Narrative for the 15th Anniversary Commemorative of the Loma Priet Earthquake
October 17, 2004
Written by
JAMES DALESSANDRO
Author of "1906"
It is rare that disaster like the Loma Prieta Earthquake is afforded a national audience. But with the Goodyear blimp hovering overhead for the World Series game between the San Francisco Giants and Oakland A's, the largest audience ever for a spontaneous disaster witnessed what happened to us on October 17, 1989.
When I joined the Loma Prieta Commemorative, it was because everyone involved, particularly Gail Goldyne, who survived the 1989 earthquake at her home in the Marina District, and Dennis Kennedy, engineer of the fireboat Phoenix that saved the city that year, wanted more than just ceremony. They wanted to caution and awaken San Franciscans that ultimate survival does not belong to luck, but to diligence and preparation.
If there is one thing that history teaches us, it's the fact that history rarely teaches us. In 1906, a city of 450,000 people was wiped from the face of the earth, 29,000 buildings incinerated. All because the fire department did not have water to fight the blazes.
In 1989, we had a wake up call: once again, fire fighters were left without water when the underground system was damaged. Sixty-seven lives were lost that day.
And yet, those of us who have studied the devastation that earthquakes can bring know that 1989 was merely a wake-up call, a warning that a repeat of 1906 is not merely possible but inevitable. And without proper precaution and preparation, the horror of 1906 will not only repeat itself, but could actually be magnified. Listen to your history, Loma Prieta said: I consider it a window into 1906. The Loma Prieta Quake was 1/32nd the size of the 1906 earthquake. 1/32nd. The Loma Prieta Quake was eighty miles south of where we're standing, on a relatively minor earthquake fault. The 1906 Earthquake was along a section of the San Andreas 300 miles long.
In 1989, luck and a group of very smart fire fighters were on our side. There was no wind that night, unusual for the Marina. The Phoenix fireboat managed to weave its way into the Marina one hour before the low tide would have made it impossible. The Golden Gate Bridge was not damaged, allowing firefighters living in Marin County to immediately join their comrades. Over the course of one night, the Phoenix pumped 5 million gallons of salt water that stopped the blaze in the Marina. Had they not stopped it there, we might well have had a repeat.
Those of us who live in Northern California believe that this is the greatest region in the nation. A city of impossible beauty, enormous tolerance, artistic inspiration, surrounded by areas like Berkeley and Napa, Sonoma and San Mateo and San Jose and Santa Cruz, each majestic, inspiring and unique in their own right. And each is vulnerable to the disaster that looms ahead of us.
If the price of freedom is eternal vigilance, then the price of survival is nothing less. We have one enemy, and that is complacency.
We live in one of the most beautiful sections of America, but we also live above the San Andreas Fault. And 99% of us still don't know how to turn off the gas in our houses, and probably that many don't have a week's supply of water and food stored in their homes or apartments.
This is not a call to doom or gloom. Quite the opposite. It's a call to community, a call to true activism, a call to preparation.
We must begin to participate, in record numbers, in the NERT (Neighborhood Emergency Response Team) program, because there will be no back up when the next seismic event occurs on the San Andreas Fault. We have no navy, no army nearby to come to our aid. Our hospitals are already crowded and don't have more than a day's supplies on hand for their regular emergencies. There will be only us, the citizens of the Bay Area, to help the police and fire department, to save our own lives, our families, and our beloved city and region.
Today, in the city of San Francisco, we have "rolling blackouts", in our fire stations, which means that instead of permanently closing several fire houses, we merely close several of them a day, on a rotating basis. We have several fire houses that have been without heat for the fire fighters, because the city can't afford to fix the furnaces. More than half of our firefighters live outside the city: at any given time, we have a few hundred fire fighters on duty, and nearly 1.2 million people within the city limits, if one considers commuters and tourists in the population figures.
Police officers in the SFPD carrying, in their patrol cars, a ninety five cent dust mask, the kind you can buy in any hardware store for painting your house, which is supposed to serve as protection from hazardous fumes or bio-chemical attack.
We know that San Francisco, like all cities, is strapped for cash. But solutions must be found, through better fiscal management, through greater citizen effort and contributions, to prepare this city for either natural or manmade disaster.
We are not ready. All the reports, all the information, all the very obvious evidence enforces that contention.
We'll need a lot more of that when the big one really does hit.
*** ***** ***
A LOMA PRIETA REMEMBERANCE
There is no story more heroic story in the annals of any city, or any fire department, than that of San Francisco fire fighter Gerry Shannon, his crew and a Marina resident named Sherra Cox during the hours following the Loma Prieta Earthquake in 1989.
When Gerry Shannon, the driver of Truck Number 9, arrives at Fillmore and Cervantes Street, he is told by a civilian that someone is trapped in a collapsed building. Crawling into a tiny space beneath the building amidst the smell of leaking gas and the knowledge that even a modest after shock can send the enormous structure down on top of him, he identifies himself to the trapped woman, Sherra Cox who exclaims "Thank God they sent me someone Irish."
Minutes later, after wriggling out of his restrictive jacket, Gerry Shannon holds his breath and pulls the cord on a chain saw someone had passed him, fearful the spark might ignite the natural gas that had built up in the tiny crawl space and blow them all to smithereens.
For the next several hours, Gerry Shannon lays on his back, holding up the heavy, dangerous saw, cutting through 2 X 12 joists and nails, passing the debris to his fellow firefighters Bob Boudorres and Duke Polizzi, who are also risking their lives under the unstable building. They can feel the heat from the mounting fire across the street and through a crack in the wall spot the eerie lights twinkling on the Golden Gate Bridge.
As they wear out the blades from two chain saws, a natural gas explosion across the street shakes the entire structure and sets their rescue building on fire. Despite cries to abandon the effort, the fire fighters refuse. The fires are building all around; the Phoenix has not yet begun to pump water to aid the effort.
When Sherra Cox asks if the building she is trapped in is on fire, Gerry Shannon lies to her and tells her the fire is still across the street. Her entire body is pinned down and only one of Sherra's arms is free: Shannon and his crew know that any shift in the broken structure, either by after shock or his own efforts, can signal doom for all of them.
Despite the heat, the smell of gas, the fire and the fear, Gerry Shannon, Duke Polizzi and Bob Boudorres pull Sherra Cox to safety.
Four and a half hours after their efforts began, they emerge from the building, they are met by lights from television crews and hundreds of citizens who have anxiously awaited the outcome of the effort, which, unknown to them, has been played out on every television station in the country. The battered, exhausted, dehydrated men have executed one of the bravest and most difficult rescues in San Francisco history.
Written by
JAMES DALESSANDRO
Author of "1906"
It is rare that disaster like the Loma Prieta Earthquake is afforded a national audience. But with the Goodyear blimp hovering overhead for the World Series game between the San Francisco Giants and Oakland A's, the largest audience ever for a spontaneous disaster witnessed what happened to us on October 17, 1989.
When I joined the Loma Prieta Commemorative, it was because everyone involved, particularly Gail Goldyne, who survived the 1989 earthquake at her home in the Marina District, and Dennis Kennedy, engineer of the fireboat Phoenix that saved the city that year, wanted more than just ceremony. They wanted to caution and awaken San Franciscans that ultimate survival does not belong to luck, but to diligence and preparation.
If there is one thing that history teaches us, it's the fact that history rarely teaches us. In 1906, a city of 450,000 people was wiped from the face of the earth, 29,000 buildings incinerated. All because the fire department did not have water to fight the blazes.
In 1989, we had a wake up call: once again, fire fighters were left without water when the underground system was damaged. Sixty-seven lives were lost that day.
And yet, those of us who have studied the devastation that earthquakes can bring know that 1989 was merely a wake-up call, a warning that a repeat of 1906 is not merely possible but inevitable. And without proper precaution and preparation, the horror of 1906 will not only repeat itself, but could actually be magnified. Listen to your history, Loma Prieta said: I consider it a window into 1906. The Loma Prieta Quake was 1/32nd the size of the 1906 earthquake. 1/32nd. The Loma Prieta Quake was eighty miles south of where we're standing, on a relatively minor earthquake fault. The 1906 Earthquake was along a section of the San Andreas 300 miles long.
In 1989, luck and a group of very smart fire fighters were on our side. There was no wind that night, unusual for the Marina. The Phoenix fireboat managed to weave its way into the Marina one hour before the low tide would have made it impossible. The Golden Gate Bridge was not damaged, allowing firefighters living in Marin County to immediately join their comrades. Over the course of one night, the Phoenix pumped 5 million gallons of salt water that stopped the blaze in the Marina. Had they not stopped it there, we might well have had a repeat.
Those of us who live in Northern California believe that this is the greatest region in the nation. A city of impossible beauty, enormous tolerance, artistic inspiration, surrounded by areas like Berkeley and Napa, Sonoma and San Mateo and San Jose and Santa Cruz, each majestic, inspiring and unique in their own right. And each is vulnerable to the disaster that looms ahead of us.
If the price of freedom is eternal vigilance, then the price of survival is nothing less. We have one enemy, and that is complacency.
We live in one of the most beautiful sections of America, but we also live above the San Andreas Fault. And 99% of us still don't know how to turn off the gas in our houses, and probably that many don't have a week's supply of water and food stored in their homes or apartments.
This is not a call to doom or gloom. Quite the opposite. It's a call to community, a call to true activism, a call to preparation.
We must begin to participate, in record numbers, in the NERT (Neighborhood Emergency Response Team) program, because there will be no back up when the next seismic event occurs on the San Andreas Fault. We have no navy, no army nearby to come to our aid. Our hospitals are already crowded and don't have more than a day's supplies on hand for their regular emergencies. There will be only us, the citizens of the Bay Area, to help the police and fire department, to save our own lives, our families, and our beloved city and region.
Today, in the city of San Francisco, we have "rolling blackouts", in our fire stations, which means that instead of permanently closing several fire houses, we merely close several of them a day, on a rotating basis. We have several fire houses that have been without heat for the fire fighters, because the city can't afford to fix the furnaces. More than half of our firefighters live outside the city: at any given time, we have a few hundred fire fighters on duty, and nearly 1.2 million people within the city limits, if one considers commuters and tourists in the population figures.
Police officers in the SFPD carrying, in their patrol cars, a ninety five cent dust mask, the kind you can buy in any hardware store for painting your house, which is supposed to serve as protection from hazardous fumes or bio-chemical attack.
We know that San Francisco, like all cities, is strapped for cash. But solutions must be found, through better fiscal management, through greater citizen effort and contributions, to prepare this city for either natural or manmade disaster.
We are not ready. All the reports, all the information, all the very obvious evidence enforces that contention.
We'll need a lot more of that when the big one really does hit.
*** ***** ***
A LOMA PRIETA REMEMBERANCE
There is no story more heroic story in the annals of any city, or any fire department, than that of San Francisco fire fighter Gerry Shannon, his crew and a Marina resident named Sherra Cox during the hours following the Loma Prieta Earthquake in 1989.
When Gerry Shannon, the driver of Truck Number 9, arrives at Fillmore and Cervantes Street, he is told by a civilian that someone is trapped in a collapsed building. Crawling into a tiny space beneath the building amidst the smell of leaking gas and the knowledge that even a modest after shock can send the enormous structure down on top of him, he identifies himself to the trapped woman, Sherra Cox who exclaims "Thank God they sent me someone Irish."
Minutes later, after wriggling out of his restrictive jacket, Gerry Shannon holds his breath and pulls the cord on a chain saw someone had passed him, fearful the spark might ignite the natural gas that had built up in the tiny crawl space and blow them all to smithereens.
For the next several hours, Gerry Shannon lays on his back, holding up the heavy, dangerous saw, cutting through 2 X 12 joists and nails, passing the debris to his fellow firefighters Bob Boudorres and Duke Polizzi, who are also risking their lives under the unstable building. They can feel the heat from the mounting fire across the street and through a crack in the wall spot the eerie lights twinkling on the Golden Gate Bridge.
As they wear out the blades from two chain saws, a natural gas explosion across the street shakes the entire structure and sets their rescue building on fire. Despite cries to abandon the effort, the fire fighters refuse. The fires are building all around; the Phoenix has not yet begun to pump water to aid the effort.
When Sherra Cox asks if the building she is trapped in is on fire, Gerry Shannon lies to her and tells her the fire is still across the street. Her entire body is pinned down and only one of Sherra's arms is free: Shannon and his crew know that any shift in the broken structure, either by after shock or his own efforts, can signal doom for all of them.
Despite the heat, the smell of gas, the fire and the fear, Gerry Shannon, Duke Polizzi and Bob Boudorres pull Sherra Cox to safety.
Four and a half hours after their efforts began, they emerge from the building, they are met by lights from television crews and hundreds of citizens who have anxiously awaited the outcome of the effort, which, unknown to them, has been played out on every television station in the country. The battered, exhausted, dehydrated men have executed one of the bravest and most difficult rescues in San Francisco history.