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1906 Earthquake in San Francisco

1906 Earthquake


The great 1906 San Francisco Earthquake

5:12AM on April 18, 1906


The Earthquake
The first lower force foreshock shakes the San Francisco Bay and surrounding areas and 20 to 30 seconds later the great earthquake hits with a magnitude later determined to be within the 7.7 to 8.25 range. Located approximately 2 miles off shore and following the northern 296 miles (477 km) of the San Andreas Fault, the shaking was felt as far south as Los Angeles, north to Oregon and Nevada in the easterly direction. Most commonly accepted as an averaged 7.9 magnitude earthquake, the shaking lasted for almost an entire minute and contained frequent short heavy bursts of extremely violent shocks.

With the majority of buildings designed and constructed from brick and mortar, structures crumbled under the shaking, destroying the infrastructure and causing wide spread death and injuries among the residents. Resulting from the earthquake and ruptured utility lines, uncontrolled fires swept through the city, devastating it even further. While initially 375 deaths had been reported by government officials, that number would later be corrected to over 3000. Nearly 300,000 people were left homeless in the aftermath of the quake and the fires.

The Fires
Following the destructive forces of the earthquake and the resulting aftershocks were structure fires that proved to be even more destructive than the earthquake itself. Estimates state that more than 30 separate fires started as a result of ruptured gas lines and with water mains broken, water resources were low. In all 25,000 buildings were destroyed by the flames in an area covering 490 city blocks.

Residents and Evacuation
In an attempt to house displaced residents, the Army built wooden 'relief house' camps in eleven locations. 20,000 people could be sheltered during the rebuilding efforts of the city. The houses were built from redwoods and fir, provided 720 square feet of space and were rented to the residents for $2 per month which was credited towards the cost of purchasing the house for $50 each.
While nearly 16500 people occupied the camps at peak times, most residents had found alternate accommodations by 1907 and were able to leave the government camps.

Estimated Financial Loss
Estimated property loss from the disaster are in excess of $400 million with insured losses being stated at $235 millions which would be the equivalent of $5.7 billion in today's economy. This ratio of nearly 50% under insured values demonstrates the need for all residents and property owners to have adequate insurance coverage.

Rebuilding San Francisco and surrounding cities
While political efforts were geared towards rebuilding the city as quickly as possible to minimize the financial impact, building codes were initially changed to be tougher and designed more towards earthquake safety, but slow progress caused construction companies to complain about those tougher codes which were then -unfortunately- lowered back to pre-disaster standards of even lower than those after only 13 months.

This decision would haunt the city for decades to come with most of its infrastructure being substandard and unable to withstand a similar or even lower magnitude earthquake to the one that devastated it in 1906. It would take until the 1950's for building code standards to even reach the 1906 requirements however many buildings and city block sections erected during the rebuilding efforts still do not meet standards and are in danger of total destruction during a medium sized quake, resulting in thousands of deaths.


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