The San Francisco calamity by earthquake and fire eBook
Charles Morris
The spectacle of the entire population of a great
city thus roused suddenly from slumber by a fierce
earthquake shock and sent flying into the streets
in utter panic, where not buried under falling walls
or tumbling debris, is one that can scarcely be pictured
in words, and can be given in any approach to exact
realization only in the narratives of those who passed
through its horrors and experienced the sensations
to which it gave rise. Some of the more vivid
of these personal accounts will be presented later,
but at present we must confine ourselves to a general
statement of the succession of events.
The earthquake proved but the beginning and much the
least destructive part of the disaster. In many
of the buildings there were fires, banked for the
night, but ready to kindle the inflammable material
hurled down upon them by the shock. In others
were live electric wires which the shock brought in
contact with woodwork. The terror-stricken fugitives
saw, here and there, in all directions around them,
the alarming vision of red flames curling upward and
outward, in gleaming contrast to the white light of
dawn just showing in the eastern sky. Those lurid
gleams climbed upward in devouring haste, and before
the sun had fairly risen a dozen or more conflagrations
were visible in all sections of the business part
of the city, and in places great buildings broke with
startling suddenness into flame, which shot hotly high
into the air.
While the mass of the people were stunned by the awful
suddenness of the disaster and stood rooted to the
ground or wandered helplessly about in blank dismay,
there were many alert and self-possessed among them
who roused themselves quickly from their dismay and
put their energies to useful work. Some of these
gave themselves to the work of rescue, seeking to
save the injured from their perilous situation and
draw the bodies of the dead from the ruins under which
they lay. Those base wretches to whom plunder
is always the first thought were as quickly engaged
in seeking for spoil in edifices laid open to their
plundering hands by the shock. Meanwhile the
glare of the flames brought the fire-fighters out
in hot haste with their engines, and up from the military
station at the Presidio, on the Golden Gate side of
the city, came at double quick a force of soldiers,
under the efficient command of General Funston, of
Cuban and Philippine fame. These trained troops
were at once put on guard over the city, with directions
to keep the best order possible, and with strict command
to shoot all looters at sight. Funston recognized
at the start the necessity of keeping the lawless
element under control in such an exigency as that which
he had to face. Later in the day the First Regiment
of California National Guards was called out and put
on duty, with similar orders.
