1906 — April 18, Earthquake, Fire, Landslides, San Francisco & vicinity, CA   –3,000-5,000

Compiled by B. Wayne Blanchard, Dec 2008, modified May 2012 and Jan 2020, for website: Deadliest American Disasters and Large-Loss-Of-Life Events. https://www.usdeadlyevents.com/

 

—    6,000  Lloyd’s. “San Francisco Earthquake. Lloyd’s and…[SF] earthquake 1906 (high est.).^[1]

—    5,000  Fradkin P. L. The Great Earthquake and Firestorms of 1906. 2005, 191 (high est.)^[2]

—    5,000  Townsend. The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina: Lessons Learned. 2006, Table 1.2.[3]

—    3,188  Centre for Research…Epidemiology of Disasters. EM DAT Database (quake & fire)

—    3,000  Fradkin P. L. The Great Earthquake and Firestorms of 1906. 2005, 191 (low est.).

—    3,000  Gunn. “San Francisco, California, Earthquake,” Ch. 57 in Encyclopedia of Disasters.

—  >3,000  Hansen, Gladys, and Emmet Condon. Denial of Disaster.  San Francisco, CA. 1989.

—  >3,000  Lloyd’s. “Earthquake:  Californian Risks.”  11-11-2008.

—  ~3,000  Lloyd’s. “San Francisco Earthquake. Lloyd’s and the [SF] earthquake, 1906.”^[4]

—    3,000  Lloyd’s Market 2006 (low est.)

—  ~3,000  Solnit, Rebecca. A Paradise Built In Hell. 2009, p. 15.

—    3,000  Spignesi Stephen J. The 100 Greatest Disasters of All Time. 2007, p. 140.

—    3,000  Steinberg, Ted. “Smoke and Mirrors…” Ch 4 in Biel, American Disasters. 2001, 105.

—  >3,000  USGS. Casualties and damage after the 1906 Earthquake (webpage).[5]

—  ~3,000  USGS. Deaths in U.S. from Earthquakes.  2008

—    3,000  USGS. Historic Earthquakes:  San Francisco, California, 1906 94 18 13:12:21 UTC.

—  >3,000  Wells. “Lloyd’s sees 1906 [SF quake]…turning point.” Insurance Journal, 5-8-2006.

—    2,000  Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters. EM DAT. (earthquake)

—    1,188  Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters. EM DAT. (fire)

–700-800  NOAA. A Study of Earthquake Losses in the San Francisco Bay Area…  1972.

—       700  Sanders, D.E.A. The Management of Losses Arising from Extreme Events.  2002, 139.

—       700  NOAA, Nat. Geophysical Data Center. Significant Earthquake Database.  (quake)

—       503  Drabek, Thomas E. The Human Side of Disaster.  CRC Press, 2010, 29.

—       500  Smith, Roger. Catastrophes and Disasters. 1992, p. 48.^[6]

—       498  Greely, A. W. “Special Report…Relief Operations…San Francisco…” 1906.

—       400  Walker, John. Disasters. Chicago: Follett Publishing Co., 1973, p. 13.

—       300  Metcalf, Sec., Dept. of Commerce, Statement in Insurance Engineering 4-26-1906.

 

–11  Land/mudslides.  Highland/Schuster. Significant Landslide Events…[US]. USGS, 2003, 6.

 

Narrative Information

Insurance Engineering: “San Francisco, the wooden metropolis of the Pacific Coast and ninth largest city in the United States, which had until recently ‘violated all underwriting traditions and precedent by not burning up,’ is in ruins.  The destruction was caused by earthquake and fire, chiefly fire.

 

“Practically the entire business portion of the city is gone…and serious damage has been done in the residential sections.

 

“The property loss by fire will probably exceed $175,000,000…From these figures, it will be seen that the disaster will rank as the world’s greatest fire in modern times….Apparently reliable reports say positively that the damage done by the earthquake shocks was slight.  The greatest damage was caused by fire.

 

“Chief D. J. Sullivan of the fire department was fatally injured in the California Hotel, in which he was sleeping.  That building partly collapsed from one of the first shocks….

 

“The grave consequences of this disaster, affecting deeply Federal, interstate, State, commercial and social interests, prompted the United States Government to send a representative to make an official report. This representative, the Hon. V. H. Metcalf, Secretary of the Department of Commerce and Labor, reported April 26 as follows:

 

Fort Mason, San Francisco, April 26. To the President, White House, Washington, D. C.

 

DEAR SIR : Have practically completed inspection of the ruined districts. I do not believe the loss of life will be as great as was anticipated.

 

In my judgment it will be impossible to determine the exact number of deaths, but conservative estimates place the number at not to exceed 300. There are about 1,000 sufferers in local hospitals, and probably not over 400 are seriously injured. No necessity exists at the present time for nurses or doctors, and they should not be sent except on recommendation of Gen. Greely or Dr. Devine.

 

As regards industrial and commercial losses, the con­ditions are appalling. Figures and distances convey slight conception of realities. Not only have the business and industrial houses and establishments of one-half million people disappeared, leaving them destitute financially and their means of livelihood temporarily gone, but the com­plicated system of transportation, indispensable to the daily comfort and interests of the half-million of people, has been almost totally destroyed. The hilly configuration of San Francisco made movements by street railway almost indispensable.

 

Over the city’s area of twenty-five square miles the entire system of railway was damaged or destroyed and has not as yet been operated. The scanty supply of animals and carriages remaining after the fire has been largely impressed into civil and military service in order to prevent starvation. The entire telegraphic and telephonic systems were de­stroyed, making communication impossible.

 

Practically every municipal building is destroyed, forcing the city officials into scanty quarters, necessarily situated in localities difficult of access, owing to distances and lack of transportation. Three hundred thousand people were rend­ered homeless and their ordinary methods for providing themselves with food and clothing and shelter being entirely destroyed, their feeding and sheltering demanded extraor­dinary action and engrossed the attention of every one as soon as the ravages of fire were checked

 

Remedial methods, adopted and prosecuted with great efficiency, have relieved this unprecedented disaster. The citizens’ committee, appointed by Mayor Schmitz, is com­posed of the ablest business men of the city, and their efforts, united and harmonious to an astonishing degree, speedily brought order out of chaos and introduced systems of relief which have accomplished wonders. The efforts of the Mayor and municipal officers, of the citizens’ committee and of the regular army and of the State Guard of California have been practically as efficient as though the separate authorities were under one head. Neither friction nor reflec­tion has at any time appeared, and the work of relief has proceeded harmoniously, continuously and efficiently.

 

The street railway system is rapidly approaching such a state of repair as to promise partial renewal of operation very soon. The signal corps has established a military sys­tem of telegraphic and telephonic lines connecting the head­quarters of the army and of the Mayor, which are at Fort Mason, with the Mint, Hall of Justice, district headquarters, the ferry and every point of special importance. Without this system communication about the city would have been impossible, and with the national and State authorities would have been greatly delayed.

 

Gen. Greely, returning from leave, resumed command Sunday evening, and commends in the highest terms the efficient, and tireless efforts of Gen. Funston, whose orders and action inspired the army to most efficient action in stay­ing the progress of the flames and saving the remnant of the city. Gen. Greely’s opinion is concurred in by the Mayor and the citizens’ committee.

 

Most threatening conditions existed as regards the water supply, but extraordinary efforts on the part of the water company have remedied the situation, which is improving from day to day, so that physical suffering from lack of water is impossible, although it cannot be delivered in suffi­cient quantities for proper sanitation. I am assured by Gen. Greely and others that the methods of relief and restoration were so efficient that no person has suffered from lack of food, water or shelter.

 

The question of sanitation is receiving special attention. The entire city is inspected daily by four trained mounted officers, who report regularly the situation and necessities. The fortifications are practically uninjured. Considerable damage was done to the military buildings at the Presidio and on Angel Island. Reports indicate that there was no damage to the buildings on Alcatraz Island.

 

The army warehouses in the city were entirely destroyed. The Mint and Appraisers’ buildings are practically intact. The Sub-Treasury is entirely destroyed. Opinions differ as to the extent of injuries to the Post Office. It is not believed any vaults in the Sub-Treasury or any banking institution in the city have suffered any material damage.

 

It is impossible to give an accurate estimate of the cost of repairs to public buildings, but from personal inspection of the building and from figures given me by competent builders I should say that the Appraiser’s building would cost for repairs about $1,000; Mint, $15,000; and the Post Office building not to exceed $500,000. Dr. Devine arrived Tues­day and co-operative action is already initiated, insuring harmony between the citizens’ committee, the Red Cross agents and the military authorities as to the line of action to be followed in the future.

 

Gen. Greely has agreed in writing to take over, as asked by the Mayor, the citizens’ committee and Dr. Devine, the responsibility of handling the relief supplies and the delivery, under suitable regulations, to the needy and destitute. It is reported to me that no discrimination of any kind has been shown against any one on account of race or color. The spirit is to assist the suffering whoever they may be. Cases of violence and crime have been exceedingly rare.

 

The health of the city is remarkably good, everything considered. Stories regarding pestilence and epidemics are destitute of foundation. Every care is being taken to pre­vent epidemics or extended sickness in the future, especially by providing against contamination of water supply and for the proper disposal of refuse of all kinds.

 

At the meeting of the citizens’ committee this morning, at which were present Gov. Pardee, Mayor Schmitz, Dr. Devine, Gens. Greely and Funston and other officers of the army, it was determined to move the Chinese to the military reservation at the Presidio, where they will be under the direction and supervision of the army, and where especial attention can be paid to matters of sanitation.

 

The Chinese Consul called on me to-day, and when in­formed of this arrangement expressed his gratification. I shall visit the Chinese camps this afternoon for the purpose of ascertaining their exact condition from personal inspec­tion and examination.

 

It is almost impossible to describe the ruin wrought by the earthquake and especially by the conflagration. The conflagration was due entirely to the absolute lack of water supply. The people, however, are confident and hopeful for the future and have not in any sense lost their courage. They feel under deep obligation to you and the National Government for the prompt and efficient assistance rendered them.

 

I strongly urge that Congress at once appropriate suffi­cient money to repair the damage to the public buildings and for the building of another Sub-Treasury in place of the one destroyed. I shall report to you later the damage caused in other sections of the State.

 

1. H. METCALF.

 

“….The earthquake shocks broke water pipes in the streets and several fires started at about the same time in the ruins of collapsed buildings, both of which made the public fire department helpless…”  (Insurance Engineering. “San Francisco in Ruins,” Vol. 11, No. 5, May 1906, pp. 395-402.)

….

 

“Under date of April 29, Chief Inspector F. H. Porter of the Fire Underwriters’ Inspection Bureau, located at San Francisco, makes the accompanying brief report, which has been transmitted by the National Fire Protection Association:

 

“Except that the loss of life is exaggerated, no report that you may have can be worse than the reality. At this date, ten days after the fire, we are without water to protect what is left of San Francisco (one tap in each block for domestic supply only), without a fire alarm system, have neither power nor light, can cook only in the street, are without transporta­tion and still under martial law.

 

“The necessity for directing every energy to the preven­tion of the use of fire in the remaining buildings, and for in­specting as rapidly as possible the remaining kitchen chim­neys so as to get people off the streets when water becomes available, will prevent any systematic personal investigation of the effects of the earthquake and fire, jointly or severally. It, however, is apparent that the protected steel frame build­ings suffered but trifling damage from the earthquake, and the wooden buildings suffered little unless very old. The buildings of fireproof construction burned very slowly and where the top floors and trim were not of wood suffered com­paratively small damage.

 

“No building of the protected steel class with wood top floors, wood frames and sashes, and wood trim has any chance of withstanding a general conflagration with less than seventy per cent damage.

 

“The earthquake started at once a large number of fires in the business section and at the same time destroyed the large water mains supplying the reservoirs. The supply in the reservoirs and street mains appears to have been dissi­pated by the simultaneous breaking of thousands of building services as well as by damage to street mains, which latter can as yet be only guessed at. At this date there is appar­ently sufficient water coming into the city for all, but with the burned district shut off no water accumulates in the res­ervoirs and there is but little in the street mains in some sec­tions of the city and none in others. While an independent water supply for fire purposes only would not have suffered from broken service connections, it is impossible at this writ­ing to say whether or not such mains would have retained efficiency.

 

“The stopping of this fire in the best residence section at a wide boulevard with only dynamite and a trifle of water (all buildings frame on boulevard), shows the value of such a wide street. We hope to get in several in the rebuilding of the burned district.”

 

(Insurance Engineering.  “San Francisco in Ruins,” Vol. 11, No. 5, May 1906, pp. 408-.409)

 

“In planning for another San Francisco, shall the present or the future be considered? Will the city try to avoid another disaster from fire, or will the city simply provide what appear to be the immediate needs — shelter for the municipal depart­ments and for business houses?

 

Insurance Engineering is not unmindful of the fact that the first cost of rebuilding of fire-resistive construction would be greater than rebuilding along the old lines — the old San Francisco was 90 per cent wood — but what about the investment represented by the capital put into buildings that cannot be de­stroyed by ordinary fires?

 

“The present is an opportunity that should not be lost for San Francisco to avoid certain vital mistakes made in the past.  These features of the new city should be carefully considered at once:

 

Width and paving of streets.

Building laws and enforcement.

Water supply.

Fire department.

Fire alarm system.

Fire department auxiliaries.

Explosives and inflammables.

Electricity.

Special fire protection in congested value districts.

 

“The spreading of fires is due to these causes: Combustible or weak walls; combustible or weak roofs; lack of parapeted walls; wooden cornices, superstructures, awnings, signs, etc wooden bridges connecting buildings; combustible or weak di­vision walls; concealed spaces in division walls; inflammable interior surfaces (varnished, oiled or painted wood, papier mache, lincrusta walton, etc.); combustible or weak parti­tions; concealed spaces in partitions; combustible or weak floors; concealed spaces in floors; combustible floor supports; unprotected metallic floor supports; combustible ceilings; concealed spaces in ceilings; concealed spaces in roofs; unprotect­ed windows; unprotected doorways; unprotected skylights; open stairways; open elevator shafts; open hoistways; open dumbwaiter shafts; chutes without doors at openings; belt and shaft openings.

 

Conflagrations (fires involving three buildings or more) are due chiefly to these causes: Generally poor construction of buildings; unprotected exposing window openings; unprotect­ed communications between buildings; narrow streets; lack of proper building laws; non-enforcement of building laws; lack of fire limits.”  (Insurance Engineering.  “San Francisco in Ruins,” Vol. 11, No. 5, May 1906, pp. 410 & 412)

 

“There are no real reinforced concrete buildings in San Francisco because there has always been objection on the part of the labor unions.” (Insurance Engineering, Vol. 11, N5, May 1906, 420.)

 

From Journal of Commerce (NY) Editorial:

 

A problem peculiar to San Francisco will be presented by the wiping out of Chinatown, whose mixture of barbaric and squalid picturesqueness there is no desire to have restored. It is a question whether Chinatown and ghettos in American cities can be avoided with due consideration for certain alien elements in their population which can­not or will not assimilate with the rest. Altogether San Francisco has before it a problem and a task that would be ap­palling but for the courage, energy and hopefulness of the people, and the help to be derived from the resources and ad­vantages of the country as a whole, and the co-operation of all its economic forces In the repair of places that are laid waste.  (Quoted in:  Insurance Engineering, Vol. 11, N5, May 1906, 459.)

 

From New York Times Editorial:

 

The gist of the difficulty in San Francisco is how to replace with fireproof buildings the vast number that were cheaply built of wood and served as fuel for the con­flagration before which many of the great buildings and multitudes of the more expensive dwellings went down helplessly. If the highly inflammable structures crowded in great masses over extended sections of the town cannot thus be replaced and at a feasible cost. then the renewal of the awful risk is as certain as anything can be. For this work there is needed some material that Is at once substantially indestructible by fire and sufficiently inexpensive. (Quoted in:  Insurance Engineering, Vol. 11, N5, May 1906, 460.)

 

From New York Sun Editorial:

 

There seems to be no doubt that more people have been rendered homeless in San Francisco than have ever before been deprived of shelter by a conflagra­tion. with the possible exception of the burning of Rome….

 

As for the value of the property de­stroyed, no data handed down concerning other earthquakes or conflagrations ap­proximate the figures tentatively put for­ward for San Francisco. The total value of the buildings burned in the great fire of London — most of them were small wooden houses — fell short of $54,000 000. The loss incurred by the burning of Mos­cow in 1812 has been placed at 150,000,­000. The value of the buildings blown up or set on fire in Paris by Communist in­cendiaries in May, 1871, is set at $160,000,000. The loss caused by the Chicago fire in 1871 has been estimated at $195,000,000.

 

None of these figures are comparable with those indicated by the San Fran­cisco catastrophe, which from a pecuni­ary point of view seems to have been the most destructive known to history. The total assessed valuation of taxable prop­erty in that city, real and personal, was a little more than $524.000,000. which was presumed to be about 70 per cent. of the actual value. If half of the actual aggregate value has been annihilated the loss would be about $875,000,000.  (Quoted in: Insurance Engineering, Vol. 11, N5, May 1906, 461.)

 

From New Haven Leader (CN):

 

The San Francisco calamity is not without Its value in a broad sense, how­ever much we may regret the suffering and losses which have come upon the people of this unfortunate city.

 

Political economists will read many lessons — some immediate, some remote — in the experience of an Francisco; but one has already been writ plain and definite. Playing with fire is expensive, and cities which build with wood, ig­noring all conditions of safety, are invit­ing conflagration, are sure in the end to pay the penalty. (Quoted in: Insurance Engineering, Vol. 11, N5, May 1906, 461.)

 

From the Milwaukee Evening Wisconsin:

 

The more the San Francisco calamity is studied, the smaller becomes the promi­nence of the earthquake as the ultimate cause of disaster and the larger looms the fire. Of course the earthquake start­ed the blaze and aggravated the difficulty of controlling it. The earthquake crossed electric wires, and broke gas-pipes, and made stoves and furnaces a source of danger instead of a source of comfortable utility. The earthquake wrecked the water mains and made the hydrants un­available for the purpose of putting out the fires, so that fire engines, when they arrived at points of danger, were useless. But the primary condition which made the conflagration possible, and even in­evitable, under the circumstances, was the character of the construction of the city. The San Francisco which Is now no more was for the most part a flagrant illustration of the truth of the saying that Americans build to burn.

 

(Quoted in: Insurance Engineering, V11, N5, May 1906, 464.)

 

Insurance Engineering: “The more the San Francisco fire disaster is studied the more apparent it becomes that the total loss has been greatly underestimated, the that the question of rebuilding the city is a for more serious problem than was at first supposed.  The latest estimates of the property loss, based on more thorough examinations than were possible until order had been restored, put the total at $300,000,000.  Probably not less than 50,000 buildings were destroyed.  The burned area is more than twice as large as that of the Chicago conflagration of 1871.” (Insurance Engineering, “What Shall We do for Credit?” V. 12, N. 1, July 1906, p. 3.)

 

Steinberg: “The 1906 earthquake (M7.7) occurred along the San Andreas fault (the most visible strike-slip fault in the world) and resulted in a rupture of the earth’s surface that extended more than 250 miles.  Although felt as far south as Los Angeles, as far north as southern Oregon, and as far east as central Nevada, the earthquake is still commonly understood as exclusively a San Francisco calamity.  In fact, however, the jolt caused extensive damage throughout northern California.

 

“The shock occurred a little after 5 A.M. and lasted about one minute.  Subsequently, fires erupted in San Francisco as electrical wires were severed and gas mains exploded. The fires burned for three days over an area of almost five square miles.  Unable to stem the blaze because underground water mains had been damaged in the seismic jolt, the fire department stood by as more than 28,000 commercial and residential buildings succumbed to the flames.  Annihilated were the business district, vast parts of the factory and entertainment areas, and the major hotels and restaurants, as well as nearly all of the city’s most important buildings.  Exactly how many people died remains unclear…but three thousand is by no means far-fetched.”  (Steinberg 2001, 105)

 

Russell Sage Foundation: In 1913 Survey Associates, Inc. published the San Francisco Relief Survey, compiled by the Russell Sage Foundation (510 pages). The June 28, 1913 edition of the Survey Associates weekly publication, The Survey (Vol. XXX, No, 13, pp. 435-436), provides a review by  John F. Moors, reproduced below.

 

“The San Francisco Relief Survey contains the results of a study carried on during several years under the auspices of the Russell Sage Foundation.  When the study was undertaken the field was divided under six topics:  Organizing the Force and Emergency Methods, Rehabilitation, Business Rehabilitation, Housing Rehabilitation, Relief Work of the Associated Charities (after June, 1907), and Care of the Aged and Infirm.  Each of these divisions was placed in the hands of an experienced investigator who had been closely associated with the relief work.

 

“The chief aim of the study was to preserve for the guidance of workers in future disasters, as well as of those daily engaged in administering relief measures, a record of the lessons learned and the results attained in this colossal relief undertaking.

 

“The plan has been well carried out.  The volume gives an authentic and illuminating description not only of the relief measures which followed the earthquake of April 18, 1906, and the succeeding conflagration, but of the methods pursued by a force of experts, co-operating with public-spirited citizens, in dealing with the great problem of permanent rehabilitation.

 

“The burned area comprised ‘the very heart and vitals of the city’. The number of buildings destroyed was 28,188, the number of persons made homeless about 200,000.  The property loss has been estimated at $500,000,000, of which only $200,000,000 is believed to have been collected from the insurance companies.

 

“The seriousness of the situation following the disaster was enhanced by the comparative isolation of the city and by complete industrial paralysis.  Not a mercantile establishment remained open.  There was no water; not a pound of beef or a loaf of bread could be bought; no man or woman could earn a cent.  At first, haste was essential in securing and distributing supplies and confusion was inevitable.  No one knew what funds would be available or what would be needed.

 

“The first attempt at organization was made by the Mayor, Eugene E. Schmitz.  Hardly had the conflagration begun when he named a citizen’s committee of fifty persons.  This committee created a sub-committee, called the Finance Committee, with ex-Mayor James D. Phelan as chairman, bud did little else.  With the prompt arrival from New York of Edward T. Devine, all-important unification was sought, and the Finance Committee became the Finance Committee of Relief and Red Cross Funds, which in co-operation with the United States Army, soon gained a fairly complete control of the relief activities.

 

“The city was divided into seven sections, each in charge of an army officer and a civilian chairman.  Orderly distribution of relief thus became possible and the situation was sufficiently mastered to put into effect intelligent devices for reducing the vast numbers dependent on relief giving.  The daily rations ranged, April 25 to May 2 (inclusive), from 306,000 to 313,000.  By June 23 they or their equivalent at the hot-meal kitchens were reduced to 15,451.

 

“The reawakening of industry and the efforts of each stricken person to solve his own problems should be given first place in this record of achievement.  But a prompt, if faulty, registration, distribution of rations, gradually less frequent, the later introduction of hot-meal kitchens which were never popular – in place of the distribution of rations, and the rehabilitation work, were essential factors.

 

“Rehabilitation was proposed May 5, 1906 barely two weeks after the disaster, when chaos seemed likely to continue indefinitely, and became from that time on the all-important interest of the relief workers.  Altogether 20,241 families were assisted by the rehabilitation committees.  These families probably comprised nearly, if not quite, 100,000 persons.  As much as $500 each was given to 647 families.  Rehabilitation consisted of free or reduced rate transportation to other communities, gifts or loans of tools, re-establishment in trade, the building of modest houses, and the setting up of respectable people as lodging house keepers.

 

“The giving or loaning of tools enabled thousands of mechanics to resume self-supporting occupations.  In re-establishing people in trade or as lodging house keepers a sharp line was drawn between applicants with well-conceived and those with only vague plans.  Thus the destitute were spurred to develop intelligent solutions of their own problems.  On June 1, 1906, about 40,000 persons were living in tents and shacks in the public squares.  To house them was a prime necessity.  The working out of this problem is described in Part IV of the study.

 

“In 1908, two years after the disaster, 894 of the families who had been aided to start in business were revisited to obtain data on results for the Relief Survey.  Of these, 507 were still in business in which they had been started, 66 were employed in similar kinds of business, 65 in other kinds.  Of the remaining 256, 29 were known to have died, 31 to have left San Francisco, and 119 were not found.

 

“The taking over of relief work by the Associated Charities in June, 1907, one year after the disaster, when it became possible to place the remaining dependents on a more normal relief basis, was necessarily full of difficulty, but is shown to have been well carried out.  While the burden of dependency is shown to have been greater after than before the disaster, judicious use of the relief funds and improvements in organization made better results possible.

 

“An account of the care of the aged and infirm, and of the establishment of a permanent relief home forms a particularly interesting section of the study.

 

“Certain dangers to efficiency and success, due to interference from persons or organizations not closely in touch with the work, or from those who may be acting from ulterior motives, are well brought out.  For about two months after the disaster the work of relief had made extraordinary progress, considering the magnitude of the problem.  In June, a commission of three persons was created, to take complete charge.  On June 22, to the dismay of the relief givers, the balance of power on this commission was placed in the hands of an untrained politician.  The rehabilitation work was skillfully withheld from this commission and on August 1 the commission resigned.  At a most critical period (August, 1906) certain eastern funds were withheld because of ill-informed, reckless, and most unfortunate stories circulated with regard to relief work.  Moreover, those who controlled these funds never fully grasped the need of unification.  The Relief Survey says:  ‘It cannot be too plainly stated that there must be only one relief committee or corporation’.  Another lesson learned in the rehabilitation work was that the central committee should insist on its own standards of investigation and not accept as final the recommendations of clergymen and outside societies, however respectable.

 

Prior to June 1, 1909, the cash contributions sent to the central relief-giving body amounted to $9,116,944.11.  In addition, large sums were sent to other agencies and to individuals.  An appropriation of $2,500,000 was made by Congress.  Notwithstanding the sensational stories spread in the East of the maladministration of the relief funds, bot the local auditors and the auditor of the War Department found that the funds had been scrupulously and successfully guarded.

 

“The relief of San Francisco was a monumental achievement.  In spite of the suddenness of the almost overwhelming catastrophe, one problem after another was mastered.  The plans devised and put into effect should serve as an object lesson, if and when other similar disasters occur.”

 

(Sage, Russell Foundation. San Francisco Relief Survey, The Survey (Vol. XXX, No, 13, pp. 435-436), review by  John F. Moors)

 

Insurance Engineering: Under date of September 1, William F. Burbank, a director of the United States National Bank and vice-presi­dent of the State Savings and Com­mercial Bank, addressed the following communication to the New York Sun, bearing on the conditions existing in San Francisco immediately following the fire and the conditions now:

 

For many days following the disaster there was business paralysis. The es­sential things were food and shelter. A succession of legal holidays suspended the maturity of all obligations. Pastors of fashionable churches stood in the bread line, bondholders walked the streets without money to get accommo­dations, which, in many cases, even money could not buy. Lawyers were without books, doctors without medi­cines, surgeons without instruments. Out of this extraordinary chaos came, nev­ertheless, business activity. The one thought of business men was to get re­established somehow, somewhere. There was no longer a business centre. The hanks had headquarters in the homes of their presidents or cashiers. The insur­ance men were scattered on both sides of a wide bay.

 

Removing the debris takes an army of men and teams. The 25,000 men engaged in reconstruction are a grossly inadequate number. There is need for as many more. Wages are higher than in any other city on earth. The great work of reconstruction goes bravely on, hampered, however, by strikes and de­mands for increased wages. The prop­erty owner is  also forced to face a con­siderable advance in the price of all building materials.

 

From April 18 to June 4 every day was a legal holiday. Real business life, therefore, began the first week In June. Judge, then, the phoenix-like character of San Francisco when, ten weeks later. there were over 6.000 firms doing busi­ness in the burned district and 5,000 temporary buildings were under con­struction.

 

(Insurance Engineering.  Vol. 12, No. 3, Sep 1906, p. 252.)

 

Fitzpatrick: “The people put up the money for building, they direct in a general way what they want in the matter of space, etc., but, manifestly, they cannot be expected to also direct how build­ing should best be done to prevent its destruction by fire, or in the matter of its sanitation, heating, etc. That is the province of the architect.  He is the expert who is supposed to know all about and to control all those details. In the vernacular, it is “up to him.” How well he has acquitted himself of the task can best be illustrated by the fact that in all our country there are about 11,500,000 buildings; their value is something like $14,500,000,000, and of all that number there are but 4,000 whose authors even claim as at all fireproof.  In most cases that fireproofness is limited solely to the structural or skeleton part of the building. In all else they are about as flimsily constructed as is the most “ordinary” building. Of those 4,000, there is but one building, the Underwriters’ Laboratories in Chicago, where all the known methods of fireproofing are as­sembled under one roof, but one absolutely fireproof building in this great country of ours. The others of even the 4,000 are dam­ageable from 20 to 90 per cent of their cost value.

 

“It would seem that the average architects, or even the best of them, believe that by fireproofing the structural steel with hollow tile or with the various substitutes, concrete, etc., etc., some sort of occult transformation takes place and they are relieved by that one act from doing anything else in the fire­proofing line. If you don’t think that that is so glance at the illustrations and the several reports of the San Francisco fire. Had $10,000,000 more been spent originally on the buildings of that city, it would have meant the saving of at least $100,000,000 in the conflagration; or, to be more specific, if the architects of the thirty-five so-called fireproof buildings had exercised judgment enough to have spent $600,000 more on their construction, or rather shifted that amount from wonderful orna­ments and fine marbles to the greater essentials of fire prevention, they would have saved those buildings intact, buildings in which at least $9,000,000 destruction has been wrought. Simpler still, had the single precaution been taken of protecting the windows of those buildings, an additional ex­penditure or a shifting of not over $60,000, from frivolous or­namentation to that necessity, the interiors and contents of those buildings would have been intact today!

 

“With those facts clearly before me and a long list of others, the accumulation of twenty-odd years’ most intimate association with the practitioners, there is enough to justify me in the claim that our architects show lack of skill, if not actual stupidity or criminal negligence, in planning their buildings….

 

“The architects’ training is somewhat against them. Their earliest lessons are in the artistic line and all too often the schools, the older practitioners and all the influences surround­ing the youngsters conspire to give them a haughty disregard of things merely practical. Let the bids on any building come to more than the owner intends spending and watch the architect pare down to get within the limit. He will cut off the fire­proofing even of the steel, he will rip out the very bowels of that building if he can only preserve what he deems to be his beauti­ful exterior intact and certain mantels and other little internal fussiness. He forgets that real beauty is Truth and that the very first purpose of any building is to have its interior adapted to the business for which it was built.” (Fitzpatrick 1906, pp. 291-293.)

 

Insurance Engineering: “The conflagrations of Portland, Me., in 1866, Chicago in 1871 and 1874, Boston in 1872, Oshkosh and Virginia City in 1875, Galveston in 1884, Seattle, Ellenburg, Spokane, Boston and Lynn in 1889, Milwaukee in 1892, Hoboken in 1900, Jack­sonville in 1901, Waterbury and Paterson in 1902, Baltimore, Rochester and Toronto in 1904, not to mention a hundred other smaller conflagrations within that period of 38 years which have thrown their blight over the places swept by them, and lastly San Francisco in 1906, all owe their extent and destructiveness to inflammable construction. None of these conflagrations would ever have started, or, if started, would ever have produced such disastrous results, if attention had been paid to proper and safe construction.

 

“Is there any one who believes that there would have been such destruction in San Francisco, notwithstanding the earth­quake, if there had been no shingle roofs, no frame rows, if its brick buildings had not been studded with wooden bay windows, wooden additions and wooden trimmings? If there had been no buildings higher than the width of the street on which they front? Fallen or wrecked buildings would, no doubt, here and there have taken fire from gas escaping from broken gas pipes, or from broken electric wires or cracked flues, overturned stoves and lamps, but they would, in all probability, have burned them­selves out in the places of their origin, without spreading to the adjacent property. In the absence of water, the fire depart­ment would have found other means to extinguish a fire and circumscribe its extent, if there had been no inflammable ma­terial in its immediate vicinity to feed upon, nor to ignite from flying sparks blocks and miles away.

 

“The remedy, therefore, would seem to be “the ounce of pre­vention,” that is to say, in better government from the start. The State should prohibit in every village, town and city the con­struction of inflammable roofs, or the erection of any wooden building having a superficial area over twenty-five hundred feet square, and not then unless such wooden building has vacant space all around it at least equal to its height, or else is protected on the exposed side by entire “fire walls.” In addition to this, the State must require every fire, however great or small, to be immediately reported by the occupant and owner of the building to the nearest magistrate or chief of the fire department, with such data regarding cause, ownership, value, insurance and loss as may be known at the time, and by said officials to be reported monthly to the State authorities.

For further protection against the frequency of fires, the State should cause such reports to be classified according to causes, localities, direct and exposure and conflagration losses, as a basis for intelligent legislation on the subject of fires and for the protection of property. Such statistics would be the foundation of wise and intelligent laws for the construction and protection of property and would be instrumental in producing the lowest rates at which it could be safely insured. It would then obviate the necessity of all the foolish anti-trust laws, as applied to insurance companies, because then every citizen would have, as a basis for his calculations, the same information as the insurance companies.”  (Insurance Engineering “Responsibilities of the States – By Good Government,” Vol. 12, No. 6, December, 1906, pp. 498-500.)

 

USGS: “This earthquake is one of the most devastating in the history of California. The earthquake and resulting fires caused an estimated 3,000 deaths and $524 million in property loss. Damage in San Francisco resulting only from the earthquake was estimated at $20 million; outside the city, it was estimated at $4 million. The sensible duration of the shaking in San Francisco was about 1 minute.

 

“The earthquake damaged buildings and structures in all parts of the city and county of San Francisco, although over much of the area, the damage was moderate in amount and character. Most chimneys toppled or were badly broken. In the business district, which was built on ground made by filling in the cove of Yerba Buena, pavements were buckled, arched, and fissured; brick and frame houses of ordinary construction were damaged extensively or destroyed; sewers and water mains were broken; and streetcar tracks were bent into wavelike forms.

 

“On or near the San Andreas fault, buildings were destroyed (one was torn apart), and trees were knocked to the ground. The surface of the ground was torn and heaved into furrow-like ridges. Roads crossing the faultline were impassable, and pipelines were broken. One pipeline that carried water from San Andreas Lake to San Francisco was broken, shutting off the water supply to the city. The fires that ignited soon after the onset of the earthquake quickly raged through the city because of the lack of water to control them. They destroyed a large part of San Francisco and intensified the loss at Fort Bragg and Santa Rosa.

 

“This earthquake caused the most lengthy rupture of a fault that has been observed in the contiguous United States. The displacement of the San Andreas Fault was observed over a distance of 300 kilometers from San Juan Bautista to Point Arena, where is passes out to sea. Additional displacement was observed farther north at Shelter Cove in Humboldt County, and, assuming the rupture was continuous, the total length of rupture would extend 430 kilometers. The largest horizontal displacement – 6.4 meters – occurred near Point Reyes Station in Marin County.

 

“In areas where dislocation of fences and roads indicated the amount of ground movement, motions of 3 to 4.5 meters were common. Near Point Arena, in Mendocino County, a fence and a row of trees were displaced almost 5 meters. At Wright’s Station, in Santa Clara County, a lateral displacement of 1.4 meters was observed. Vertical displacement of as much as 0.9 meters was observed near Fort Ross in Sonoma County. Vertical displacement was not detected toward the south end of the fault.

 

“Although Santa Rosa lies about 30 kilometers from the San Andreas fault, damage to property was severe, and 50 people were killed. The earthquake also was severe in the Los Banos area of the western San Joaquin Valley, where the MM intensity more than 48 kilometers from the fault zone was IX. Santa Rosa lies directly inland from the region of greatest motion on the San Andreas fault.

 

“Trees swayed violently, and some were broken off above the ground or thrown down. The water in springs and artesian wells either increased or decreased its flow. A few sand craterlets formed in areas where water was ejected through cracks or fissures.

 

“The region of destructive intensity extended over a distance of 600 kilometers. The total felt area included most of California and parts of western Nevada and southern Oregon. The maximum intensity of XI was based on geologic effects, but the highest intensity based on damage was IX. Several foreshocks probably occurred, and many aftershocks were reported, some of which were severe.” (USGS. Historic Earthquakes:  San Francisco, California, 1906 94 18 13:12:21 UTC.)

 

Google has digitized the San Francisco Relief Survey report of 1913 (623 pages).  It can be accessed at:  http://books.google.com

 

Landslides and Mudslides

 

Highland and Schuster: 11 fatalities are attributed to landslides by Lynn M. Highland and Robert L. Schuster, in Significant Landslide Events in the United States (USGS, 4-16-2003, p. 6).  They cite:

 

Lawson, Andrew C., ed., 1908, The California Earthquake of April 18, 1906: Report of the State Earthquake Investigation Commission, v. 1, Part 1, Carnegie Institute of Washington, Washington D.C., p. 76-77.

 

Youd, T.L., and Hoose, S.N., 1978, Historic ground failures in northern California triggered by earthquakes: U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 993, p. 89-93.

 

Youd and Hoose, on page 68, write:  “Hillside landslides triggered by the 1906 earthquake were too numerous for the postearthquake investigators to document each occurrence.  Most of the landslides occurred in thee Coast Ranges within a few miles of he ruptured fault….10 men were killed and 2 lumber mills destroyed by landslides in the Santa Cruz mountains…”  On page 89 it is noted that “A huge rock, rolling down a hill in Santa Ana Valley, crashed thru a house and killed a man.”

 

Sources

 

Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters. EM DAT Database. Louvain, Belgium:  Universite Catholique do Louvain. Accessed at: http://www.emdat.be/

 

Drabek, Thomas E. The Human Side of Disaster. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2010.

 

Fitzpatrick, F. W. “The Responsibility of Architects.” Insurance Engineering, Vol. XII, No. 4, October, 1906, pp. 291-292. Accessed at:  http://books.google.com/books?id=rRHOAAAAMAAJ&dq=editions:OCLC2161581&source=gbs_navlinks_s

 

Fradkin, Philip L.  The Great Earthquake and Firestorms of 1906 – How San Francisco Nearly Destroyed Itself. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005, 418 pages.

 

Gilbert, Grove Karl, Joseph Austin Holmes (USGS), Richard Lewis Humphrey, John Stephen Sewell, Frank Soulé. The San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of April 18, 1906. Washington, DC: GPO (United States Geological Survey, Department of the Interior), 1907. Google digitized at: http://books.google.com/books?id=BEyi0K-kUdgC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

Greely, A.W. “Special Report of Maj. Gen. Adolphus W. Greely, U.S.A., Commanding the Pacific Division, on the Relief Operations Conducted by the Military Authorities of the United States at San Francisco and other Points.” 1906.

 

Gunn, Angus M. Encyclopedia of Disasters: Environmental Catastrophes and Human Tragedies (Two Volumes). Westport CT and London: Greenwood Press, 2007.

 

Hansen, Gladys, and Emmet Condon. Denial of Disaster. San Francisco, CA: Cameron and Co., 1989, 160 pages.

 

Lloyd’s. “Earthquake: Californian Risks.” 11-11-2008. Accessed 5-29-2012 at:  http://www.lloyds.com/News-and-Insight/News-and-Features/Archive/2008/11/Earthquake_Californian_risks_11112008

 

Lloyd’s. “San Francisco Earthquake. Lloyd’s and the [SF] earthquake, 1906.” Accessed 5-29-2012 at:  http://www.lloyds.com/Lloyds/About-us/History/San-Francisco-1906-earthquake

 

Highland, Lynn M. and Robert L. Schuster. Significant Landslide Events in the United States.  USGS, 4-16-2003. Accessed 12-15-2017 at: https://landslides.usgs.gov/learn/significantls.php

 

Insurance Engineering.  Vol. 11, No’s 1-6, Jan-June, 1906.  New York: The Insurance Press, 1906.  Digitized by Google. Accessed at: http://books.google.com/books?id=axHOAAAAMAAJ&dq=editions:OCLC2161581&source=gbs_navlinks_s

 

Insurance Engineering.  Vol. 12, No’s 1-6, July-Dec, 1906. New York: The Insurance Press, 1906.  Digitized by Google. Accessed at: http://books.google.com/books?id=rRHOAAAAMAAJ&dq=editions:OCLC2161581&source=gbs_navlinks_s

 

Lawson, Andrew C. (Chair). The California Earthquake of April 18, 1906, Volume I. Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1908. Accessed 1-11-2020 at: http://publicationsonline.carnegiescience.edu/publications_online/earthquake_volume.pdf

 

National Centers for Environmental Information, NOAA. Significant Earthquake Database Search. Accessed 5-12-2016 at: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/nndc/struts/results?bt_0=1989&st_0=1989&type_17=EXACT&query_17=150&op_12=eq&v_12=USA&type_12=Or&query_14=CA&type_3=Like&query_3=&st_1=&bt_2=&st_2=&bt_1=&bt_4=&st_4=&bt_5=&st_5=&bt_6=&st_6=&bt_7=&st_7=&bt_8=&st_8=&bt_9=&st_9=&bt_10=&st_10=&type_11=Exact&query_11=&type_16=Exact&query_16=&bt_18=&st_18=&ge_19=&le_19=&display_look=1&t=101650&s=1&submit_all=Search+Database

 

National Geophysical Data Center. The Significant Earthquake Database. NGDC, NOAA.  Accessed 12-23-2008 at: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/nndc/struts/form?t=101650&s=1&d=1

 

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. A Study of Earthquake Losses in the San Francisco Bay Area – Data and Analysis (A report prepared for the Office of Emergency Preparedness). U.S. Department of Commerce, 1972, 220 pages.

 

O’Connor, Charles J., et al. San Francisco Relief Survey. NY; Survey Associates, Inc. Jan 1913. Accessed 1-11-2020 at: https://www.russellsage.org/publications/san-francisco-relief-survey

Also: at: https://www.google.com/books/edition/San_Francisco_Relief_Survey/jR8pAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=San+Francisco+Relief+Survey&printsec=frontcover

Also:

https://books.googleusercontent.com/books/content?req=AKW5QacMJhQ8u7sNVFTL8LTOLx2l3GbyfkKROMGoqb0cbmfVBWuS5k1Txd7Gp-Z-dFUXJYg3NBAPBwov4I2rzX9pO6MMUPXHMGW2a1ulUEij5b6T1YAy7cl5GwbdWI4CnOcj4I_xag9c5A2KFThakkGgo0YijIAzQUStt0oQISIVxb4KdfbTlPLK6rV16YqpTAPKnhyrFEPDZvv4aUtWX6HNJMAgAmtpgcofGNRYgjxhzAXUl-YR9UOFEZQ7Jaln0Yyk9HciEr9B

 

Reid, Harry Fielding. The California Earthquake of April 18, 1906: Report of the State Earthquake Investigation Commission, in Two Volumes and Atlas. Volume II, The Mechanics of the Earthquake. Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1910. Accessed 1-11-2020 at: http://activetectonics.asu.edu/ActiveFaultingSeminar/Papers/Reid_1910.pdf

 

Sanders, D.E.A. (Chair), et al. The Management of Losses Arising from Extreme Events. GIRO, 2002, 261 pgs. At: http://www.actuaries.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/18729/Sanders.pdf

 

Smith, Roger. Catastrophes and Disasters. Edinburgh and New York: W & R Chambers, 1992.

 

Solnit, Rebecca. A Paradise Built In Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster. New York: Viking, Penguin Group, 2009.

 

Spignesi, Stephen J. The 100 Greatest Disasters of All Time. Citadel Press, 2002. Google preview at: http://books.google.com/books?id=LK08EdwvCIcC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

Spignesi, Stephen J.  The 100 Greatest Disasters of All Time.  Citadel Press, April 2007.

 

Steinberg, Ted. “Smoke and Mirrors: The San Francisco Earthquake and Seismic Denial.”  Chapter 4 in Steven Biel (Ed.), American Disasters (New York:  NY University Press, 2001).

 

The Survey (A Journal of Constructive Philanthropy), Kellogg, Paul U. (Ed). Vol. XXX, April 1913 – September 1913. New York  Survey Associates, Inc. Digitized by Google. Accessed at: http://books.google.com/books?id=gCkKAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA557&lpg=PA557&dq=Binghamton+fire+July+22&source=web&ots=dW6jO-R8lm&sig=6J4p76mKSr4PRw5ejaPcfcOs7l8&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=5&ct=result#PPP11,M1

 

Townsend, Francis Fragos (Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism). The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina: Lessons Learned. Washington, DC: White House, 2-23-2006. Accessed at: http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/reports/katrina-lessons-learned/index.html  and at:

http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/reports/katrina-lessons-learned/appendix-e.html

 

United States Geological Survey. Casualties and damage after the 1906 Earthquake (webpage). Accessed 1-11-2020 at: https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/events/1906calif/18april/casualties.php

 

United States Geological Survey. Deaths in the United States from Earthquakes (website). July 16, 2008 update. Accessed at: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/regional/states/us_deaths.php

 

United States Geological Survey. Historic Earthquakes: San Fernando, California 1971. USGS, Earthquake Hazards Program. Accessed at:  http://earthquake.usgs.gov/regional/states/events/1971_02_09.php

 

Vale, Lawrence J. and Thomas J. Campanella (eds.). The Resilient City: How Modern Cities Recover from Disaster. NY: Oxford University Press, 2005.

 

Walker, John. Disasters. Chicago: Follett Publishing Co., 1973.

 

Wells, Britton. “Lloyd’s sees 1906 San Francisco earthquake as a turning point.” Insurance Journal, May 8, 2006. At: http://www.insurancejournal.com/magazines/west/2006/05/08/features/69889.htm

 

Youd, T.L., and S. N. Hoose. Historic Ground Failures in Northern California Triggered by Earthquakes (U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 993). USGS, 1978. Accessed 1-11-2020 at: https://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/1978/pp0993/

 

See also:

 

American Red Cross. The San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 and the Red Cross Response. American Red Cross Museum.

 

Searight, Frank Thompson. The Doomed City: A Thrilling Tale. Chicago: Laird & Lee, Publishers, 1906. Accessed 1-11-2020 at: https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Doomed_City/TnUUAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=THEDOOMED+CITYA+THRILLING+TALE&pg=PP11&printsec=frontcover

 

 

 

 

 

 

[1] Not used as high estimate in that this is an outlier estimate – 1,000 fatalities above the next highest estimate.

[2] “At the beginning, the count of the dead was quite low.  The subcommittee on statistics, whose report was issued one year after the earthquake, stated that there were 674 persons either dead or missing.  The overall number was broken down in the following manner: Of the 322 ‘known dead,’ 315 died in the earthquake or fire, 6 were shot ‘for crime,’ and 1 was shot ‘by mistake.’  The ‘reported missing and not accounted for’ category totaled 352 persons…. The number of fatalities was determined by those deaths that came to the attention of the coroner.  There was no aggressive search for victims such as took place at the World Trade Center.  To a great extent, racial minorities were undercounted…. The city’s Municipal Report of 1908, which covered the events of 1906, listed 478 dead… General Greely said there were 498 deaths, and the State Board of Health put the number at 503…. The numbers remained at those approximate levels until 1980, when San Francisco City Archivist Gladys Hansen became curious.  Library patrons asked for a list of the dead.  She determined that there was none.  So she searched San Francisco and Oakland newspapers between April 18 and May 19, 1906, when the newspapers stopped listing persons directly killed by the disaster.  She compiled a list of 549 fatalities.  Hansen was joined in the search by retired registrar of voters Frank R. Quinn.  They continued to dig through records of the San Francisco Board of Health, the coroner’s office, and the emergency hospitals and looked at inheritance tax and orphan’s records.  They obtained additional names from gravestones at the Presidio National Cemetery.  The toll was to 826 in 1984.  The team then sent a letter to more than one thousand historical and genealogical societies throughout the country asking for evidence of deaths in San Francisco.  They arrived at a total number of 1,498 documented San Francisco deaths.  Hansen published her only article on the basis of those figures in 1989.  Taken from official records, the causes of death, in order of decreasing numbers, broken down as follows:  burns, those crushed to death, asphyxiations, other (includes shootings, explosions, and drownings), exposure, suicides, heart problems, and those killed in the earthquake.  On the list were six dead with Japanese and twenty-two dead with Chinese surnames, which were disproportionately small numbers.  The total did not include those who died outside of the city.  The National Archives in Washington, D.C., the regional Federal Archives and Record Center in San Bruno, and the records of San Francisco funeral homes doing business in 1906 were not searched.  Over time Hansen’s estimate has risen to 3,000 on the basis of information contained in letters she has received.  As more recent information is volunteered, mainly through e-mail, Hansen believes there may have been as many as 4,000 deaths in San Francisco.  If deaths outside the city – at Agnews Hospital, Santa Rosa, and throughout Northern California – were included, the number would rise to between 4,000 and 5,000…. I would place the number of deaths in northern California at between 3,000 and 5,000.”  ( Fradkin 2005, 188-191)

[3] Cites Vale and Campanella. The Resilient City. Page 28.

[4] We derive this number from the Lloyd’s statement that the earthquake and fires took “several thousand lives.”

[5] Cite Hansen and Condon.

[6] “The loss of life was surprisingly light. Most people were able to escape before the fire took hold, and the death toll was 500 — 0.2 per cent of the city’s population. The figure includes a number of people shot for looting.”