The San Francisco calamity by earthquake and fire Part 2

SKYSc.r.a.pERS EARTHQUAKE PROOF.

In fact, as the reports of damage wrought by the earthquake came in, the conviction grew that one of the safest places during the earthquake shock was on one of the upper floors of the skysc.r.a.per office buildings or hotels. As a matter of fact, not a single person, so far as can be learned, lost his or her life or was seriously injured in any of the tall, steel frame structures in the city, although they rocked during the quake like a ship in a gale.

The loss of life was caused in almost every case by the collapse of frame structures, which the native San Franciscan believed was the safest of all in an earthquake, or by the shaking down of portions of brick or stone buildings which did not possess an iron framework. The manner in which the tall steel structures withstood the shock is a complete vindication of the strongest claims yet made for them, and it is made doubly interesting from the fact that this is the first occasion on which the effect of an earthquake of any proportions on a tall steel structure could be studied.

The St. Francis Hotel, a sixteen-story structure, can be repaired at an expenditure of about $400,000, its damage being almost wholly by fire.

The steel sh.e.l.l and the floors are intact. Although the building rocked like a ship in a gale while the quake lasted, its foundations are undamaged. Other steel buildings which are so little damaged as to admit of repairs more or less extensive are the James Flood, the Union Trust, the CALL building, the Mutual Savings Bank, the Crocker-Woolworth building and the Postal building. All of these are modern buildings of steel construction, from sixteen to twenty stories.

A peculiar feature of the effect of the earthquake on structures of this kind is reported in the case of the Fairmount Hotel, a fourteen-story structure. The first two stories of the Fairmount are found to be so seriously damaged that they will have to be rebuilt, while the other twelve stories are uninjured.

Various explanations are being made of the surprising resistance shown by the skysc.r.a.pers. The great strength and binding power of the steel frame, combined with a deep-seated foundation and great lightness as compared with buildings of stone, are the main reasons given. The iron, it is said, unlike stone, responded to the vibratory force and pa.s.sed it along to be expended in other directions, while brick or stone offered a solid and impenetrable front, with the result that the seismic force tended to expend itself by shaking the building to pieces.

Whether there is any scientific basis for the latter theory or not, it seems reasonable enough, in view of the descriptions given us of the manner in which the steel buildings received the shock. All things considered, the modern steel building has afforded in the San Francisco earthquake the most convincing evidence of its strength.

From Golden Gate Park came news of the total destruction of the large building covering a portion of the children's playground. The walls were shattered beyond repair, the roof fell in, and the destruction was complete. The pillars of the new stone gates at the park entrance were twisted and torn from their foundations, some of them, weighing nearly four tons, being shifted as though they were made of cork. It is a little singular that the monuments and statues in the city escaped without damage except in the case of the imposing Dewey Monument, in Union Square Park, which suffered what appears to be a minor injury.

In this connection an incident of extraordinary character is narrated.

Among the statues on the buildings of the Leland Stanford, Jr., University, all of which were overthrown, was a marble statue of Carrara in a niche on the building devoted to zoology and physiology. This in falling broke through a hard cement pavement and buried itself in the ground below, from which it was dug. The singular fact is that when recovered it proved to be without a crack or scratch. This university seemed to be a central point in the disturbance, the destruction of its buildings being almost total, though they had been built with the especial design of resisting earthquake shocks.

Such was the general character of the earthquake at San Francisco and in its vicinity. It may be said farther that all, or very nearly all, the deaths and injuries were due to it directly or indirectly, even those who perished by fire owing their deaths to the fact of their being pinned in buildings ruined by the earthquake shock, while others were killed by falling walls weakened by the same cause.

On the night of April 23d the earth tremor returned with a slight shock, only sufficient to cause a temporary alarm. On the afternoon of the 25th came another and severer one, strong enough to shake down some tottering walls and add another to the list of victims. This was a woman named Annie Whitaker, who was at work in the kitchen of her home at the time.

The chimney, which had been weakened by the great shock, now fell, crashing through the roof and fracturing her skull. Thus the earth powers claimed a final human sacrifice before their dread visitation ended.

CHAPTER II.

The Demon of Fire Invades the Stricken City.

The terrors of the earthquake are momentary. One fierce, levelling shock and usually all is over. The torment within the earth has pa.s.sed on and the awakened forces of the earth's crust sink into rest again, after having shaken the surface for many leagues. Rarely does the dread agent of ruin leave behind it such a terrible follower to complete its work as was the case in the doomed city of San Francisco. All seemed to lead towards such a carnival of ruin as the earth has rarely seen. The demon of fire followed close upon the heels of the unseen fiend of the earth's hidden caverns, and ran red-handed through the metropolis of the West, kindling a thousand unhurt buildings, while the horror-stricken people stood aghast in terror, as helpless to combat this new enemy as they were to check the ravages of the earthquake itself.

Why not quench the fire at its start with water? Alas! there was no water, and this expedient was a hopeless one. The iron mains which carried the precious fluid under the city streets were broken or injured so that no quenching streams were to be had. In some cases the engine houses had been so damaged that the fire-fighting apparatus could not be taken out, though even if it had it would have been useless. A sweeping conflagration and not an ounce of water to throw upon it! The situation of the people was a maddening one. They were forced helplessly and hopelessly to gaze upon the destruction of their all, and it is no marvel if many of them grew frantic and lost their reason at the sight.

Thousands gathered and looked on in blank and pitiful misery, their strong hands, their iron wills of no avail, while the red-lipped fire devoured the hopes of their lives.

In a dozen, a hundred, places the flames shot up redly. Huge, strong buildings which the earthquake had spared fell an unresisting prey to the flames. The great, iron-bound, towering Spreckles building, a steeple-like structure, of eighteen stories in height, the tallest skysc.r.a.per in the city, had resisted the earthquake and remained proudly erect. But now the flames gathered round and a.s.sailed it. From both sides came their attack. A broad district near by, containing many large hotels and lodging houses, was being fiercely burnt out, and soon the windows of the lofty building cracked and splintered, the flames shot triumphantly within, and almost in an instant the vast interior was a seething furnace, the wild flames rushing and leaping within until only the blackened walls remained.

THE RESISTLESS MARCH OF THE FLAMES.

This was the region of the newspaper offices, and they quickly succ.u.mbed. The Examiner, standing across Third Street from Spreckles, collapsed from the earthquake shock. A flimsy edifice, it had long been looked upon as dangerous. Another building in the rear of this alone resisted both flames and smoke. Across Market Street from the Examiner stood the Chronicle building, a dozen stories high. Firmly built, it had borne the earthquake a.s.sault unharmed, but the flames were an enemy against which it had no defense, and it was quickly added to the victims of the fire-fiend.

Farther down Market Street, the chief business thoroughfare of the city, stood that great caravansary, the Palace Hotel, which for thirty years had been a favorite hostelry, housing the bulk of the visitors to the Californian metropolis. Its time had come. Doom hovered over it. Its guests had fled in good season, as they saw the irresistible approach of the conquering flames. Soon it was ablaze; quickly from every window of its broad front the tongues of flame curled hotly in the air; it became a thrice-heated furnace, like so many of the neighboring structures, adding its quota to the vast cloud of smoke that hung over the burning city, and rapidly sinking in red ruin to the earth.

All day Wednesday the fire spread unchecked, all efforts to stay its devouring fury proving futile. In the business section of the city everything was in ruins. Not a business house was left standing.

Theatres crumbled into smouldering heaps. Factories and commission houses sank to red ruin before the devouring flames. The scene was like that of ancient Babylon in its fall, or old Rome when set on fire by Nero's command, as tradition tells. In modern times there has been nothing to equal it except the conflagration at Chicago, when the flames swept to ruin that queen city of the Great Lakes.

When night fell and the sun withdrew his beams the spectacle was one at once magnificent and awe-inspiring. The city resembled one vast blazing furnace. Looking over it from a high hill in the western section, the flames could be seen ascending skyward for miles upon miles, while in the midst of the red spirals of flame could be seen at intervals the black skeletons and falling towers of doomed buildings. Above all this hung a dense pall of smoke, showing lurid where the flames were reflected from its dark and threatening surface. To those nearer the scene presented many pathetic and distressing features, the fire glare throwing weird shadows over the worn and panic-stricken faces of the woe-begone fugitives, driven from their homes and wandering the streets in helpless misery. Many of them lay sleeping on piles of blankets and clothing which they had brought with them, or on the hard sidewalks, or the gra.s.s of the open parks.

THE CARE OF THE WOUNDED.

Through all the streets ambulances and express wagons were hurrying, carrying dead and injured to morgues and hospitals. But these refuges for the wounded or receptacles for the dead were no safer than the remainder of the city. In the morgue at the Hall of Justice fifty bodies lay, but the approach of the flames rendered it necessary to remove to Jackson Square these mutilated remnants of what had once been men.

Hospitals were also abandoned at intervals, doctors and nurses being forced to remove their patients in haste from the approaching flames.

There is an open park opposite City Hall. Here the Board of Supervisors met, and, with fifty substantial citizens who joined them, formed a Committee of Safety, to take in hand the direction of affairs and to seek safe quarters for the dying and the dead. Strangely enough, Mechanics' Pavilion, opposite City Hall, had escaped injury from the earthquake, though it was only a wooden building. It had the largest floor in San Francisco, and was pressed into service at once. The police and the troops, working in harmony together, pa.s.sed the word that the dead and injured should be brought there, the hospitals and morgue having become choked, and the order was quickly obeyed, until about 400 of the hurt, many of them terribly mangled, were laid in improvised cots, attended by all the physicians and trained nurses who could be obtained.

The corpses were much fewer, the workers being too busy in fighting the fire and caring for the wounded to give time and attention as yet to the dead. But one of the first wagons to arrive brought a whole family--father, mother and three children--all dead except the baby, which had a broken arm and a terrible cut across the forehead. They had been dragged from the ruins of their house on the water front. A large consignment of bodies, mostly of workingmen, came from a small hotel on Eddy Street, through the roof of which the upper part of a tall building next door had fallen, crushing all below.

FIRE ATTACKS THE MINT.

To return to the story of the conflagration, the escape of the United States Mint was one of the most remarkable incidents. Within the vaults of this fine structure was the vast sum of $300,000,000 in gold and silver coin and a value of $8,000,000 in bullion, and toward this mighty sum of wealth the flames swept on all sides, as if eager to add the reservoir of the precious metals to their spoils. The Mint building pa.s.sed through the earthquake with little damage, though its big smokestacks were badly shaken. The fire seemed bent on making it its prey, every building around it being burned to the ground, and it remaining the only building for blocks that escaped destruction.

Its safety was due to the energy and activity of its employees.

Superintendent Leach reached it shortly after the shock and found a number of men already there, whom he stationed at points of vantage from roof to bas.e.m.e.nt. The fire apparatus of the Mint was brought into service and help given by the fire department, and after a period of strenuous labor the flames were driven back. The peril for a time was critical, the windows on Mint Avenue taking fire and also those on the rear three stories, and the flames for a time pouring in and driving back the workers. The roof also caught fire, but the men within fought like t.i.tans, and efficient aid was given by a squad of soldiers sent to them. In the end the fire fiend was vanquished, though considerable damage was done to the adjusting rooms and the refinery, while the heavy stone cornice on that side of the building was destroyed. The total loss to the Mint was later estimated at $15,000.

Late on Wednesday evening the fire front crept close up to Mechanics'

Pavilion, where a corps of fifty physicians and numerous nurses were active in the work of relief to the wounded. Ambulances and automobiles were busy unloading new patients rescued from the ruins when word came that the building would have to be vacated in haste. Every available vehicle was at once pressed into service and the patients removed as rapidly as possible, being taken to hospitals and private houses in the safer parts of the city. Hardly had the last of the injured been carried through the door when the roof was seen to be in a blaze, and shortly afterward the whole building burst into a whirlwind of flame.

At midnight the fire was raging and roaring with unslacked rage, and at dawn of Thursday its fury was undiminished. The work of destruction was already immense. In much of the Hayes Valley district, south of McAllister and north of Market Street, the destruction was complete.

From the Mechanics' Pavilion and St. Nicholas Hotel opposite down to Oakland Ferry the journey was heartrending, the scene appalling. On each side was ruin, nothing but ruin, and hillocks of masonry and heaps of rubbish of every description filled to its middle the city's greatest thoroughfare.

Across an alley from the Post Office stood the Grant Building, one of the headquarters of the army. Of this only the smoke-darkened walls were left. On Market Street opposite this building the beautiful front of the Hibernian Savings Bank, the favorite inst.i.tution of the middle and poorer cla.s.ses, presented a hideous aspect of ruin. At eleven o'clock of Wednesday night the north side of Market Street stood untouched, and hopes were entertained that the great Flood, Crocker, Phelan and other buildings would be spared, but the hunger of the fire fiend was not yet satiated, and the following day these proud structures had only their blackened ruins to show. On both sides of Market Street, down to the ferry, the tale was the same. The handsome and gigantic St. Francis Hotel, on Powell Street, fronting on Union Square, was left a ruined sh.e.l.l. This was one of the lofty steel structures that bore unharmed the earthquake shock, but quickly succ.u.mbed to the flames. Among the other skysc.r.a.pers north of Market Street that perished were the fourteen-story Merchants' Exchange, and the great Mills Building, occupying almost an entire block.

One section of the city that went without pity, as it had long stood with reprobation, was that group of disreputable buildings known as Chinatown, the place of residence of many thousands of Celestials.

The flames made their way unchecked in this direction, and by noon on Thursday the whole section was a raging furnace, the denizens escaping with what they could carry of their simple possessions. On the farther western side the flames cut a wide swath to Van Ness Avenue, a wide thoroughfare, at which it was hoped the march of the fire in this direction might be checked, especially as the water mains here furnished a weak supply.

In the Missouri district, to the south of Market Street, the zone of ruin extended westward toward the extreme southern portion, but was checked at Fourteenth and Missouri Streets by the wholesale use of dynamite. At this point were located the Southern Pacific Hospital, the St. Francis Hospital and the College of Physicians and Surgeons.

In order to save these inst.i.tutions, buildings were blown up all around them, and by noon the danger was averted. It later became necessary to destroy the Southern Pacific Hospital with dynamite, the patients having been removed to places of safety.

THE PALACES ON n.o.b'S HILL.

In the centre of San Francisco rises the aristocratic elevation known as n.o.b's Hill, on which the early millionaires built their homes, and on which stood the city's most palatial residences. It ascends so abruptly from Kearney Street that it is inaccessible to any kind of vehicle, the slope being at any angle little short of forty-five degrees. It is as steep on the south side, and the only approach by carriage is from the north. To this hill is due the pioneer cable railway, built in the early '70's.

Here the "big four" of the railroad magnates--Stanford, Hopkins, Huntington and Crocker--had put millions in their mansions, the Mark Hopkins residence being said to have cost $2,500,000. These men are all dead, and the last named edifice has been converted into the Hopkins Art Inst.i.tute, and at the time of the fire was well filled with costly art treasures. The Stanford Museum, which also contains valuable objects of art, is now the property of the Leland Stanford University. The Flood mansion, which cost more than $1,000,000, was one of the showy residences on this hill, west of it being the Huntington home and farther west the Crocker residence, with its broad lawns and magnificent stables. Many other beautiful and costly houses stood on this hill, and opposite the Stanford and Hopkins edifices the great Fairmount Hotel had for two years past been in process of construction and was practically completed. On the northeastern slope of this hill stood the famous Chinatown, through which it was necessary to pa.s.s to ascend n.o.b's Hill from the princ.i.p.al section of the wholesale district.

This region of palaces was the next to fall a prey to the insatiable flames. Early Thursday morning a change in the wind sent the fire westward, eating its way from the water front north of Market Street toward n.o.b's Hill. Steadily but surely it climbed the slope, and the Stanford and Hopkins edifices fell victims to its fury. Others of the palaces of millionairedom followed. Huge clouds of smoke enveloped the beautiful white stone Fairmount Hotel, and there was a general feeling of horror when this magnificent structure seemed doomed. To it the Committee of Safety had retreated, but the flames from the burning buildings opposite reached it, and the committee once more migrated in search of safe quarters. Fortunately, it escaped with little damage, its walls remaining intact and much of the interior being left in a state of preservation, warranting its managers to offer s.p.a.ce within it to the committees whose aim it was to help the homeless or to store supplies.

Some of the woodwork of the building was destroyed by the fire, but the structure was in such good condition that work on it was quickly resumed, with the statement that its completion would not be delayed more than three months beyond the date set, which was November, 1906.

In the district extending northwestwardly from Kearney Street and Montgomery Avenue, untouched during the first day, the fire spread freely on the second. This district embraces the Latin quarter, peopled by various nationalities, the houses being of the flimsiest construction. Once it had gained a foothold there, the fire swept onward as though making its way through a forest in the driest summer season.