The Great Quake: 92 Years Ago
They watched as the city crumbled and burned around them, confused, frightened, too young to understand what was happening.
On April 18, 1906, an earthquake measuring magnitude 7.8 devastated San Francisco, touching off fires that roared through the city. Hundreds were killed and it took months to rebuild.
Six-year-old Emma Grapengeter sat on a hill and watched flames consume her city. Her parents lost their home in fires that mesmerized her.
"To me, as a child, I thought it was beautiful," Grapengeter, now 98, said Friday. "I never wanted to go to sleep. To my parents, it was not beautiful at all."
They and others found beacons of hope amid the devastation. Lotta's Fountain became a rallying point in the hours after the disaster as survivors searched for their loved ones.
Once more, the fountain is drawing survivors. The dwindling group of those who lived through the quake were to meet there before daybreak Saturday to commemorate the 92nd anniversary of the tragedy.
The quake struck at 5:12 a.m. and lasted for less than a minute but touched off fires that burned for three days, roaring across nearly 500 city blocks. The official death toll was 478, but historians now say the number may have been as high as 3,000.
Grapengeter's family lost everything but their lives and survived in the streets in the following days, waiting in long lines for food. Dinner usually consisted of bread and corned beef from cans.
"We had flour sacks and pillow cases. They would just throw things in there and you never knew what you were going to get," she said.
Ena Soldavini also saw her family home crumble. But her parents rebuilt it in less than five years.
"It was quite an experience for my family, I think, and the way they came out of it. By 1910, they were on their feet in the same spot," she said.
They were among quake survivors who gathered for lunch Friday at John's Grill, temporarily renamed the "Shake and Bake" for the event.
Among the group were several "earthquake babies" conceived in the difficult days following the disaster.
"They lost everything in the earthquake. They stayed in a tent in Golden Gate Park. And I'm the result," said Norma Norwood, 91.
Josephine Burke was five days old when the ground shook that early morning in 1906. She was at home with her mother in San Rafael, 14 miles north of San Francisco. Disaster struck hard there, too.
"Our chimney fell down on me. In those days, they had to build a whole new city, and these people built it," Ms. Burke said, looking around the room. "And they put it together with their hands and their souls."
Written by Ron Harris
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