Eyewitness Accounts of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake | Hacker News Reader

Eyewitness Accounts of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake

publicdomainreview.org

37 pointssamclemens30 comments

> As is less known, authorities used dynamite as a fire-fighting technique. There was no water, and they thought fire would spread less readily across rubble. It wasn’t very effective, and the collateral consequences were tremendous, but no other solution was at hand, so authorities kept at it, blowing up larger and larger patches of the city: first, select buildings, then half a block, then an entire block, and eventually, twenty-two blocks of Van Ness Avenue — a mile and a half of “handsome and costly” Victorian homes that were mostly untouched by the quake. For the better part of ten days, explosions happened every few minutes, day and night, each one ratcheting the panic and exacerbating the unease.

Whoah. I wonder if supporting vs not supporting this caused societal rifts similar to what we saw with COVID lockdowns.

Seems very doubtful that rubble catches fire that much less easily than standing houses, that you blow standing houses up?

I mean, I would guess rubble takes fire more easily than a plain wall. You got small sticks and insolation (which used to be saw dust) everywhere if you blow the house up.

Rubble probably burn somewhat slower though.

The fuel will only burn when oxygen is available. Dynamited buildings would expose more raw wood that catches fire easily to the outside, but with everything on the ground, it is difficult for all of the fuel of the building to burn simultaneously. Just like with wild fires, the intensity of urban fires will contribute to how fast they spread.

The author was not able to conduct A/B testing of two different strategies, but there is a long history of city-destroying fires involving pre-twentieth century fire-safety standards and wooden buildings.

There’s also a long history of fire brigades not fighting fires but instead demolishing homes to keep the fire contained.

For small wooden construction that’s a bit easier than for large victorian mansions though.

I think, "It wasn't very effective" is just the author filling space on a page with copy, not the assessment of an engineer.

The conventional wisdom among experts is relayed here by The Chronicle:

> Van Ness was once the city’s grandest boulevard, lined with Victorian mansions and impressive churches. That all came to an end when the great San Francisco earthquake of 1906 set off a firestorm that raged for days. The fire came under control only after the U.S. Army dynamited nearly every building on the east side of Van Ness. So the avenue provided the firebreak that saved the city.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/nativeson/article/The-ba...

I think of Victorian mansions as being wooden construction, and from a fast look at the results of image searching "Van Ness Avenue before 1906" that seems to be the case.

Ah yes the sim city approach to firefighting

It's interesting to compare this with the Great Fire of London in 1666. One of the first hand accounts was written by the great diarist Samuel Pepys [0], in between saving his gold, wine and Parmazan cheese, informing the King, and starting the process of demolishing houses to create firebreaks. His diary really is a great read, not only for the account of the fire

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Pepys#Great_Fire_of_Lon...

It’s certainly strange how many fires destroyed multiple cities across the U.S in that time period, not to mention the relation to world fairs. It always bugged me!

Why is it strange when everything was built out of wood, and indoor fire suppression systems didn't exist? Oh and everything was lit with candles and lanterns.

Everything is built of wood here in New Zealand and always has been. We have plenty of earthquakes too, but I’m not aware of massive fires like San Francisco suffered. The risk of massive spreading fire seems likely to relate of building density.

When is the last time a 7.9 magnitude earthquake hit New Zealand? What was the population of New Zealand's largest city in 1906? San Fran was at about 400K and the city was dense due to its geography.

That’s my point - I think fire is a density thing and there is a lot of it in most buildings.

We have had some earthquakes of greater magnitude than 7.9, and some with truely massive ground movement relative to their magnitude.

Napier earthquake (7.8) would be the closest in time and magnitude, but the population was tiny (<20k) in comparison to San Fransisco so building density was much lower.

We have had some very bad ones, but the low population has been helpful but some cities (like Christchurch) have been hit very hard.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1931_Hawke%27s_Bay_earthquak...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_earthquakes_in_New_Z...

I think the connection is that US cities were growing rapidly at that time, but built without modern safety practices.

Some traveling arsonist went to the fairs, or what?

I am glad you're pointing at what you're pointing at.

For the uninitiated, I'd say it is a journey you should take on your own, arriving at your conclusions yourself. It is too out of this world otherwise, certainly to compile here in a comment.

A rabbit hole that may take you to places you do not expect.

I really don't understand what you're saying, can you explain a little please

There appear to be some conspiracy theories around the world fairs: https://www.reddit.com/r/CulturalLayer/comments/85a0ck/the_w...

So that’s what happened to all the fun conspiracy theories after r/conspiracy went full right wing!

> The above picture is called the Palace of Fine arts constructed in 1915 for the Panama Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. If the official history is to be believed then why does this period painting from the early 1900s show the structure already heavily weathered as it is covered in moss and vines. If the building was built when they said it was then it should have looked brand new, instead it looks ancient.

That’s just so wholesome and fun. No mention of Q or pedos or anything.

The Palace of Fine Arts was entirely reconstructed in 1962 out of more durable materials, and was always intended to look like a cool ruin. I still don't think it's healthy to spread misinformation (not you, this so called rabbit hole post) even if apparently "benign". Sources can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_Fine_Arts

I believe it’s s reference to Tartaria. If you think along those lines, the dynamite makes more sense.

In the 90s, every year during my school's spring break I would go to my dad's office in downtown San Francisco. I was too young to be alone all day.

There is a fountain that survivors of the 1906 earthquake would meet at on the anniversary of the event. Because my spring break cooncided with the date, I got to see the survivors gathered as my dad and I walked to his office.

Of course there were already very few survivors left by then. I think I would have seen it around 1994 through 1998 when I was old enough to stay home on my own. Even in those few years, I could see the number of survivors shrinking.

One of my great great grandfathers died due to the quake. Not directly from the quake itself, but in the weeks following due to exposure from living in a camp. My great grandmother, who lived to be 109, lived through the quake and was in fairly good health up until the late 80's or early 90's. I'm curious if she ever went to any of those meetings.

What a coincidence! Over breakfast my girlfriend was telling me she has a medal she inherited from her grandfather who was a volunteer fire fighter in San Francisco to fight the fires after the qualke. I just showed this to my girlfriend. Most likely he was somewhere in SF when that photo at the bottom of the page. Makes it a lot more real to think about.

Library of Congress has a large silver plate image of SF from a few days after the quake. A panorama from up in a balloon. Cool picture.

Edit: this one https://www.loc.gov/item/2007663901/

soon, Salt Lake City. look at the building damage diagrams, the stats on how long water will be out, and just how many hospitals will be impeded. one problem in SLC is they don't have frequent quakes so nothing had to be built to code.

https://saltquakecity.blogspot.com/?m=1

Now imagine the 1960 Valdivia Earthquake.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_Valdivia_earthquake

> The Valdivia earthquake (light blue at the bottom left of this graph) released almost a quarter of all global seismic energy between 1906 and 2005

It was so powerful that it changed the map.

Can ML be trained to turn written accounts into images? Based on comparing current written accounts to current images. That seems like it could make the past feel more real.

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