Day was trying to dawn through the smoke-pall.
San Francisco, at the present time, is like the crater of a volcano, around which are camped tens of thousands of refugees At the Presidio alone are at least twenty thousand. Never in all San Francisco's history, were her people so kind and courteous as on this night of terror. More than three thousand people are known to have died. The true number of dead … London, however, was also a journalist and war correspondent. He arrived in the city only a few hours after the earthquake.
The largest earthquake San Francisco has ever seen hits. Remains only the fringe of dwelling houses on the outskirts of what was once San Francisco. They asked Mr. London to go to San Francisco and report about what he saw. He was all but hemmed in by several conflagrations. On April 18, 1906, a massive earthquake shook Northern California, including San Francisco, the fourth largest city in the U.S. at that time. The heated air rising made an enormous suck. London, however, was also a journalist and war correspondent. The quake lasted only a minute but caused the worst natural disaster in the nation's history. Others carried bundles of bedding and dear household treasures.
The beginning of his report is below. There was no hysteria, no disorder. through not until Russian Hill and Telegraph Hill had been swept and three-quarters of a mile of wharves and docks had been licked up.
The immense amount of detail he uses makes us feel as if we were there right beside him. 1.
Wednesday night saw the destruction of the very heart of the city. People ran from there houses and … Some were wrapped in blankets. A minute later the flames were leaping upward In a dozen different quarters south of Market Street, in the working-class ghetto, and in the factories, fires started. “Memories of the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire....” by Howard Livingston “Story of an Eyewitness,” by Jack London “Thousands Flee From Blazing City,” by Bailey Millard “A Fire So Richly Fed… At one o'clock in the morning I walked down through the same section. A sickly light was creeping over the face of things. Not a flicker of wind stirred. Yet everybody was gracious.
All day Thursday and all Thursday night, all day Friday and Friday night, the flames still raged on. And so dawned the second day on stricken San Francisco.
However, it offered just a quick warning, for massive devastation was soon to follow. Jack London was known for his adventure novels such as "White Fang" and "Call of the Wild." Had they failed here, the comparatively few remaining houses of the city would have been swept. Modern analysis estimates it registered 8.25 on the Richter scale (By comparison, the quake that hit San Francisco on October 17, 1989 registered 6.7). I passed Wednesday night in the path of the advancing flames, and in all those terrible hours I saw not one woman who wept, not one man who was excited, not one person who was in the slightest degree panic stricken.Before the flames, throughout the night, fled tens of thousands of homeless ones. The flames will be here in fifteen minutes.'' Troops, refugees, and all had retreated.
And at right angles two different conflagrations were sweeping down upon it. Dynamite was lavishly used, and many of San Francisco proudest structures were crumbled by man himself into ruins, but there was no withstanding the onrush of the flames. San Francisco is gone. In that direction stood the tottering walls of the Examiner building, the burned-out Call building, the smoldering ruins of the Grand Hotel, and the gutted, devastated, dynamited Palace Hotel At half past one in the morning three sides of Union Square were in flames. 3 on the Richter Scale. Did you know?
There was no water. The district had been absolutely abandoned. Union Square, heaped high with mountains of trunks, was deserted.