You might've heard that the 100 year anniversary of the San Francisco Earthquake is coming up. In fact the earthquake hit on the morning of April 18, 1906 (only a few days away). There are several books coming out in memory of the occasion. I recently finished such a book called Disaster! The Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906 by Dan Kruzman.

It was a very interesting book which, as many disaster books go, was about 98% about the actual disaster, and only the last few pages of the book were about the recovery. In any case, the book was very interesting and with my "new" perceptions on disasters (which changes constantly and has expanded greatly since our disaster 2 1/2 years ago), I realize more and more that the problems we ran into are not unique to our situations.

For those of you not familiar with "the" earthquake and fire you should know (statistics from page 251) that it completely destroyed 490 city blocks and portions of 32 others. It consumed about 28,000 buildings representing about 2/3 of the property values of the city and nearly 1/3 of all taxable property in the state of California at the time. Insurance claims came to about $300 million which was about 1/2 of the actual losses (and probably over $6 billion in today’s money). Due to the volatile nature of the insurance market at the time, it was not uncommon for compensation to be at 5-10% of the policy value, or for the company to go bankrupt, or for foreign companies to simply refuse to pay anything.

Although the official death toll (page 248) was less than 500, current historians can prove at least 3,000 deaths based on interviews and historical records and estimate at least 10,000 people died which represents about one out of every forty people in the city.

Here are some of my favorite quotes:

From page 231: "An outraged physician, Margaret Mahoney, would report:

"Our crowning sorrow was the relief distribution. The whole world rose to the occasion. San Francisco was supplied with every necessity.... But a small part has reached the refugees, for whom the relief was sent. Red tape and system have prevented those who lost their all from receiving proper care. May all other stricken communities be spared the combination of Red Cross, trained charity workers, and a relief committee composed of wealthy men."

From page 241: "Some cynics doubted that the city would ever rise again. Thus, Will Irwin would write in the New York Sun:

"'The old San Francisco is dead. The gayest, lightest-hearted, most pleasure-loving city of this continent, and in many ways the most interesting and romantic, is a horde of huddled refugees living among ruins.... San Francisco was the city that was.'"

On the other hand, most locals had a very positive outlook on the situation. Page 242: "Charles Page, a survivor, would write to his son:

"’There was an exhilaration in the desperation of the moment. What it was I do not know but surely men forgot the past, seemed to overlook the present and to face only the future, the future which would repair the disaster. There were smiles on people's faces; there was seriousness all the time, but the determination to overcome the disaster was universal.’"

Page 245 (remember the state of civil liberties of the time) “… residents of whatever origin, having survived and conquered the catastrophe together, would view themselves with greater pride as San Franciscans, and not simply as members of a particular ethnic or class community.”

And how about this from page 231: "Secretary of War Taft, after conferring with President Roosevelt, had already asked Congress to appropriate $500,000 for relief, and the House of Representatives had passed the bill in ten minutes. Many San Franciscans nevertheless resented the President for refusing offers of aid from foreign countries, feeling this rejections reflected false pride at their expense."

I could go on and on with quotes that seem to mirror the situations we face today with disaster recovery, but I think the following sums it up best. This past weekend as we visited New Orleans, we stayed at a hotel downtown. In one of the elevators was a poster which had a quote:

"The farther back you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see." - Winston Churchill