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This week marks the 36th anniversary of the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake. Sometimes it feels like yesterday and sometimes it feels like a lifetime ago. On October 17, 1989, I was standing just inside the door to my apartment in Mountain View, California, dusting the bookcase to my right. I felt something and looked across the apartment in time to see the ceramic piggy bank that sat on my desk in the bedroom. It was, at that moment, suspended in mid-air. And then it came crashing down.
Before my brain could even think the word, “Earthquake,” it thought, “Hey, I can’t usually see my desk from here.” The entire apartment building had shifted about 30 degrees giving me the previously unseen vantage point of my desk from the front door.
I eventually got to the word, “Earthquake,” and that’s when my brain remembered to open the front door and stand in the doorway while the shaking continued. Roughly every piece of furniture fell over and the kitchen cabinets were barely hanging on the walls. From standing in the doorway and being bounced back and forth, I had bruises up and down both sides of my body for a few weeks.
The death toll was in the millions by day two and the entire bridge had, of course, fallen. Or at least that is how the news portrayed it. In reality there were 63 deaths, 57 direct and 6 indirect. In addition, there were 400 serious injuries and about 3,500 non-serious. 44 deaths occurred in Oakand where the Cypress Street Viaduct’s upper level collapsed onto the lower level. A 50-foot section of the Bay Bridge collapsed, killing one. Three were killed in Santa Cruse and 5 in San Francisco by a brick wall.
At the time, I was attending San Francisco State University and traveling there by train. No one spoke of anything else for weeks and I moved my office to the middle of the room at the glass-walled apartment complex clubhouse that I worked at in the evenings.
Before COVID, when I was asked about the most important events in my lifetime, this came to mind before even 9/11. I think back during the hours after and how I walked 3 miles to my dad’s work, because I was so scared and just needed my dad. The world outside was eerie and glass and broken water pipes were really the only sounds I heard during that walk.
Do you remember?
Helpful Links
Events: https://www.californiaancestors.org/events-and-education/
Special Interest Groups: https://www.californiaancestors.org/special-interest-groups-for-members/
Calendar view: https://www.californiaancestors.org/cgs_calendar/
Tips & Talk: Oakland FamilySearch Center Family History Classes: https://www.familysearch.org/en/centers/oakland_california/classes
