Was the S.F. Quake of 1906 On Par or Bigger than Katrina?

[berni_mccoy]

I ask because the new Talking Point is that the Admin is doing well considering Katrina was the biggest disaster in U.S. History...

Check it out:
http://quake.wr.usgs.gov/info/1906/casualties.html

Dead - More than 3,000
A report of U.S. Army relief operations (Greely, 1906) recorded:
498 deaths in San Francisco
64 deaths in Santa Rosa
102 deaths in and near San Jose
A 1972 NOAA report suggested that 700-800 was a reasonable figure.
Gladys Hansen and Emmet Condon, after extensive research, estimated that over 3000 deaths were caused directly or indirectly by the catastrophe. The population of San Francisco at the time was about 400,000.
Homeless - 225,000
225,000 from a population of about 400,000. (photo) (photo) (photo)
Buildings Destroyed - 28,000
"The 3-day conflagration following the earthquake caused substantially more damage than did the earthquake. The area of the burned district covered 4.7 square mile..." (NOAA report). By one count:
Wood buildings lost = 24,671 (photo)
Brick buildings lost = 3,168 (photo) (photo)
Total buildings lost = 28,188 (photo) (photo) (photo)
Monetary Loss - More than $400 million
Estimated property damage (NOAA report): $400,000,000 in 1906 dollars from earthquake and fire, $80,000,000 from the earthquake alone. (photo) (photo) (photo)

[kenny blankenship]

1. But it was TWO events you see

the earthquake, which was a bullet dodged for the city, allowing FEMA to stand down when the media had sounded the All-Clear, and then came the fire, which was purely the malfeasance of the state & local authorities!

Besides, Bush was on vacation that week. In ...uh... China. Yeah CHINA! He couldn't have started the fire.

[bloom]

2. It may well be the biggest ever - but that is no excuse for not rescuing

people (reprimanding those who did) and for not taking food/water to the shelters/or to make food drops and for not providing protection - but instead locking people in.


Thousands died because of their stubborn ineptitude.

[Zomby Woof]

3. Although there ARE similarities...

For example, the poor in SF died in disproportionately higher numbers, and martial law was declared because of looting. SF mayor Eugene Schmitz ordered looters to be shot on sight. Hunger and disease was rampant.

But the lack of technology and medical advances back then makes it more understandable than New Orleans. We had the power to airlift and get massive convoys in there, much sooner. We had ADVANCE warning, which neither earthquakes or sudden fires bring to the table like a hurricane does.

Horrible as 1906 was, New Orleans is by far the worst. Only Galveston's hurricane around that same time ranks as high.

[Garbo 2004]

4. Katrina was a predicted, anticipated disaster. FEMA ran Hurricane Pam

exercise in summer 2004 that featured a hurricane hitting NOLA.

[Xithras]

5. SF had an advantage that NO didn't

SF started off, and for a long time was dominated by, the military. Yes, a lot of people were made homeless, but the military bases surrounding the cities had soldiers staking out a tent city for the survivors within HOURS of the end of the shaking. Although a lot of buildings were lost, many historians agree that the majority of the destroyed structures were ramshackles built during and immediately after the mining era, and barely qualified as permanent homes anyway. I've actually heard at least two historians argue that the the SF quake was good in some ways because it forced San Franciscans to build a "proper city".

As for the rest of the Bay Area, damage wasn't so bad that it couldn't be quickly repaired. In 1906, San Jose and Santa Rosa were dinky little farm towns, not the sprawling megacities we see today. The quake shook the cherries off the trees and knocked over some of the less sturdy brick buildings, but most structures (and people) in those towns survived unscathed.

In essence, the 1906 quake only destroyed one city, while doing middling damage to a handful of others. The hurricane, in comparison, destroyed MANY cities (NO, Gulfport, Biloxi) AND their surrounding small towns. No house is damage free, and the damage is still accruing in the flooded areas (in 1906, the damage was done when the shaking stopped in most cities, and within 3 days in SF).

[SiouxJ]

6. There was a massive cover-up of the 1906 Quake

There was a great documentary on this that aired recently. They did not report the actual number of dead and how bad the devastation was. They even doctored the photos that were published in the press to not make it seem so bad (they sort of "photo-shopped" the photos to show buildings still standing, that weren't). I can't remember where I saw this documentary, but it was fascinating. I hope they re-run it in light of recent events. I'm expecting they will fix the death toll (at the very least) once again.

[hunter]

7. My dad's family lived in San Francisco.

There was a lot of "cover-up."

[CountAllVotes]

8. no it was not near the disaster as New Orleans

My great grandfather's house still stands in the Mission district - it survived the quake obviously. Luckily he moved away from the downtown region before it happened. Much of the damage from the 1906 earthquake was not from the quake itself, but from the fires that followed and it was the downtown area that suffered the most from the quake.

It was a horrific disaster and they never did really know the real death count but it was much higher than the records tell for people died much further north than Santa Rosa as it shows on the link.

However, the City learned a big lesson - the lesson was the value of water. If there had been a more viable/working water system, the fires would have never spread so quickly. They also learned about the power of rapid response.

I was living in SF still during the Loma Prieta and they had the entire City of SF sealed up tight that evening. I remember helicopters flying low and spotlighting the streets. Everyone was too scared to move where I lived which is in a part of the City that is built on bedrock (yeah you learn what bedrock is too when you live in SF; hence the reason the Marina district suffered so much damage; it is built on landfill; very similar to the NO situation for that reason alone and still the most dangerous and one of the most expensive places to live in SF).

Hang on, another one is right around the corner.

You can believe that for certain as that is the history of SF; earthquake hell.

[Bridget Burke]

9. The Galveston Storm of 1900 was the greatest disaster...

If you consider lives lost--probably about 8,000. On this date, 105 years ago, the survivors were beginning to see what was left of their city.

www.1900storm.com/storm/index.lasso

All the history in the world won't erase the fact that Bush & his cronies let people die in (& after) this latest storm.