1906 Earthquake Of 1906 Essay

In the early morning of April 18, 1906 at catastrophic event took ahold of one of the largest cities in the United States. An earthquake shook the sleepy city of San Francisco to its inner core. The first of two lasted about 40 seconds, the second started about 10 seconds after the first one stopped (Barrymore). The second quake was the big one lasting 25 seconds, the estimation is 7.8 to 8.3 magnitude (Barrymore). This was the result of the tectonic plates in the San Andreas fault line moving past each other 15 feet(annual average is 2 inches a year) (Barrymore). The impacted area was 300, 00 square miles along the fault line. The damage was beyond extensive destroying water/sewer pipes, crippling telephone and transportation facilities including railways, buckled roadways, left more than 200, 000 homeless and killed three-thousand plus. The property damage was estimated in the 235 to 500 million 1906 US dollars currency; this amount is equivalent to the entire 1906 budget (Barrymore).
The fire that swept after the fact is the main source of the devastation. The 3 day inferno burned an area of 4.7 square miles. Majority of the homes and businesses went up like tinder boxes, many due to lax housing codes and slum areas. Uncontrolled fires burned, due to broken gas mains/lines and help from citizens in panic …show more content…
Buildings had collapsed, people were buried or missing, gas lines were erupting, water mains were breaking everywhere sending the needed water flooding out into the streets or pluming into the air, streets were blocked making it impossible for any type of emergency crews to gain access to victims, and chaos had taken over in every direction. 28, 000 buildings were destroyed in the quake (Staff). This type of devastation there is no warning, not in this era they basically never knew what was coming or what hit them. City officials could not warn anyone of the grave danger they were all in; they had no provisions for the