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Early
in the morning of April 18, 1906, I was awakened by a tremendous
shock. I jumped out of bed just in time to see my mother (Jennie
Duffy) rush across the room to grab a lighted kerosene lamp that was
doing a tap dance on the table. She rescued it just in time, for if
it had fallen to the floor it would have set the house on fire.
I
called, "Mom, what is it?" She said, "Its an
earthquake." Dad (William J. Duffy, Sr.) came rushing out of the
bedroom where he was dressing. He said excitedly, "Look at the
mountain. See if Mount Tamalpais is erupting." I ran to the back
window to view the mountain. It was calm and clear as usual. I looked
out at the bay. The water was quite choppy, but there was no wind.
There was a family below our house where three girls lived. I saw
them run out into the yard in their nightgowns. They kneeled down in
the garden and started to pray.
Loud
shouting came from within the prison. The thousands of prisoners
were locked in cells in buildings built of brick and stone. They
expected the buildings to collapse and wanted to get out of the
cells. The earthquake lasted less than a minute, but to those who
experienced it, it was undoubtedly the longest minute of their lives.
Damage
to buildings at San Quentin was minor, and even the stone and brick
buildings of the prison withstood the shock very well. In the
residential area a few brick chimneys were twisted and a few water
mains broken.
Rumors
started coming in over telegraph, lasting all that day and the next.
Word came that Santa Rosa was completely destroyed and San Jose was
in shambles. San Francisco was on fire and hundreds of people were
killed by collapsing buildings. New York City had sunken into the
Atlantic Ocean. Some of these rumors were true. Santa Rosa was badly
damaged, as was San Jose. San Francisco was in flames and with water
mains broken, it was impossible to stop the hundreds of fires that
had broken out. The earthquake was on the San Andreas fault, and was
thus localized. The San Francisco fires were completely out of
control and many buildings had collapsed. The New York rumor proved
to be false, obviously.
Transportation
across the bay was intermittent and many refugees were trying to get
out of San Francisco. Families, with what few things they could
salvage, went west to Golden Gate Park. The Army at the Presidio was
alerted and set up tents in the park.
The
militia was called out and the city was placed under martial law to
prevent looting of stores and homes. Late on the first day our
sister, Ethel, and her husband, John Turner, who were living in San
Francisco at the time, got to the ferry and made their way to San
Quentin. Ethel had married John Kenneth Turner. Their apartment was
burned the first day of the fire. It was on Market Street.
Firemen
and soldiers dynamited many buildings in an effort to keep the
flames from leaping across streets. Whole blocks were lowered in this
manner. We at San Quentin could see the smoke from the fire and a red
sky at night, but we wanted a better look, so some of us got a row
boat and rowed across the bay to Paradise Cove and then walked to the
top of the hill where we could look across to the fire in San
Francisco. Vast walls of flame, reaching high in the sky was the
horizon that we saw. At night this was spectacular.
On
the third day, with great efforts being made to stop the spread of
the fire westward, the wind shifted and the fire was brought under
control. But the main part of San Francisco, particularly the
business section, was a complete ruin.
The
attitude of the people was marvelous. They were ready to pitch in
and start rebuilding, even before the sidewalks cooled off.
"These are the Damndest, Finest, Most Precious Ruins you can
find anywhere" was the general attitude.
Author:
William J. Duffy, Jr.
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