The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1906-04-21
HOW SAN FRANCISCO WAS
SWEPT BY CONFL AGRAT|ON
As the Flames That Followed the Earthquake
Must Have Licked Up the Pacific
Coast Metropolis.

The worst of the material loss from
the California disaster, SO far as it
relates to the metropolis of the state,
can now be approximately estimated.
san Francisco is a city in ruins, a
desolate waste of biackened cinders,
and charred walls, and gray ashes. AS
the cabled news came to Honolulu yes
terday, relieving the worst of the ten
sion under which the people had suf-
fered it seems that the seismic dis
turbance must have had it's center at
some point directly under the city of
San Francisco, extending down the
peninsula which forms San Francisco
and San Mateo counties, and in a lesser
degree across the bay to the Alameda
and Marin county shores.
How far south it's force extended
can not yet be told, but a cablegram
indicates that Los Angeles is safe. In
ferentially, it may be concluded that
the worst of the earthquake died away
by the time the wave reached Point
tains sweep around to the Coast, and
the geological formation undergoes it's
first change before the Coast Range
meets the granite dyke of the Sierras
in the long curve extending to Teha-
chipi. San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara
and Ventura counties may have been
shaken, but were not probably mate
rally disturbed.
CENTER OF DISTURBANCE.
There is no information of serious
disturbance north of San Francisco,
and Oakland has not been destroyed,
but that the shocks were felt all along
the Coast is proven by the fact that
the land Geographic system was all
down in the first hours following the
disaster.
In San Francisco, the first shock
found the city sleeping-al save those
whose business called them abroad In
the early hours to feed and serve the
rest. That first shock followed by long
continued and nerve-racking trem-
blings. amid which high buildings
crashed down like houses of cards and
fires broke out in every direction, must
have led thousands awakened from
sleep ito rush madly into the street.
fearful that the end of the world was
at hand. 1t was a mad panic of half
a million men and women and children,
NV
and with no power to exercise control
over them. And in that time, many
went to their death-how many, it can
not be said from the advices at hand.
FIRE BREAKS OUT.
Fire broke out in San Francisco, fol-
lowing the first shock, in half dozen
places, it is more likely-it may have
been in half a thousand. That first
terrific shock broke the gas mains that
underlie every street in the city and
at that early hour there was light
burning-and that was at every point
where people were awake, for it is
dark in San Francisco at 5:13 in the
morning-fire followed the rush of the
inf1ammable fluid from the pipes
The water mains had burst, too, ana
there was no adequate means at hand
to fight the fire. In the fierce heat
that followed the burning of what was
easily combustible. fre-proof buildings
melted, their stone and pressed brick
walls crunbling and their steel frames |
bending and twisting as the softened
metal let down under the thousands
of tons of its own weight.
BUILDINGS MELT DOWN.
So must have gone the Call building, /
tba ,HF;l1,S bujIdino the CrOcker build |