“Skirting the shore northwest from the big ferry
building—which was so seriously injured
that it will have to be rebuilt—the first
thing observed was the extraordinary irregularity
of the earthquake’s course. Pier No. 5,
for instance, is nothing but a mass of ruins, while
Pier No. 3, on one side of it and Pier No. 7, on the
other side, similar in size and construction, are
undamaged. Farther on, the Kosmos Line pier is
a complete wreck.”
The big forts at the entrance to the Golden Gate also
suffered seriously from the great shake-up, and the
emplacements of the big guns were cracked and damaged.
The same is the case with the fortifications back
of Old Fort Point, the great guns in these being for
the present rendered useless. It will take much
time and labor to restore their delicate adjustment
upon their carriages.
The buildings that collapsed in the city were all
flimsy wooden buildings and old brick structures,
the steel frame buildings, even the score or more
in course of construction, escaping injury from the
earthquake shock. Of the former, one of the most
complete wrecks was the Valencia Hotel, a four-story
wooden building, which collapsed into a heap of ruins,
pinning many persons under its splintered timbers.
In fact, as the reports of damage wrought by the earthquake
came in, the conviction grew that one of the safest
places during the earthquake shock was on one of the
upper floors of the skyscraper office buildings or
hotels. As a matter of fact, not a single person,
so far as can be learned, lost his or her life or
was seriously injured in any of the tall, steel frame
structures in the city, although they rocked during
the quake like a ship in a gale.
The loss of life was caused in almost every case by
the collapse of frame structures, which the native
San Franciscan believed was the safest of all in an
earthquake, or by the shaking down of portions of
brick or stone buildings which did not possess an iron
framework. The manner in which the tall steel
structures withstood the shock is a complete vindication
of the strongest claims yet made for them, and it
is made doubly interesting from the fact that this
is the first occasion on which the effect of an earthquake
of any proportions on a tall steel structure could
be studied.
The St. Francis Hotel, a sixteen-story structure,
can be repaired at an expenditure of about $400,000,
its damage being almost wholly by fire. The steel
shell and the floors are intact. Although the
building rocked like a ship in a gale while the quake
lasted, its foundations are undamaged. Other
steel buildings which are so little damaged as to admit
of repairs more or less extensive are the James Flood,
the Union Trust, the call building, the Mutual
Savings Bank, the Crocker-Woolworth building and the
Postal building. All of these are modern buildings
of steel construction, from sixteen to twenty stories.
