As city marks 1906 quake, fears focus on next 'Big One'
SAN FRANCISCO -- City Homeland Security chief AnnMarie Conroy's great-great grandmother, Brigid Grealish Conroy, died in the fires that engulfed San Francisco 100 years ago, including the Rincon Hill section, where she had been baby-sitting that fateful spring morning.
''She didn't have the luck of the Irish that day," said Conroy, relating the story of the Great Earthquake of 1906, which killed 3,000 people and left hundreds of thousands homeless.
But as the city by the bay this week marks the 100th anniversary of what had once been the worst disaster in American history, Conroy is thinking more about the next big quake -- an event specialists give 2 out of 3 odds over the next 30 years.
After the tragedies of Sept. 11, 2001, and Hurricane Katrina, San Francisco and its neighbors are viewing their past as prologue: With 7 million residents sitting on seven active faults, including the famous San Andreas and the more immediately threatening Hayward fault, the commemoration of 1906 is serving as a catalyst for the region's -- and the country's -- ongoing struggle to prepare for disasters.
San Francisco's mayor, Gavin Newsom, has taken the occasion to remind residents that they cannot expect outside assistance for at least three days after an earthquake -- a comment taken by some people as a shot at the Bush administration at a time when Democrats nationally are making homeland security the centerpiece of their 2006 campaigns.
The federal Department of Homeland Security is seizing on the occasion to test Newsom and his staff's preparedness for a series of possible disasters, including an earthquake, the explosion of a ''dirty bomb," and a flu pandemic.
Conroy's office -- which features memorabilia from the 1906 quake that killed her great-great grandmother -- is taking the opportunity to educate the public about how to cope with emergency conditions -- and to unveil systems to minimize the fallout from the next big quake.
Conroy's office has developed a first-of-its-kind computer database, set to go online later this month, that identifies every school, church, gymnasium, and other potential shelter in San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, down to how many toilets, showers, and generators each hold -- and, of course, their seismic strength.
Officials have recruited 15,000 volunteers for neighborhood response teams to get the injured off the streets and to administer first-aid. Local governments have joined with retailers to remind residents of the steps to prepare for an earthquake, while a website, www.72hours.org, provides a how-to survival guide. The city has created an emergency water distribution plan, including 2,000-gallon water balloons and a network of hydrants marked by blue drops that can provide potable drinking water.
All have been put in place with 1906 in mind. And as stories about the quake are retold in preparation for the centennial, even longtime residents are taking special note.
In less than a minute in the predawn of April 18, 1906, the San Andreas fault ruptured along nearly 300 miles, setting off the 7.8-magnitude quake, the largest ever in an urban area. (By comparison, the 1989 Loma Prieta quake that killed 60 people and toppled highway overpasses in the Bay Area packed just 3 percent of the energy.)
The 1906 calamity was immediately apparent. Major General Frederick Funston, the senior military officer on the scene, wrote in Harper's Weekly that as he set out ''walking down California [Street] to Sansome [Street], I found that several fires were burning fiercely and that the city Fire Department was helpless, owing to water mains having been shattered by the earthquake. I realized then that a conflagration was inevitable and that the city would not be able to maintain the fire lines and protect public and private property over the great area affected."
Debate still rages over whether Funston, who ordered buildings dynamited so that the fire would not spread, helped stave off more disaster or fanned the flames. The wide boulevards of Geary and Van Ness today were designed to serve as natural firebreaks.
All told, 28,000 buildings were destroyed -- leveling 4.1 square miles -- and nearly 250,000 people were put out in the street.
James W. Ward, president of the Board of Health, quickly warned survivors not to place their refuse in the streets and to dig trenches to dispose of human waste. Still, many survivors died of cholera and other diseases.
There was also a breakdown of social order. By the end of the month, the San Francisco Chronicle blared in a headline: ''Looters are driven out by the troops." Another story reported that about 150 members of the California National Guard, sent to quell the disturbances, were also looting.
As in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina last year, class and ethnic divisions were rampant, as upscale neighborhoods fared better than the destitute. San Francisco's large Asian population was hustled from one camp to another until President Theodore Roosevelt ordered that Asians be treated like all other evacuees.
A series of anniversary events and a celebration headlined ''San Francisco Rising" will peak this week when 100,000 people are expected to gather at exactly 5:12 a.m. Tuesday for a moment of silence at Lotta's Fountain on Market Street, which survived the 1906 quake and served as a meeting point for survivors.
But ultimately, the lesson San Franciscans draw from the 1906 disaster and the more recent calamities such as Katrina, is that despite assurances from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, they will be on their own for at least a few days when disaster strikes again -- possibly much longer.
FEMA, however, maintains that earthquake response is one of its strongest suits.
''FEMA personnel have a wealth of earthquake-related experience," Karen Armes, director of FEMA's Region IX, said in a March 23 bulletin aimed at the Bay Area. She urged citizens that ''when an earthquake does occur, duck, cover, and hold on. Forget about standing in a doorway. Get under a sturdy desk, table, or bench, or against an inside wall."
Still, in the view of average citizens and emergency response personnel, FEMA will not determine the city's fate after a major earthquake.
''We have seen what happened in New Orleans," said Sai Gebrezjhi, 58, a taxi driver who moved to the city from Sudan 23 years ago. ''Is that going to happen here? I hope not. We had a chance to learn."
The father of three, who says he has supplies ready and replaces his medicines every year, added, ''I think a lot of us are ready, but not all."
Conroy, the city's emergency coordinator, said, ''Two of the biggest lessons of Hurricane Katrina for the locals are the need for a more regional response in the first 72 hours and also the need for citizens' preparedness."
Captain James J. Lee, who is in charge of equipment for the San Francisco Fire Department, agrees. He credits the federal government with helping the city improve its readiness after the Sept. 11 attacks, but said the federal assistance goes only so far.
''They fund a small percentage of personnel to get you ramped up, but they'd rather buy stuff, not spend money on training," Lee said in an interview.
Enlisting average citizens will prove critical, he added. ''People are more than happy to help," he said. ''You just have to be serious about it."
Indeed, California's efforts to engage ordinary citizens, including blanketing the Bay Area this month with a new earthquake handbook, may be the state's most useful lesson for the rest of the country, said Kathleen Tierney, director of the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder, who has done extensive surveys in the Bay Area.
But the city's emergency personnel aren't taking any chances.
They plan to simulate a major earthquake on the morning of April 19 to flex their response plans. Later in the day, the US Homeland Security Department will conduct its test of Newsom's decision-making in the event of a crisis.
''I don't think San Francisco will ever be naïve enough to think we're ever ready," said Gregory Suhr, deputy chief of the San Francisco Police Department, as guests sipped ''Earthquake" wine at a reception in City Hall last week. ''But we have been preparing as if it will happen tomorrow."
Bryan Bender can be reached at bender@globe.com. 