“I was born in 1893. And to have known San Francisco in the horse and buggy age. Then to have looked down on it from a hilltop, while flames were rising high from its buildings. Then to have walked through its ashes after the 1906 earthquake, with my father, a proper permit, and a stick. Probing the ashes of the very house I had just lived in a short time before.” – A letter written from my Great Grandma Katie
At 05:12 AM Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the coast of Northern California was struck by a major earthquake with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme). High-intensity shaking was felt from Eureka on the North Coast to the Salinas Valley, an agricultural region to the south of the San Francisco Bay Area. Devastating fires soon broke out in San Francisco and lasted for several days. More than 3,000 people died and over 80% of the city was destroyed. The event is remembered as the deadliest earthquake in the history of the United States. The death toll remains the greatest loss of life from a natural disaster in California’s history and high on the list of worst American disasters.
I guess you can say I grew up in earthquake country. We had earthquake drills every year in school, there’s a soccer team named “The Earthquakes”, and I even lived through a big one back in October of 1989. I was 19 years old then and had only experienced small tremors up to that point, so when I felt the earth move yet once again, I thought nothing of it, but then it kept going and my instincts kicked in as I ran to the backroom of the chocolate store I was working at, and got under the table. When it was over, the only damage our store had was one glass jar of chocolate syrup had fallen off the shelf, broke, and spilled everywhere. That was it. I calmly cleaned it up as my friend Charlotte who was working a few shops down at “Just Closets” came running in laughing. We had no idea how bad it was yet. We didn’t have social media. It wasn’t until I was driving home, that I begin to notice that all the lights in Downtown Walnut Creek were either not working or blinking. Then I got home and turned on the news.
I have grown up hearing others say that they could never live here “because of the earthquakes”, but big ones are so incredibly rare. I love it here. The SF Bay Area is beautiful, and I love fog. I’m never leaving. This will always be home.
Friday, April 18, 2025:
Theresa Donahoe 