Talk:1989 Loma Prieta earthquake
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[edit] Comment
I doubt the Mercury News story because I just saw a video clip of the '89 World Series. One of the players is on base when the quake occurs. No players would be on the field, let alone on base, during the singing of the national anthem, so the quake didn't occur exactly as predicted in the column.
- The column predicted that the quake would happen before the National Anthem. They players were in fact on the field warming up, and the Anthem had yet to be sung. TCC (talk) (contribs) 07:21, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
I just noticed in the Village Pump that it's considered bad form to edit too frequently - sorry! Blame the newbie, and I'll try to do better.
If anyone doubts the Mercury News story, I've got a clipping of it in my scrapbook. -Aion 19:04 5 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Quibble: This page at the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory estimates the epicentre of the quake at 10 miles (16km) from Santa Cruz. The wikipedia page currently says it happened rear Loma Prieta peak, 7 miles away. Not a huge difference, I'll grant you. I dunno if this is the prevailing concensus, however. -- Finlay McWalter 11:02, 18 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Good information in this document. I've added discussion of the effects of the earthquake on the region's transporation (particularly freeways). Comments welcomed; I'm new to Wiki. --hadley 21:26, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I am a geophysicist and am skeptical of the "mass air movement" above the earthquake detected in the blimp. Please provide a reference to where this information came from. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.174.200.50 (talk) 05:09, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Conflicting Cost Claims: Loma Prieta vs. Northridge
I see the Northridge earthquake article makes the claim that it was the most costly US quake or some such. That would seem to be in conflict with the statement in this article that Loma Prieta was the costliest US natural disaster (I'm paraphrasing both here, these are not exact quotes). These appear to me to be mutually exclusive statements that need to be reconciled for article accuracy. Thoughts? FeloniousMonk 22:38, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
- This article says, "The quake also caused an estimated $6 billion in property damage, the most costly natural disaster in U.S. history at the time." That is apparently accurate. Later disasters cost more. The Northridge earthquake cost around $9 billion [1], and Hurrican Andrew cost yet more. I don't think there is any actual conflict. If you want to you can add that later disasters exceeded its cost. -Willmcw 22:59, May 2, 2005 (UTC)
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- Makes sense. I don't see much point in refering to the higher cost later disasters, do you? FeloniousMonk 23:14, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
What kind of name is Felonius monk??? What does Felonious mean???
[edit] Movie
There is a movie that is based on this quake. It is called Miracle on I - 880, mainly depicting the collapse of the I - 880 roadways and consequent rescue of survivors. Martial Law 20:52, 22 March 2006 (UTC) :)
This used to air during the Christmas Holidays. Has anyone seen this movie ? Martial Law 20:57, 22 March 2006 (UTC) :)
- I don't remember that movie, but I know there was a 1990 TV movie called After the Shock, starring Jack Scalia, Yaphet Kotto, and Scott Valentine. I used to see it pretty frequently for a few years after the quake, but haven't seen it in a long time. Michael24 6 August 2006.
[edit] I was there
- I was living in Fremont, CA (a 15 minute drive South of Oakland) when the Loma Prieta earthquake struck in 1989. I was 22 years old and working the front desk at a popular health club. Our club was in a warehouse with high ceilings and exposed duct work. There was a mild feeling of uneasiness at first, like something was not quite right. You could almost feel it coming. People stopped what they were doing and looked around. Suddenly, the building began to whip back and forth. A stomach turning wave rippled through the floor. The motion was completely unpredictable. It felt like the building was lifted off the ground and moved several feet, then moved again (in a new and unexpected direction). There was a pause. A few people laughed nervously as if to say, "Boy that was close!" Then it started again... and that's when people freaked. I mean there was total panic. Gym members began knocking other gym memebers over in a mad dash for the exits. People stepped on the backs of other people who had fallen to the ground from tripping, or being pushed. I couldn't believe how crude they were. One man did stop to help a poor woman up (a woman who's back had been stepped on by several others) when the man himself was knocked to the ground. A good example of how quickly people lost their minds was (and this is in the space of 20 seconds mind you) when I saw members trying to climb over the 7ft tall chain link fence covering our rear garage door entrance which we left open on hot days. There was a 2ft gap above the fence that people were climbing up and flinging themselves through. But the crazy thing was, a perfectly good exit door (that no one was using) stood directly next to the chain link fence.
- I'd be curious to know which gym that was. Ironically, I too lived in Fremont, CA at that time, and I was also 22. I've worked out at one time or another at pretty much every gym in Fremont. When the earthquake hit, I was in my car at a stop light in Menlo Park. When the quake first started, I thought somebody had rammed into the back of my car. I turned around and there was nobody behind me. When I looked forward again, the street lights were rocking back and forth so violently, that they were nearly touching the ground on the down-swing. I was just about to head across the Dumbarton Bridge to get back to Fremont, when I heard the radio come back on and they were saying "The Bay Bridge has collapsed!" The way they described it, they made it sound like the entire bridge had fallen into the bay, rather than just a section collapsing. At that point I realized nobody would have had a chance to check the Dumbarton bridge to see if it was OK, so I wasn't about to drive across it. Big mistake. It ended up taking me 4 hours that night to get home (Hwy 237 was a parking lot). When I did finally get home that night, I got to witness an interesting 'science project' from watching TV. We were watching a San Jose news station while they had an aftershock. Realizing we were further away from the epicenter than San Jose, I told my wife "Get ready here comes an after shock.", and sure enough, about 3 or 4 seconds later, there it was. Pretty amazing...the wave took about 3 seconds to travel roughly 15-20 miles. Needless to say, it was a little difficult to sleep through the night for the next several days, wondering if the worst was over, or if there was something else still coming. JSDA 07:27, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
I was also there (here, actually), in Berkeley at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab in the hills overlooking the bay. I had left the building and was walking quickly up a path on a ridge in full view of the bay. The first thing I noticed was two deer jumping back and forth across the trail looking confused. Then I was struck with a sudden wave of dizziness and stopped moving. At that time I saw ripples in the earth, starting at the southeastern horizon, towards Loma Prieta and circling outward in jagged, irregular-shaped waves past the Golden Gate and northward. I could see them coming right at me, moving at unbelievable speeds. I heard a number of things crashing and falling in the various buildings around me and then people came streaming out. You could tell the natives, they looked jaded or amused, while those who hadn't experienced a quake like this had eyes open wide like saucers and wore very anxious expressions.
It's true the quake's aftermath was broadcast on TV, but what is missing from this article is the vast amount of misinformation that was broadcast. It was widely reported that the entire Bay Area was in flames and leveled to the ground, that there were countless deaths and casualties, the Bay Bridge had completely collapsed, and that all utilities had been shut down from San Jose to San Rafael and beyond. From my vantage point, I could see one fire in Berkeley, one in the Marina of SF, and one on the Peninsula. My power was fine in Berkeley and only a few small things were knocked onto the floor.
I'm a ham radio operator and I activated my station to handle emergency messages. I was shocked to hear people in places like Clear Lake and other areas receiving SF TV stations spreading the misinformation like it was gospel -- according to them we were in ruins, the Bay Bridge completely collapsed and there was no power so no stations would be on the air.
The TV networks eventually got it right, and a few people did apologize for their grossly exaggerated and alarming reports. It was a tragic day for us here, but the reporting only added to the problems and I think we need to remember and document this in the hope it won't be repeated. If nothing else, it taught me that TV news stations are more interested in viewer numbers than accuracy, by far. Jack-z (talk) 21:15, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Book about the Loma Prieta Earthquake
There is a novel written about the events in and around the town of Loma Prieta during and after the earthquake, told from the point of view of a teen-age girl. The book is titled "Quake!" by Joe Cottonwood, published by Scholastic in 1995.
[edit] AKA
Could this be also retitled as "The world Series Earthquake", since it happenerd while this was going on ? 23:46, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Scientific Precursors
Something is wrong with the first heading under Scientific Precursors, not sure if some phrase was deleted or what. --Mjrmtg 19:39, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
[edit] "Cops" Stalled Rescue
It seems to me that this statement in the section about the Cypress Freeway collapse is suspicious: "Cops arrived soon after and told everyone to stop their rescue efforts, a move that has been widely criticized." I've been searching for evidence of this event or criticism of the police efforts on the Internet and have not been able to find any. Does anyone know more about this? Otherwise, I think this line should be deleted. (I changed the first word from "Cops" to "Police" in the article.) --Everyguy 19:40, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Information closer to the epic center
I'm curious why there is a lack of information on the damages and impacts closer to the epic center? Namely the Santa Cruz area as well as the nearby areas of Aptos, Capitola and Scotts Valley. For example, the Santa Cruz downtown area was practically devastated by the quake due to the old buildings there. The little mentioning of the towns and cities closer to the epic center seem not as severely effected by the quake.
Yes San Francisco is a major city, but earthquakes affects smaller cities as well. I'm posting this as a way to add further awareness to this event in California history. 75.24.192.45 19:46, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
- Yea, the destrution and the fires in the SF Marina District were spectacular. High density housing that was old and built on bad soil. Even though the quake was 50 miles away, there were geological factors that amplified the earthquake's effect. Because of its large population, the earthquake affected more people in San Francisco than further south near the epicenter.
- But the reader is certainly right. Pacific Ave in Santa Cruz really got nailed: Old brick buildings on bad soil. Scotts Valley, Aptos and Capitola were comparatively not too badly damaged. (Newer buildings, better soil). Watsonville, which is at the southern end of Santa Cruz County and is one of its poor areas really got hammered but hardly made the news. 75.7.35.166 19:18, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
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- Part of the problem with the Loma Prieta earthquake, and the lack of information coming from Santa Cruz county, was that the county was completely cut off. Highway 1 at Waddell Creek was covered in landslide, Highway 1 at the Pajaro river was destroyed (the bridge collapsed), Highway 9 between Santa Cruz and Los Gatos was covered in land-slide, Highway 17 was covered in land-slide, and 152 between Watsonville and Gilroy was covered in land-slides as well. There was absolutely no way to get any information out of Santa Cruz county. In order to get emergency personel and supplies into the county, FEMA brought in C-130s and a large number of general aircraft into Watsonville airport. That airport became the main conduit into the area.
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- I was working in Santa Cruz on Mission street (highway 1 as it goes through town) when the earthquake hit. A friend of mine who was on a business trip in Europe thought that the entire county had fallen into the bay, there was no information at all coming out. We had severe damage to the mall. Sany Lydon has information on the earthquake nearer the epicenter, apparently all of the trees in that area had their tops snapped off because of the rapid ground shift at Loma Prieta. 128.114.20.37 23:06, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Compare this to the 1906 "San Francisco" earthquake, which was much closer to San Jose than San Francisco. San Jose was destroyed, but you'll see little or no mention of this in any account of the 1906 quake. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Breadmanpaul (talk • contribs) 05:46, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Cleanup
I added a cleanup tag because the article is full of grammatical errors and inconsistancies. I had to double back and read numerous sentences over again to understand them. At first I thought there were just a couple little mistakes but it looks like a bigger job - some parts kind of read like they were translated well but imperfectly from another language. ---67.85.183.103 23:00, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
- I've now (14 May 2008) edited the Marina District section, where the cleanup tag was, and tightened it up considerably, eliminating repetition and putting related material together. I think it's now basically up to snuff, so I've removed the cleanup tag. Not that it can't be further improved, of course. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.188.95.34 (talk) 02:45, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
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- Thanks! Looks good. Binksternet (talk) 14:00, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Article Reorganization (Cleanup)
I'd like to start a discussion on how to better organize this article. The existing section titles don't really add to the article, and lend themselves to information being repeated. Here's my first stab at it:
Loma Prieta earthquake
Epicenter
Fatalities and injuries
Damage
|--Cypress Street Viaduct
|--San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge
|--Marina District
|--Santa Cruz County
|--Other damage
1989 World Series
Effects on Transportation
Government response
Science of the earthquake
|--Liquifaction
|--Precursors
This is just a rough draft, so feel free to provide your input.--Brianvdb 01:10, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
- I like it. I made a first draft at reorganizing the material. Now someone needs to do a better consolidating edit, fix the language, and so on. Elf | Talk 20:52, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Images
There seems to be a lot of images bunched together on this page - and many of them are of the same thing. For instance:
-3 photos of the damage to the Cypress Structure
-2 photos of the damage to the Bay Bridge (the overhead shot, in my opinion, doesn't show the damage that well)
-3 photos of the Marina District
What do y'all think of getting rid of a few of these pictures? Any opinions on which ones should go? Maybe we can find some other applicable pictures that could serve as repalcements?--Brianvdb 01:32, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
I have a question! Here is a quote from the book, The Girls Next Door: "After the Northern California earthquake of 1989, newspapers and newscasts all over the world conveyed dimensions of the tragedy with the image of a distraugt woman whose' friend' was buried underneath the rubble of a collapsed coffee shop. Although the woman was openly gay and specifically asked reporters to make clear that she had lost a spouse, few did."
Could someone help me out? I can't find this photo anywhere, or any pertaining article whatsoever. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.109.69.13 (talk) 23:14, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Moala Kalushia
This person's situation needs a re-write. If someone is picked up from the SFO airport, they would be driving east (bottom level) on the Bay Bridge. So the word "plunge" is too strong and slightly indicates they were on the top level. They drove into a "wall" that was the fallen portion of the bridge, correct?
i found this article, but it is frustrating how they say a herd of cars went from the bottom to top level...i just dont understand that
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/1999/10/12/MN41QUA.DTL
[edit] SF Bay is Fresh Water??
A recent edit indicates that SF Bay is not salt water. How can this be true? Isn't most of it tidal? And there are large salt marshes at the southern end neat San Jose. Or am I really missing something here? JXM 00:11, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
SF Bay is at least partially salt water; certainly it is not fresh water. It is estuarial, which means that it is a mixture of fresh/salt water, with the salinity varying seasonally with rainfall, tides, and with distance from the ocean. Near the Golden Gate, it is probably pretty close to seawater; farther inland it will have more freshwater mixed in, depending on inflows from rivers and creeks and rainfall. --Crandmck 06:19, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Grammar
Can somebody go over this and correct all the grammar mistakes and missing words, reading this it doesn't seem to flow. Also some decent headings would be nice. I would think you should seperate the different effects, like the Oakland Bridge and the Cypress Structure, which would get rid of the huge blocks of text.
- See #Article Reorganization (Cleanup) above. Elf | Talk 20:52, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Tone
The tone of this article is not in line with other Wikipedia pages.
Much of this is written like the script to a soap opera, rather than an encyclopedia article. For example: “Anamafi Moala Kalushia approached the collapse site too quickly to stop, drove the car off the ledge and smashed onto the collapsed roadbed. Halangahu was pulled to safety and eventually recovered from multiple compound fractures to both his legs. Anamafi Moala Kalushia died shortly after plunging off the upper deck. She was the only fatality on the bridge”
Some of the terms used in the article are intentionally emotive, rather than objective, such as “One family lost their baby boy” and “deadly freeway”.
Also, the facts have been over dramatized. For example, “the columns exploded outward, thrusting the upper deck onto the one below” could be changed to the more succinct “the columns collapsed”.
Can I suggest that the article is rewritten in a similar style to other Wikipedia articles. jxs97s 16 November 2007 —Preceding comment was added at 10:48, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
[edit] How many people died?
The summary at the top says 67 people died, but the information table on the side reads 68. What is the correct number? --Spcleddy (talk) 06:44, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
[edit] USGS photo credit
On this page, the USGS writes "Feel free to use any of these images but please cite the photographer and the U.S. Geological Survey." I have complied with their request as a courtesy. I feel that they were asking for citation whenever a photo was used; that is, on each Wikipedia page that it appears. That's why the photographer and USGS are credited both here and on each photo's own page. Binksternet (talk) 13:53, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Mercalli scale
I lowered the scale to VIII. Special construction suffered very little damage. Binksternet (talk) 19:57, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
