Dude, I was IN San Francisco when this happened. Didn't feel a fucking thing.
It happened at 4 A.M. in the morning. Were you awake at that time?
I slept right through it to the South in San Jose, Ca.
*******
I just have to comment about the title of God's wrath.
S.F. might be one of the most blatant, anti-Christian cities in terms of it's governmental, and civil policies, but most of the big cities of this nation are not much further behind.
The San Andreas fault and it's subsidiary faults, ie. the Hayward fault system that is an off-shoot of the San Andrea have been around and active in the S.F. bay area for millions of years. This way before, European settlers came here, and way before S.F. became the type of city it is today in terms of culture, and politics.
In April 1906 when the San Andreas ripped like it hasn't since, San Francisco was a rough city to live in. It had it's wealthy sectors of folks who had prospered very well in the "49" gold rush, it's bankers such as the Crockers, and it's railroad owners too. It was a port city, bussleing with Asian immigrants, and was probably one of the most multi-cultural cities in the U.S. at the time.
It also was a city that lived by harsh vigilante justice, that was absolutely foreign to the Eastern U.S. cities. Liberalism was the anti-thesis of San Francisco politics for years, until the 1960's, and the ensueing flower generation, and the Vietnam war.
San Francisco in even the 60's was a "dress-up" city. You didn't even dine in China Town without a suit and tie, and women war nice evening dresses.
Why the politics of S.F. changed so drastically, and it bacame such a bastion of liberalism and the drug culture that gradually spread across the country. I just don't know.
I still remember in the 1950's in our San Jose, California public school, saying "grace" before we ate our cafeteria meals.
Our public school cafeteria even served fish sticks on Fridays for all the Catholic kids. Catholic kids in our public schools were also excused to attend their Palm Sunday services at their churches. Us non-Catholic kids would wonder at the black smudges of palm ash, on our classmate's forheads that was applied by the priest upon them.
We did the Pledge of Allegiance and the Jehovah's Witness kids would stand and not cover their heart or say the pledge as part of their religion. No one castigated them, but us kids would ask them why. They were still our classmates, and they weren't singled-out.
It seems that stigmas are oftem propogated by our adults or parents upon us and for us kids. They are the ones that come down to PTA meetings pounding their fists against things that us kids didn't even realize was a problem.
Seems that these pro-activist college students in the bay area back in the 60's-70's, when becoming parents themselves, continued to turn the status quo upside down for the sake of "something"?
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Anyway, S.F. wasn't always the city it is now. It's wild and anti-conservative politics are of recent vintage.
This city supported the WW2 in massive scale. San Francisco built, and repaired war ships and transport ships for the war effort with such gusto and patriotism, like no other major city in the U.S...
I just scratch my head when I see it now and remember it before and also my now passed-on parent's recollections of the city, that by no means resemble today's.
It was always a wild and wooly city, but it was a cohesive, patriotic, America-first city.
It just happens to have been built by one of the most active fault zones in the world, where the North American crustal plate is colliding with the Pacific ocean basin plate.
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Actually the greatest recorded Earthquake in U.S. history ocurred in the Midwest on the
New Madrid Fault back in the 1700's. If the Midwest had been populated as it is today, there would have been devastation and loss of human life beyond imagine, as cities like St. Louis, Omaha, Kansas City, Chicago, etcl would have been leveled.
"
Introduction to the New Madrid
Seismic Zone
The New Madrid Seismic zone lies within the central Mississippi Valley, extending from northeast Arkansas, through southeast Missouri, western Tennessee, western Kentucky to southern Illinois. Historically, this area has been the site of some of the largest earthquakes in North America. Between 1811 and 1812, 4 catastrophic earthquakes, with magnitude estimates greater than 7.0, occurred during a 3-month period. Hundreds of aftershocks followed over a period of several years. The largest earthquakes to have occurred since then were on January 4, 1843 and October 31, 1895 with magnitude estimates of 6.0 and 6.2 respectively. In addition to these events, seven events of magnitude >= 5.0 have occurred in the area. Instruments were installed in and around this area in 1974 to closely monitor seismic activity. Since then, more than 4000 earthquakes have been located, most of which are too small to be felt. On average one earthquake per year will be large enough to be felt in the area.
The New Madrid seismic zone is so named because the town of New Madrid, Missouri was the closest settlement to the epicenters of the 1811-1812 quakes. At that time, St. Louis and other major cities in the central U.S. were sparsely settled. At least 3 of the series of earthquakes were felt throughout much of the U.S. and as far away as Quebec. The potential for the recurrence of such earthquakes and their impact today on densely populated cities in and around the seismic zone, has generated much research devoted to understanding earthquakes. By closely monitoring the earthquake activity, scientists can hope to understand their causes, recurrence rates, ground motion and disaster mitigation. The probability for an earthquake of magnitude 6.0 or greater is significant in the near future, with a 50% chance by the year 2000 and a 90% chance by the year 2040. A quake with a magnitude equal to that of the 1811- 1812 quakes could result in great loss of life and property damage in the billions of dollars. Scientists believe we could be overdue for a large earthquake and through research and public awareness may be able to prevent such losses. "
