The western American city of San Francisco, California suffered a hugeearthquake on April eighteenth, nineteen-oh-six.
More than three thousand people are known to have died. The truenumber of dead will never be known. Two hundred fifty thousand peoplelost their homes. Just a few hours after the terrible earthquake, amagazine named Collier’s sent a telegraph message to the famousAmerican writer Jack London. They asked Mister London to go to SanFrancisco and report about what he saw.
He arrived in the city only a few hours after the earthquake. Thereport he wrote is called, “THE STORY OF AN EYEWITNESS.” Here isDoug Johnson with the story.
(MUSIC)STORYTELLER: Not in history has a modern city been so completelydestroyed. San Francisco is gone. Nothing remains of it but memoriesand a few homes that were near the edge of the city. Its industrialarea is gone. Its business area is gone. Its social and living areasare gone. The factories, great stores and newspaper buildings, thehotels and the huge homes of the very rich, are all gone.
Within minutes of the earthquake the fires began. Within an hour ahuge tower of smoke caused by the fires could be seen a hundred milesaway. And for three days and nights this huge fire moved in the sky,reddening the sun, darkening the day and filling the land with smoke.
There was no opposing the flames. There was no organization, nocommunication. The earthquake had smashed all of the modern inventionsof a twentieth century city. The streets were broken and filled withpieces of fallen walls. The telephone and telegraph systems werebroken. And the great water pipes had burst. All inventions and safetyplans of man had been destroyed by thirty seconds of movement by theearth.
By Wednesday afternoon, only twelve hours after the earthquake, halfthe heart of the city was gone. I watched the huge fire. It was verycalm. There was no wind. Yet from every side, wind was pouring in uponthe city. East, west, north and south, strong winds were blowing uponthe dying city.
The heated air made a huge wind that pulled air into the fire, risinginto the atmosphere. Day and night the calm continued, and yet, nearthe flames, the wind was often as strong as a storm.
(MUSIC)ANNOUNCER: There was no water to fight the fire. Fire fighters decidedto use explosives to destroy buildings in its path. They hoped thiswould create a block to slow or stop the fire. Building after buildingwas destroyed. And still the great fires continued. Jack London toldhow people tried to save some of their possessions from the fire.
(MUSIC)STORYTELLER: Wednesday night the whole city crashed and roared intoruin, yet the city was quiet. There were no crowds. There was noshouting and yelling. There was no disorder. I passed Wednesday nightin the path of the fire and in all those terrible hours I saw not onewoman who cried, not one man who was excited, not one person whocaused trouble.
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Throughout the night, tens of thousands of homeless ones fled thefire. Some were wrapped in blankets. Others carried bedding and dearhousehold treasures.
Many of the poor left their homes with everything they could carry.
Many of their loads were extremely heavy. Throughout the night theydropped items they could no longer hold. They left on the streetclothing and treasures they had carried for miles.
Many carried large boxes called trunks. They held onto these thelongest. It was a hard night and the hills of San Francisco are steep.
And up these hills, mile after mile, were the trunks dragged. Many astrong man broke his heart that night.
Before the march of the fire were soldiers. Their job was to keep thepeople moving away from the fire. The extremely tired people wouldarise and struggle up the steep hills, pausing from weakness everyfive or ten feet. Often, after reaching the top of a heart-breakinghill, they would find the fire was moving at them from a differentdirection.
After working hour after hour through the night to save part of theirlives, thousands were forced to leave their trunks and flee.
At night I walked down through the very heart of the city. I walkedthrough mile after mile of beautiful buildings. Here was no fire. Allwas in perfect order. The police patrolled the streets. And yet it wasall doomed, all of it. There was no water. The explosives were almostused up. And two huge fires were coming toward this part of the cityfrom different directions.
Four hours later I walked through this same part of the city.
Everything still stood as before. And yet there was a change. A rainof ashes was falling. The police had been withdrawn. There were nofiremen, no fire engines, and no men using explosives. I stood at thecorner of Kearney and Market Streets in the very heart of SanFrancisco. Nothing could be done. Nothing could be saved. Thesurrender was complete.
(MUSIC)It was impossible to guess where the fire would move next. In theearly evening I passed through Union Square. It was packed withrefugees. Thousands of them had gone to bed on the grass. Governmenttents had been set up, food was being cooked and the refugees werelining up for free meals.
Late that night I passed Union Square again. Three sides of the Squarewere in flames. The Square, with mountains of trunks, was deserted.
The troops, refugees and all had retreated.
The next morning I sat in front of a home on San Francisco’s famousNob Hill. With me sat Japanese, Italians, Chinese and Negroes. Allabout were the huge homes of the very rich. To the east and south ofus were advancing two huge walls of fire.
I went inside one house and talked to the owner. He smiled and saidthe earthquake had destroyed everything he owned. All he had left washis beautiful house. He looked at me and said, “The fire will be herein fifteen minutes.”
Outside the house the troops were falling back and forcing therefugees ahead of them. From every side came the roaring of flames,the crashing of walls and the sound of explosives.
Day was trying to dawn through the heavy smoke. A sickly light wascreeping over the face of things. When the sun broke through the smokeit was blood-red and small. The smoke changed color from red to roseto purple.
I walked past the broken dome of the City Hall building. This part ofthe city was already a waste of smoking ruins. Here and there throughthe smoke came a few men and women. It was like the meeting of a fewsurvivors the day after the world ended.
(MUSIC)ANNOUNCER: The huge fires continued to burn on. Nothing could stopthem. Mister London walked from place to place in the city, watchingthe huge fires destroy the city. Nothing could be done to halt thefirestorm.
In the end, the fire went out by itself because there was nothing leftto burn. Jack London finishes his story:
(MUSIC)STORYTELLER: All day Thursday and all Thursday night, all day Fridayand Friday night, the flames raged on. Friday night saw the huge firesfinally conquered, but not before the fires had swept three-quartersof a mile of docks and store houses at the waterfront.
San Francisco at the present time is like the center of a volcano.
Around this volcano are tens of thousands of refugees. All thesurrounding cities and towns are jammed with the homeless ones. Therefugees were carried free by the railroads to any place they wishedto go. It is said that more than one hundred thousand people have leftthe peninsula on which San Francisco stood.
The government has control of the situation, and thanks to theimmediate relief given by the whole United States, there is no lack offood. The bankers and businessmen have already begun making thenecessary plans to rebuild this once beautiful city of San Francisco.
(MUSIC)ANNOUNCER: You have just heard “THE STORY OF AN EYEWITNESS.” It waswritten by Jack London and adapted for Special English by PaulThompson. It was published in Collier’s Magazine, May fifth,nineteen-oh-six. Your narrator was Doug Johnson.
Join us again next week for another AMERICAN STORY, in SpecialEnglish, on the Voice of America. This is Shirley Griffith.
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