Just after 5am – 5:12 to be exact, the state of California experienced one of the most significant earthquakes ever recorded. The approx. 7.9 temblor shook the San Francisco Bay area and parts of California from Los Angeles to the Oregon Border and east to Nevada. Most people remember not just the quake, but the great fire afterwards that destroyed most of the city of San Francisco. Legend goes that publications like Sunset Magazine played up the fire aspect as it was less scary to the people on the East Coast who had never been through a major quake.
The USGS once again has a great page dedicated to this particular quake:
Visit the USGS Site
Here is footage of San Francisco before:
And here is a great 60 Minutes film of how they discovered when the movie was made – and how close it was to the day of the Great Quake:
And After the quake..
I remember when I lived in Northern California the annual remembrance on April 18 every year with survivors gathering in the City. Now, 108 years later there are only a couple of survivors left and they don’t attend anymore due to poor health.