I’d never realized that old books were so grimy.

Afterwards, I had to make my way back home to the Mission. Because of the power outages, all electrified transportation was out of service—no Muni, no trolleys. So I started walking home. By the time I made it to the Inner Sunset, it was getting dark, and the bars were starting to fill up. I peeked through the window of the Little Shamrock on Lincoln & 9th, and saw brief images of the fire in the Marina and the collapsed deck of the Bay Bridge. Then the power went out, and I kept walking.

By the time I made it to the Castro, it was dark and the bars were packed. Everyone knew it was a huge event, and the folks of the Castro are never ones to pass up an opportunity to throw a party. There was a sense of both revelry and generosity–the Walgreens had closed, but the manager and employees were standing in front of the store, handing out free batteries and flashlights to whoever wanted them. It was festive and joyous. The rest of my walk was quiet and uneventful. When I got back to my apartment on Oakwood Street, it was dark—the power was still out, but was restored within an hour.

by loma prieta

The Cosby Show

Jasmine R

I was sitting in my living room in Millbrae, watching the Cosby Show with my sister. The shaking began and like a movie, we looked at each other and shouted ‘Earthquake!!’ I ran to the doorway and screamed into the garage. My sister ran all over the house.

There wasn’t much damage to our home but we saw our swimming pool making huge waves. Later our parents took us to get pizza in San Bruno and in the parking lot I saw an unused Engelbert Humperdinck concert ticket for that night.

The next day at school a friend said she had been on the toilet during the quake, and I was very grateful that I had not been!

by loma prieta

Facing the Embarcadero

Lydia Steinauer

Stretched out on the living room rug, I was designing my high school senior yearbook page when the television began to shake.

“What’s wrong with the game?” my dad asked, horrified that anything would dare interrupt a world series playoff game between the Oakland A’s and his beloved Giants.

We lived on the 8th floor of an apartment building facing the Embarcadero Center and Ferry Building. We also lived on landfill. Moments after the shaking started, the TV screen went black. We all ran into the hallway and crouched down as the walls bowed and shivered around us. But what I remember most was the sound; it was as though the earth was growling. Why had no one ever told me that earthquakes could be loud?

When we assessed the damage, I was devastated to see that my chocolate Teddy Grahams had gotten soggy from the fish tank’s sloshing water. But I was in disaster mode, and I loved chocolate, so I ate them anyway.

soggy teddy grahams 1989

For months afterwards, the flagpole atop the Ferry Building leaned just a little to the right. Even the Embarcadero Freeway, usually flowing with the constant hum of cars below my window, was silent- an eery reminder that our city had in a matter of seconds been changed forever.

by loma prieta

Picking Apples

Ali Polk

Acacia Street in Salinas, CA. I was 5, it was apple-picking season and I was down the street at my neighbor’s house with my best friend Ashley (who was 6 at the time). We were picking apples, and all of the sudden the ground was rumbling and cracking. The earth shook below us and mini hills were formed from the rolling ground. Then, an apple fell onto my head! I was in tears. I thought I was going to lose my apples.

by loma prieta

Fisher Middle School

Jessica H

My family had tickets to the World Series A’s v. Giants game. For some reason, we had switched them with friends to attend a later game. So we were at home in Los Gatos, adhering to our usual routine. To this day I’m grateful my 1989 quake experience was not at Candlestick. I’m sure it was freaky.

I was a 9 year old at soccer practice on the Fisher Middle School playing field when it hit. The earth started to roll and I was knocked off my feet. My teammates and I laughed as we tried to stand up and “surf” the quake. We were on a huge, open, grassy field. We thought it was good fun. After the earthquake passed, we were hustled by our coach over to the parking lot. Apparently practice was over and our parents would be picking us up early.

fisher middle school 1989

Mom arrived, looking truly shaken. She’d been downtown, taking the precious break from the kids to get her nails done. I’d find out later she had her shoes off, and had to navigate a large amount of broken glass. The brick salon, located in downtown Los Gatos, had a fair bit of damage, as did many of the buildings around it.

My 7 year old brother and I got in the car, not sure why she was so upset. As we drove the 1.5 miles home, we began to understand a little. Being just 9, my memory may be less than accurate, but I think the road pavement was cracked, drivers were behaving erratically, and things seemed confusingly out of place.

When we arrived home, our possessions were strewn everywhere. The chimney was half collapsed. The cat was missing. We’d find him hours later, behind the toilet, soaking wet, although we’ll never be sure why. The backyard pool was ⅔ full. It had turned into a wave, drenching the yard around it. The large armoire in my parents room had fallen over. My mom remarked anyone near it would have been crushed. All the glassware and china was broken.

The part of the quake I remember most was aftershocks. They kept coming for what seemed like forever. You never knew if it would be short, tiny one, or if it was the next big one. A small one meant playing it cool, hanging wherever you were at that moment. But if it seemed like it was a big one, you’d run to the nearest doorway for safety. It was hard to tell when to run. I think we slept in the yard that first night. We wondered if the trees might fall on us, but preferred them to a potentially collapsing house. It was stressful.

To this day, if I feel a certain kind of shaking or hear a rumbling noise, I tense up. Did you know you can hear an earthquake coming? It rolls toward you, ominous and imminent.

by loma prieta

Panhandle Garage

Chris Brown

I was working in the garage on the bottom floor of our dilapidated three-story apartment building on Oak St. between Schrader and Cole, at the end of the Panhandle. This is the acceleration spot for traffic coming out of Golden Gate Park heading east towards downtown, a continuous glide through the timed traffic lights. The wave of cars created its own breeze, usually circulating the cool foggy air, but on this day it was still and hot. So I had the door open while I worked inside my piano repair and electronic music shop at the back of dingy three cars-in-a-row capacity garage.

First car in was my ‘65 manual transmission Ford Econoline, the working piano-tuner’s vehicle that I used to navigate my SF neighborhood customers. Second car was the landlord’s brand-new Mercedes sedan draped in a car-cover, that was never moved and never driven. It represented his attitude towards all his property, especially the apartment building — leave everything exactly as you acquired it, never using it, so you’ll never need to maintain, much less repair it. Behind the Mercedes, my shop space began with a workbench made from a salvaged door covered with 1/8″ plywood, my drill-press and table-saw, and disassembled pianos in repair. Behind that, a makeshift drummer’s room, made from 2×4’s and sheetrock covered with green and yellowish carpet fragments.

Panhandle Garage 1989

Its ceiling was about 7 feet, and the room itself about 10×18, packed with an upright piano, a small table for electronics construction and composing, small loudspeakers hanging from the walls, and an collection of homemade electroacoustic instruments made from stainless steel, plastics, recycled piano parts, and wood. A jury-rigged lampcord power system draped over the walls to a set of 3 bare incandescent bulbs and a single fluorescent light fixture. Behind the room was a narrow, lightless storage space, separated by a wall from the last part of the garage which contained the three water heaters for the building, and three more old water heaters that had been decommissioned, but never disposed of.

This was my lair between 1981 and 1998, where I made my living and made my art.

I was sitting at the electronics table soldering, enjoying the afternoon, when the quake hit. Suddenly the whole garage-tunnel was moving, even the walls were wobbling radically from side to side, like 15 degrees or so, and my general impression was that everything solid was becoming liquid. The lights went out and soot started raining down from the garage ceiling as I staggered first towards the doorway of the drummer’s room, then thought to myself quickly that if the apartment building collapsed, I would be dead meat in this dusty-old tomb. My little studio would be crushed like a matchbox.

My next flash of brilliance was to run towards the Mercedes to lie underneath it, because surely its German steel and Michellin tires would protect me better. As I lurched in that direction, the first quake subsided, and so I never got down on the dingy floor but kept going all the way out of the garage. There I realized that I was probably still in danger from things that might fall off the roof, as I stood in the very spot where 8 years before a roofer had fallen to his death on the sidewalk.

I ran quickly across Oak St. into the Panhandle where only the tough old eucalyptus trees might be dangerous. Dazed Haight-Ashbury residents started to join up on the grassy strip. The ground wasn’t moving, but alarms were starting to go off. A fire would soon begin between Shrader and Stanyan St., and I thought I’d hazard a trip up to my 2nd floor apartment to check for damage and turn off the gas.

I was up in the apartment when the first strong aftershock hit, but like riding a wave, I felt way safer with only one floor of the building above me. After it stopped I picked up the phone and was surprised to get a dial tone. I phoned my mother in Chicago and quickly told her I was ok.

After that, the phones went dead for a few days.

by loma prieta

SOMA to Wyoming

Lisa Heller

I was living in Noe Valley and working South of Market for a bathrobe manufacturer. I had flown back from NYC that morning and the cab driver told me to cancel my flight because there was going to be an earthquake.

I had just arrived from the airport at the office and checked in with my colleagues. I asked my friend Lois if we could leave early because I was exhausted from my trip. As I walked back into my office the earth began to shake. I had never been in an earthquake before. And before the words “earthquake” could even come out of my mouth I was under my desk. The wall of windows surrounding my office had imploded. After it was over I was running through the sewing shop telling everyone to get out of the brick building we were in. As we approached the steps some of them had shifted and it was scary walking down them.

SOMA desk 1989

Once we were out of the building I remember seeing the blacktop of the street ripple like a wave. I had never seen anything like it before in my life. We drove back to Noe Valley and all of the traffic lights were out. It was unwritten that each intersection became a four way stop. We could see the flames in the Marina and I was in tears.

I was worried about my brother that was working on the other side and would have had to cross the Bay Bridge when I heard it collapsed. I arrived home to find all of my dishes and glassware on the floor. All of my neighbors began gathering outside of my neighbor Tom’s apartment building. One of the neighbors pulled his car onto the sidewalk and had his radio on. Fortunately my landline was working (we had no cell phones in those days) and I called my family in the east to let them know I was ok. They let me know that they had also heard from my brother who lived six blocks north of me. I was relieved.

Tom and I gathered water and flashlights and walked down the street turning off all of the gas valves and checking on the elderly on our block – giving them the flashlights and water and turning on radios if they had them. The rest of us gathered in the middle of the block and stayed close together. We brought out wine and the contents of our refrigerators to have a block party and listen to the news.

As the sun set, the fire in the Marina lit up the sky. We were all pretty quiet, scared, relieved and dealing with all of the aftershocks. At about midnight the power was restored in our neighborhood and the gas company came by to say that they would be around in the morning to turn on our gas.

Within a month of the earthquake, I quit my job and moved back to Wyoming. It is a day I will never forget and one of the reasons why I will never return to California to live.

by loma prieta

Banana Republic

Sun Lee

I had moved here from Hawaii, fresh out of high school just a couple months prior, and was working at the original Banana Republic store on Grant Avenue (this was when they were still true to their roots and their clothing catered to the safari adventurer/international photojournalist/exotic traveler demographic). Even the interior of the store had a jungle theme decor and there was a giraffe whose feet rested on the subterranean level (the women’s dept), but was tall enough that you could see his neck and head emerge through the stairwell opening on the main street level (men’s dept).

My shift was due to start in a few minutes. I dashed downstairs to the employees-only bathroom located near the stockroom, passing the breakroom on my way. I was washing my hands when the ground started to shake and I reached out and held onto the walls and heard something metal fall to the concrete floor just outside the bathroom. It did not immediately occur to me that it was an earthquake; I had never experienced an earthquake in Hawaii. I thought perhaps a heavy truck had passed through overhead on Grant Avenue was the cause of the shaking.

When the shaking stopped, I headed out to the sales floor and saw that the breakroom, which had been full when I first passed it, was now empty. I walked out on to the women’s dept. and noticed that it was completely deserted. I looked around in bewilderment and a gal who did our window displays came running down the stairs and told me that “Sun, that was an earthquake and you need to get your ass upstairs and out on to the street in case this building collapses!”

My older sister, Yvonne, was visiting from Hawaii (and was staying with me), found me on Grant Ave. staring up at the nearby buildings. Turns out she walking up the stairs exiting the Montgomery BART station when the earthquake struck and she was pretty freaked out. She wanted to get on to the first flight back to HI. We met up with my then-roommate, Karen, who worked at the GAP around the corner from Banana Republic. The three of us walked back to our studio apartment at 8th & Market. Strangely enough, our apartment showed no signs of any earthquake damage — not a thing anything knocked over… just nothing. However, a neighbor of ours down the hallway reported that their apartment had a crack in the wall that had not been there before and they had stuff that was knocked over.

We lost power, but we had a battery-powered radio and that’s how we heard the news that there were fires in the Marina, that a lot of apartment buildings in the Marina had collapsed. We heard about the partial collapse of the Bay Bridge. We heard sirens all through the night. Some friends stopped by with flashlights and we piled into their car looking for some place with electricity, so we could eat. It was eerie to see large swaths of the city during a blackout. I remember the rest of that night as being of in a kind of a daze.

My family in Hawaii was frantic to try to get a hold of us to see if Yvonne and I were OK; they said later that news reports made it sound like that the city of San Francisco had either sunk into the Bay or had gone up in flames. I do remember feeling fortunate that my sister, roommate, and I were unharmed, and I also clearly remember begging my sister to wait out the rest of her visit as planned, instead of cutting her stay short and flying back to Hawaii.