When one hears about San Francisco Bay Area earthquakes only two are usually mentioned: the 1906 Earthquake^[1] and the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake^[2]. But anyone who lives or has lived in the City has experienced other earthquakes. My mother Anne remembers being in a movie theater with her parents sometime in the early 1940s when a mild earthquake shook the theater. Ceiling plaster began raining down, and while people panicked and climbed over each other in an attempt to get out of the building, my grandfather William Brand Filmer calmly told my mother and grandmother to “sit still”. In the last two years I have felt at least five. Mild earthquakes – all of them – but enough to make a chandelier swing.

The first earthquake in San Francisco to gain national attention occurred at 7:53AM on the Hayward Fault line in the East Bay on the morning of October 21, 1868. It was 6.8 in magnitude, and remains the most recent earthquake to occur on the Hayward Fault. The town of Hayward was decimated: every building in that town was either destroyed or damaged. Remarkably, there were only 30 deaths in the entire area. 

In San Francisco, the quake was felt for 40 seconds – an eternity. People rushed into the streets. Businesses shut down for the day. Most of the damage was caused by the collapse of brick fire walls, erected to protect buildings from San Francisco’s other nemesis – fire. There was cracked pavement, toppled masonry, broken windows and lots of shattered glass. Ships docked in the harbors swayed violently. City Hall^[3] was damaged, as was Temple Emanu-El^[4] which at the time was located at 450 Sutter Street. But the structures were quickly repaired. It, along with two subsequent earthquakes in 1898 and 1900, gave the City a false sense that they could manage this type of calamity, leaving it completely unprepared for the much more powerful earthquake that hit the City in 1906. 

^[1] 1906 Earthquake: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=2849

^[2] 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake: see story coming October 17^th

^[3] City Hall: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=4664

^[4] Congregation Emanu-El: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=4291