Waiting for the Big One

It is funny how it is only after I return from a visit to San Francisco that I start to ponder, even worry, about the prospect of a major earthquake hitting the city.

I have recently been reading A Crack In the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906 by British born but recently naturalised American, Simon Winchester, a magnificent exploration of the origins, development and aftermath of the magnitude 8.25 Earthquake and ensuing Fire that hit the city on 18th April of that year, and it set me to thinking what is increasingly fascinating me from afar.

Aside from his narrative skill, Winchester, as befits a masters graduate in geology from Oxford, is perfectly placed to explain the scientific basis for earthquakes. Irrespective of how imperfectly I understand that science, his voice is authoritative, and this paragraph in particular sends a chilling message to all those living on the San Andreas Fault, and especially in the city by the bay:

It is not a question of whether a big earthquake will occur, nor even a question of precisely where it will hit. There will be a quake, it will be considerable, it will be somewhere in the vicinity of San Francisco, it will more than likely affect the San Andreas Fault or one of its cadet branches – and it will take place, most probably before 2032. The only true unknown is the precise year, month, day and time.

The U.S. Geological Society actually issued a formal forecast in 2003. Sometime before 2032 , along one of the seven fault systems that belong to the San Andreas cluster, and which cut their way through the Bay Area, there is a machine-computed probability of 62 per cent that an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.7 or greater will strike. There will be damage and casualties “on an impressive scale”.

All those communities, not least the major city in the area, have comprehensive plans for dealing with every type of disaster, as well as providing detailed guidelines for those “authorized to know what their duties and responsibilities are in the event of the most statistically likely major disaster that is anticipated in the region – and that is a very, very large earthquake”.

And, of course, since the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989 that, amongst its other effects, caused part of the upper deck of the Bay Bridge to collapse onto the lower and much of the Marina district to be destroyed, many buildings have been checked and reinforced to enable them to stand a chance when the next “big one” arrives.

That is all reassuring I’m sure. But I wonder how far the citizens of San Francisco are truly geared up to cope when it comes. I suppose if the authorities kept hammering on about it it would instill a pervading sense of paranoia that would do nobody any good. But I have rarely seen or heard any references to the subject during my trips to the city. Having said that, it has not even crossed my mind whilst staying there – though I am becoming increasingly fascinated both by the historical context and the future potential for calamity.

So does it concern me that my beloved city could be seriously damaged any moment? Of course.

Does it deter me from visiting it often, and, hopefully, more than before, in the future? Not at all.

Is there just a small part of me that hopes I am there when it happens? I think there might be (many witnesses of the 1906 quake recorded their excitement at being part of a major historical catastrophe, and more still posed for photographs amid the ruins even as their homes disintegrated).

But do I wish it? Of course not.

I know that I have a number of readers who would be directly affected by an earthquake. Do they think about it at all? Do they worry about it? Are they confident that they would know what to do if such a disaster struck?

It would be interesting to know. Answers at the bottom of this post please.

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The Palace of Fine Arts: Just a Dome at Twilight

Untroubled by any afternoon fog, the sun slides towards the Golden Gate before retiring for the night.

Swans glide across the placid lagoon. A small boy runs after a ball, inadvertently kicking it forwards each time he reaches down to pick it up, whilst his mother checks her e mails on her new smart phone. Even the ubiquitous dogs and joggers appear to float past as if in a dream. 

I glance to my left at the crippling climb up to privileged Pacific Heights, and feel that I could not be more blessed sat here on this bench, watching the day draw serenely to its close, than if I were observing it from above in a million dollar Victorian.   

Built, along with ten other structures, on land created with sand dredged up from the bay for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915, the Palace of Fine Arts was designed to commemorate the opening of the Panama Canal, but it quickly became a demonstration of the stunning revival of San Francisco following the great earthquake and fire of nine years earlier.

A wonderful place to re-charge your energies, meditate or wind down, especially in the final hour of daylight, the reflecting lagoon, once a frog pond, and the structures that tower over it, form a beautiful classical harmony.

The forty metre high rotunda with its golden dome, visible from both the hill above and the Golden Gate Bridge to the west, may appear incongruous in a city still so young, but it is a nonetheless glorious, sight. The adjoining colonnade, with its groups of columns depicting weeping maidens and decorated with incomplete stairways and funeral urns, complements it perfectly.

 

The work of local architect Bernard Maybeck, it was built of temporary materials fashioned to resemble stone or marble. Intended to represent a Roman ruin, ironically it survived alone of all those buildings of the much lauded Exposition. So beloved of San Franciscans was it that it was allowed to stand for decades whilst crumbling into decay, befitting the air of “timeless melancholy” that its founders had aimed for. It helped too that, unlike the remaining edifices, it was built on Army land and escaped the prompt demolition that befell those in the dash to create the residential district now known as the Marina.   

And then during the sixties a rich benefactor who lived across the street offered $2 million of his own fortune and roused latent public and California State support for its restoration. It was torn down and replaced by one in reinforced concrete at a cost of $7.5 million.

A further major renovation, concluded in 2008, unveiled the shining glory that it is today. It takes little suspension of disbelief to understand why it is so popular as a location for wedding shoots and film sets.

As the previously balmy bay breeze gives way to the chill of twilight, I move away as the tranquility is temporarily interrupted by a small boy in a toy car noisily chasing the ducks around the perimeter of the lagoon. Needless to say, he loses, and peace is restored as darkness falls.

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