The Little Big One

At 5:04pm on Tuesday, October 17, 1989 I was in the box office of San Francisco Opera. The weather was lovely. The World Series was about to start. The performance that night was “Idomeneo” – a work about a king who sacrifices his daughter to appease Neptune, the god of earthquakes and oceans.

My first quake had been a few months before, dubbed “The Great Taco Bell Earthquake” as it took place while I was having lunch with a colleague from the Opera. It was a 2. something. I watched the street sign on Van Ness sway slightly. My co-worker shrugged. “Happens all the time.” I was thrilled. Now I was really a San Franciscan!

The weeks before Loma Prieta, as those who were here may remember, were replete with small but noticeable tremblors – not unlike those of the past week: a 3.1 here, a 4.2 here – once, more than three in a row overnight. That morning, a lot of shaker refugees were huddled earlier-than-usual on the Castro Muni platform having given up any attempts at sleep after the third one at about 4am.

At 5:04pm on Tuesday, October 17, 1989 I was I the box office of San Francisco Opera. The weather was lovely. The World Series was about to start. The performance that night was “Idomeneo” – a work about a king who sacrifices his daughter to appease Neptune , the god of earthquakes and oceans.

For the first three seconds of the quake, we all laughed – thinking it was another 3, 4 or even 5. On second four, we screamed. The massive windows shattered and popped out of the opera lobby. A roar filled the air as part of the ceiling fell in the auditorium, destroying a row of seats and sending debris out in a dusty wave. The ceiling panels fell behind us. All the tickets flew out of their carefully arranged slots, an operatic confetti punctuated by an accelerating clanging of chandeliers, filing cabinets, teeth and stone. I watched a crack crawl its way up a marble column. One of the box office staff draped himself over a young man, living with AIDS, in a motorized wheel chair, to keep him safe from falling objects.

And…it kept going.

I grabbed the steel bars of the ticket office and held on.

Finally – it stopped. The huge chandeliers were swaying so much, you could hear them go “whoosh.”

Second 20….we all started to cry.

For a few moments, no one spoke. Then, my friend Richard, subscriptions manager, walked down the steps from the small upper office. Caspar the ghost has never been whiter.

“That must have been a 6!” I exclaimed, still wet-faced.

“I’ve lived here my whole life,” said Richard. “That was no 6.’

Then, the yelling started. “Get out! Get out!”

Being a good PR person, I picked up the phone to call my friend Michael, an editor at the “Examiner.” Amazingly, the phone worked – briefly.

“I’m on my way,” he said before the phone went dead. He was a good reporter – he wanted to know what happened to the City’s premiere arts institution.

About 30 minutes later we were standing outside comparing notes. The “Examiner” and the “Chronicle” had both lost power. I later found out that various news outlets were sharing resources to put out what become two famous editions the next day (I still have them). In the courtyard of the opera, I remember seeing general director Lotfi Mansouri sharing a cigarette – menthol -  with various staff – hands shaking. I didn’t know he smoked. Actually, we all smoked that day.

“The Bay Bridge is down!” someone’s report watching a portable battery-powered TV (they were a ‘thing’ then in the pre-Iphone era).

“The Marina is on fire!” We could see the smoke.

“The freeway collapsed in Oakland!” Someone’s transistor radio.

Slowly, our little band dispersed. People who lived in the City shared keys with friends from the East Bay – suddenly stuck overnight. The ferries ran for free. People were stuck in elevators. Three window washers clung to their scaffold at the BofA tower. People died from a wall that fell in SoMa. Many more died in the freeway collapse in Oakland – and other places. Others were horribly cut from falling glass in Union Square. Sidewalks everywhere looked like waves caught in cement. Rob Morse, “Examiner” columnist, dubbed it “the Little Big One.”

“That was no 6.”

It was reported that Loma Prieta was a 7.1. I’ve since heard it was a 6.9.  Whatever – anything bigger than a 6 is “major.” Even including an especially bumpy landing in Palm Springs one, it was the most frightened, I have ever been.  Whatever the number, nothing like that had rocked San Francisco – or California -- since April 18, 1906.

Later, an East Coast friend said, “well, it wasn’t like ’06.” My reply: After you throw yourself against a wall non-stop for 20 seconds and then fall to a glass covered floor, then talk to me.

My ‘earthquake kit’ at that time consisted of a bottle of vodka and a cold artichoke (it worked). Since then, I have several: at home, at work, in the car. My advice for everyone – go to 72hours.org to learn how you can prepare.

The day after, the weather was lovely. I walked – literally -- around town. I hopped on the free ferry to Oakland so I could say the gaping hole in the Bay Bridge. Then, I returned and walked the Embarcadero to the Marina Green. The ground was bubbling up in tiny, sand-filled fountains. I remember thinking that it looked like that scene in the opening credits of “The Beverly Hillbillies” when Jed Clampitt discovers oil. Behind me, smoking rubble was pulled down. Several shirtless guys played frisbee on nearby yards whose houses leaned like hungover frat boys. Suddenly, a truck screeched to a halt, and a delivery man threw out a stack of string-bound newspapers: “Hundreds Dead In Huge Quake.” People gobbled them up like hungry teens. On Union Street, restaurants and cafes served free food knowing that it would soon spoil. Everyone was polite, and strangers directed traffic at intersections.

A few, shaky nights later (there were hundreds of aftershocks), a good deal of the City got electricity back. I remember my Twin Peaks neighbors cheering from their decks watching the still-broken Bay Bridge illuminate again, one steel strand at a time: a glorious, and psychological boost to a wounded city. I cried again.

For months, the newspapers were full of nothing else. Electricity stayed off for weeks in the Marina and Pacific Heights: young earnest workers united with tony residents in a shared off-the-gridness. No one ever drove again on the Central or Embarcadero Freeways. Buildings were red-tagged.  Offices were retrofitted. “Aida” was switched to the Bill Graham Auditorium. By spring, things were somewhat back to normal.

By today’s post 9/11 standards, the devastation wrought by the Loma Prieta seems almost quaint, and honestly, until today, I had never put down my memories of that day. 10 years. 20 years. 25, now 30 years on – the memories somehow seem richer, and clearer. Perhaps because at 57, vs. 27, the possibility of how close death and destruction looms next to our little lives is more of an obvious, mathematic reality.

Today at 5:04pm., those San Franciscans who remember the “Little Big One” will stop and remember. 30 years seems like yesterday. Today, like then, the weather is lovely.