THRILLING PERSONAL EXPERIENCES.
=Scenes of Horror and Panic Described by Victims of the
Quake Who Escaped--How Helpless People Were Crushed to
Death by Falling Buildings and Debris--Some Marvelous
Escapes.=
The stories of hundreds who experienced the earthquake shock but
escaped with life and limb constitute a series of thrilling stories
unrivalled outside of fiction. Those that contain the most marvellous
features are herewith narrated:
* * * * *
Albert H. Gould, of Chicago, describes the scene in the Palace Hotel
following the first quake:
"I was asleep on the seventh floor of the Palace Hotel," he said, "at
the time of the first quake. I was thrown out of my bed and half way
across the room.
"Immediately realizing the import of the occurrence, and fearing that
the building was about to collapse, I made my way down the six flights
of stairs and into the main corridor.
"I was the first guest to appear. The clerks and hotel employes were
running about as if they were mad. Within two minutes after I had
appeared other guests began to flock into the corridor. Few if any of
them wore other than their night clothing. Men, women, and children
with blanched faces stood as if fixed. Children and women cried, and
the men were little less affected.
"I returned to my room and got my clothing, then walked to the office
of the Western Union in my pajamas and bare feet to telegraph to my
wife in Los Angeles. I found the telegraphers there, but all the wires
were down. I sat down on the sidewalk, picked the broken glass out of
the soles of my feet, and put on my clothes.
"All this, I suppose, took little more than twenty minutes. Within
that time, below the Palace the buildings for more than three blocks
were a mass of flames, which quickly communicated to other buildings.
The scene was a terrible one. Billows of fire seemed to roll from the
business blocks soon half consumed to other blocks in the vicinity,
only to climb and loom again.
"The Call building at the corner of Third and Market streets, as I
passed, I saw to be more than a foot out of plumb and hanging over the
street like the leaning tower of Pisa.
"I remained in San Francisco until 8 o'clock and then took a ferry for
Oakland, but returned to the burning city an hour and a half later. At
that time the city seemed doomed. I remained but for a few minutes;
then made my way back to the ferry station.
"I hope I may never be called upon to pass through such an experience
again. People by the thousands and seemingly devoid of reason were
crowded around the ferry station. At the iron gates they clawed with
their hands as so many maniacs. They sought to break the bars, and
failing in that turned upon each other. Fighting my way to the gate
like the others the thought came into my mind of what rats in a trap
were. Had I not been a strong man I should certainly have been killed.
"When the ferry drew up to the slip, and the gates were thrown open
the rush to safety was tremendous. The people flowed through the
passageway like a mountain torrent that, meeting rocks in its path,
dashes over them. Those who fell saved themselves as best they could.
"I left Oakland at about 5 o'clock. At that time San Francisco was
hidden in a pall of smoke. The sun shone brightly upon it without any
seeming penetration. Flames at times cleft the darkness. This cloud
was five miles in height, and at its top changed into a milk white."
* * * * *
Mrs. Agnes Zink, Hotel Broadway, said:
"I was stopping at 35 Fifth street, San Francisco. The rear of that
house collapsed and the landlady and about thirty of her roomers were
killed. I escaped simply because I had a front room and because I got
out on the roof, as the stairway had collapsed in the rear. Out in the
street it was impossible to find a clear pathway. I saw another
lodging house near ours collapse--I think it must have been 39 Fifth
street--and I know all the inmates were killed, for its wreck was
complete. In ten minutes the entire block to Mission street was in
flames."
* * * * *
Mr. J. P. Anthony, a business man who escaped from the doomed city in
an automobile tells a graphic story:
Mr. Anthony says that he was sleeping in his room at the Romona hotel
on Ellis street, near Macon, and was suddenly awakened at 5:23 in the
morning. The first shock that brought him out of bed, he says, was
appalling in its terrible force. The whole earth seemed to heave and
fall. The building where he was housed, which is six stories high, was
lifted from its foundation and the roof caved in. A score or more of
guests, men and women, immediately made their way to the street, which
was soon filled with people, and a perfect panic ensued. Debris
showered into the street from the buildings on every side.
As a result, Mr. Anthony says, he saw a score or more of people
killed. Women became hysterical and prayed in the streets, while men
sat on the curbing, appearing to be dazed. It was twenty minutes
before those in the vicinity seemed to realize the enormity of the
catastrophe. The crowds became larger and in the public squares of the
city and in empty lots thousands of people gathered.
It was 9 o'clock before the police were in control of the situation.
When they finally resumed charge, the officers directed their energy
toward warning the people in the streets away from danger. Buildings
were on the brink of toppling over.
Mr. Anthony says he was walking on Market street, near the Emporium,
about 9 a. m., when a severe shock was felt. At once the street filled
again with excited persons, and thousands were soon gathered in the
vicinity, paralyzed with fear. Before the spectators could realize
what had happened, the walls of the building swayed a distance of
three feet. The thousands of bystanders stood as if paralyzed,
expecting every moment that they would be crushed, but another tremor
seemed to restore the big building to its natural position.
Mr. Anthony said that he momentarily expected that, with thousands of
others who were in the neighborhood, he would be crushed to death in a
few moments. He made his way down Market street as far as the Call
building, from which flames were issuing at every window, with the
blaze shooting through the roof. A similar condition prevailed in the
Examiner building, across the street.
He then started for the depot, at Third and Townsend streets,
determined to leave the city. He found a procession of several
thousand other persons headed in the same direction.
All south of Market street about that time was a crackling mass of
flames. Mr. Anthony made his way to Eighth and Market, thence down
Eighth to Townsend and to Third street, and the entire section which
he traversed was afire, making it impossible for him to reach his
destination. He attempted to back track, but found that his retreat
had been cut off by the flames. He then went to Twelfth street and
reached Market again by the city hall. San Francisco's magnificent
municipal building had concaved like an egg shell. The steel dome was
still standing, but the rest of the $3,000,000 structure was a mass of
charred ruins.
It was not yet noon, but the city's hospitals were already filled with
dead and injured, and all available storerooms were being pressed into
service. Dead bodies were being carried from the streets in garbage
wagons. In every direction hysterical women were seen. Men walked
through the streets, weeping, and others wore blanched faces. Transfer
men were being offered fabulous sums to remove household goods, even
for a block distant. Horses had been turned loose and were running at
large to prevent their being incinerated in the burning buildings.
Women had loaded their personal belongings on carts and were pulling
them through the city, the property being huddled in the public
squares.
"The Grand Hotel tossed like a ship at sea. There was a wavelike
motion, accompanied by a severe up and down shake," said J. R. Hand of
the Hand Fruit Company of Los Angeles. "The shock was accompanied by a
terrific roar that is indescribable. An upright beam came through the
floor of my room and the walls bulged in. I thought I should not get
out alive. All my baggage was lost, but I still have the key to my
room as a souvenir, No. 249.
"I was on the third story of the hotel and got the last vacant room.
No one in any of the stronger built hotels was killed, to the best of
my knowledge. These hotels were destroyed by fire after being severely
wrecked. I reached the ferry station by a trip of about six miles
around by the Fairmount Hotel and thence to the water front.
"The Examiner Building went up like a flash. I was standing in front
of the Crocker Building and saw the first smoke. Just then the
soldiers ran us out. We went around two blocks and the next view we
had the building was a mass of flames. The burning of the Palace was a
beautiful sight from the bay."
F. O. Popenie, manager of the Pacific Monthly, was asleep in the
Terminus hotel, near the Southern Pacific ferry station, when the
first tremble came.
"The Terminus hotel did not go down at the first shock," he said. "We
were sleeping on the third floor when the quake came. The walls of the
hotel began falling, but the guests had time to run outside before the
building fell in.
"I started for San Jose on foot. When I reached the Potrero I looked
back and saw the business section a furnace. Fires had started up in
many places and were blazing fiercely. Finally a man driving a single
rig overtook me. He was headed for San Jose and he took me in. After a
distance of fifteen miles we took the train and went on."
The Terminus hotel was a six-story structure with stone and brick
sides. It collapsed soon after the first shock.
Among the refugees who found themselves stranded were John Singleton,
a Los Angeles millionaire, his wife and her sister. The Singletons
were staying at the Palace hotel when the earthquake shock occurred.
Mr. Singleton gives the following account of his experience: "The
shock wrecked the rooms in which we were sleeping. We managed to get
our clothes on and get out immediately. We had been at the hotel only
two days and left probably $3,000 worth of personal effects in the
room.
"After leaving the Palace we secured an express wagon for $25 to take
us to the Casino, near Golden Gate Park, where we stayed Wednesday
night. On Thursday morning we managed to get a conveyance at enormous
cost and spent the entire day in getting to the Palace. We paid $1
apiece for eggs and $2 for a loaf of bread. On these and a little ham
we had to be satisfied."
"I was asleep in the Hotel Dangham, Ellis and Mason streets, when the
shock came," said Miss Bessie Tannehill of the Tivoli Theatre. "There
were at least 100 persons in the building at the time. At the first
shock I leaped from the bed and ran to the window. Another upheaval
came and I was thrown off my feet. I groped my way out of the room and
down the dark stairway. Men, women and children, almost without
clothing, crowded the place, crying and praying as they rushed out.
"When outside I saw the streets filled with people who rushed about
wringing their hands and crying. Proprietor Lisser of the hotel
offered a cabman $50 to take himself and his wife to the Presidio
heights, but he refused. He wanted more money. We finally secured a
carriage by paying $100. Fire was raging at this time and people were
panic-stricken.
"After getting outside of the danger region I walked back, hoping to
aid some of the unfortunates. I have heard about big prices charged
for food. I wish to testify that the merchants on upper Market street
and in nearby districts threw open their stores and invited the crowds
to help themselves. The mobs rushed into every place, carrying out all
the goods possible.
"I saw many looters and pickpockets at work. On Mason street a gang of
thieves was at work. They were pursued by troops, but escaped in an
auto."
The members of the Metropolitan opera company of New York were all
victims of the great disaster, including Mme. Sembrich, Signor Caruso,
Campanari, Dippel, Conductor Hertz and Bars.
All of the splendid scenery, stage fittings, costumes and musical
instruments were lost in the fire which destroyed the Grand Opera
House, where their season had just opened.
No one of the company was injured, but nearly all of them lost their
personal effects. Mme. Sembrich placed the loss by the destruction of
her elegant costumes at $20,000. She was fortunate enough to save her
valuable jewels. The total loss to the organization was $150,000.
On the morning of the earthquake the members of the company were
distributed among the different hotels.
The sudden shock brought all out of their bedrooms in all kinds of
attire. The women were in their night dresses, the men in pajamas,
none pausing to dress, all convinced that their last hour had come.
Ten minutes later Caruso was seen seated on his valise in the middle
of the street. Many of the others had rushed to open squares or other
places of supposed safety. Even then it was difficult to avoid the
debris falling from the crumbling walls.
Several of those stopping at the Oaks were awakened by plaster from
the ceilings falling on their bed and had barely time to flee for
their lives. One singer was seen standing in the street, barefoot, and
clad only in his underwear, but clutching a favorite violin which he
carried with him in his flight. Rossi, though almost in tears, was
heard trying his voice at a corner near the Palace hotel.
* * * * *
A. W. Hussey, who went to the Hall of Justice on the morning of the
disaster, told how at the direction of a policeman whom he did not
know, he had cut the arteries in the wrists of a man pinioned under
timbers at St. Katherine hotel.
According to the statement made by Hussey the man was begging to be
killed and the policeman shot at him, but his aim was defective and
the bullet went wide of the mark. The officer then handed Hussey a
knife with instructions to cut the veins in the suffering man's
wrists, and Hussey obeyed orders to the letter.
* * * * *
A story was told of one young girl who had followed for two days the
body of her father, her only relative. It had been taken from a house
in Mission street to an undertaker's shop just after the quake. The
fire drove her out with her charge, and it was placed in Mechanics'
Pavilion.
That went, and it had rested for a day at the Presidio, waiting
burial. With many others she wept on the border of the burial area,
while the women cared for her. That was truly a tragic and pathetic
funeral.
In the commission house of C. D. Bunker a rescuer named Baker was
killed while trying to get a dead body from the ruins. Other rescuers
heard the pitiful wail of a little child, but were unable to get near
the point from which the cry issued. Soon the onrushing fire ended the
cry and the men turned to other tasks.
Hundreds of firemen and rescuers were prostrated, the strain of the
continued fight in the face of the awful calamity proving more than
any man could stand. In the crowds at many points people fainted and
in some instances dropped dead as the result of the reaction following
the unprecedented shock.
At Mechanics' Pavilion scenes of heroism and later of panic were
enacted. The great frame building was turned into a hospital for the
care of the injured and here a corps of fifty physicians rendered aid.
Nurses volunteered their services and also girls from the Red Cross
ship that steamed in from the government yards at Mare island and
contributed doctors and supplies.
While the ambulances and automobiles were unloading their maimed and
wounded at the building the march of the conflagration up Market
street gave warning that the injured would have to be removed at once.
This work was undertaken and every available vehicle was pressed into
service to get the stricken into the hospitals and private houses of
the western addition. A few minutes after the last of the wounded had
been carried through the door, some on cots, others in strong arms and
on stretchers, shafts of fire shot from the roof and the structure
burst into a whirlwind of flame.
One of the most thrilling of all stories related of adventures in
stricken San Francisco during the days of horror and nights of terror
is that of a party of four, two women and two men, who arrived at Los
Angeles April 20, after having spent a night and the greater portion
of two days on the hills about Golden Gate Park.
This party was composed of Mrs. Francis Winter, Miss Bessie Marley,
Dr. Ernest W. Fleming, and Oliver Posey, all of Los Angeles.
"I was sleeping in a room on the third floor of the hotel," said Dr.
Fleming, "when the first shock occurred. An earthquake in San
Francisco was no new sensation to me. I was there in 1868, when a boy
ten years old, when the first great earthquake came. But that was a
gentle rocking of a cradle to the one of Wednesday.
"I awoke to the groaning of timbers, the grinding, creaking sound,
then came the roaring street. Plastering and wall decorations fell.
The sensation was as if the buildings were stretching and writhing
like a snake. The darkness was intense. Shrieks of women, higher,
shriller than that of the creaking timbers, cut the air. I tumbled
from the bed and crawled, scrambling toward the door. The twisting and
writhing appeared to increase. The air was oppressive. I seemed to be
saying to myself, will it never, never stop? I wrenched the lock; the
door of the room swung back against my shoulder. Just then the
building seemed to breathe, stagger and right itself.
"But I fled from that building as from a falling wall. I could not
believe that it could endure such a shock and still stand.
"The next I remember I was standing in the street laughing at the
unholy appearance of half a hundred men clad in pajamas--and less.
"The women were in their night robes; they made a better appearance
than the men.
"The street was a rainbow of colors in the early morning light. There
was every stripe and hue of raiment never intended to be seen outside
the boudoir.
"I looked at a man at my side; he was laughing at me. Then for the
first time I became aware that I was in pajamas myself. I turned and
fled back to my room.
"There I dressed, packed my grip, and hastened back to the street. All
the big buildings on Market street toward the ferry were standing, but
I marked four separate fires. The fronts of the small buildings had
fallen out into the streets and at some places the debris had broken
through the sidewalk into cellars.
"I noticed two women near me. They were apparently without escort. One
said to the other, 'What wouldn't I give to be back in Los Angeles
again.'
"That awakened a kindred feeling and I proffered my assistance. I put
my overcoat on the stone steps of a building and told them to sit
there.
"In less than two minutes those steps appeared to pitch everything
forward, to be flying at me. The groaning and writhing started afresh.
"But I was just stunned. I stood there in the street with debris
falling about me. It seemed the natural thing for the tops of
buildings to careen over and for fronts to fall out. I do not even
recall that the women screamed.
"The street gave a convulsive shudder and the buildings somehow
righted themselves again. I thought they had crashed together above my
head.
"The air was filled with the roar of explosions. They were dynamiting
great blocks. Sailors were training guns to rake rows of residences.
"All the while we were moving onward with the crowd. Cinders were
falling about us. At times our clothing caught fire, just little
embers that smoked and went out. The sting burned our faces and we
used our handkerchiefs for veils.
"Everybody around us was using some kind of cloth to shield their
eyes. It looked curious to see expressmen and teamsters wearing those
veils.
"Quite naturally we seemed to come to Golden Gate Park. It seemed as
if we had started for there. By this time the darkness was settling.
But it was a weird twilight. The glare from the burning city threw a
kind of red flame and shadow about us. It seemed uncanny; the figures
about us moved like ghosts.
"The wind and fog blew chill from the ocean and we walked about to
keep warm. Thousands were walking about, too, but there was no
disturbance.
"Families trudged along there. There was no hurry. All appeared to
have time to spare. The streets, walks, and lawns were wiggling with
little parties, one or two families in each. The men had brought
bedding and blankets and they made impromptu shelters to keep off the
fog.
"The cinders still kept falling. They seemed at times to come down
right against the wind. They stung my face and made me restless.
"All night we moved about the hills. Thousands were moving with us. As
the night wore on the crowd grew.
"Near daylight the soldiers came to the park. They were still moving
in front of the fire.
"I had brought a little store of provisions before nightfall and
somehow we had kept them. It seemed easy to keep things there. I
walked over to the fire made by one squad of soldiers and picked up a
tin bucket. They looked at me but made no move. I went to a faucet and
turned it on. Water was there. Not much, but a trickling little
stream. There was water in the park all night. I boiled some eggs and
we ate our breakfast. Then we concluded to try to make our way back to
the water front. We did this because the soldiers were driving us from
that part of the hills. The flames were still after us.
"The dumb horror of it seemed to reach right into one's heart. Walking
and resting, we reached the ferry near sunset. We had come back
through a burned district some four miles. I do not understand how the
people stood it.
"Other parties staggered past us. They were reeling, but not from
wine. It was here that the pangs of thirst caught us. But the end came
at last. We reached the ferry and the boats were running. The soldiers
were there, too. They seemed to be everywhere. They were offering milk
to the women and children.
"We are in Los Angeles now. It hardly seems real. If it were not for
the sting of the cinders that still stick to my face and eyes I might
think it was all a nightmare."
* * * * *
Adolphus Busch, the St. Louis brewer, gave this account of his
experiences in the earthquake:
"The earthquake which shook 'Frisco made all frantic, and was
undoubtedly the severest ever experienced in the United States. The
St. Francis hotel swayed from south to north like a tall poplar in a
storm; furniture, even pianos, was overturned, and people thrown from
their beds.
"I summoned my family and friends and urged them to escape to
Jefferson square, which we did.
"An awful sight met our eyes. Every building was either partly or
wholly wrecked, roofs and cornices falling from skyscrapers on lower
houses, crushing and burying the inmates.
"Fires started in all parts of the city, the main water pipes burst
and flooded the streets, one earthquake followed another, the people
became terrified, but all were wonderfully calm. Over 100,000 persons
without shelter were camping on the hills. There was no light, water,
nor food. Regular soldiers and the militia maintained order and
discipline, otherwise more horrors would have occurred and riots might
have prevailed. Then the worst happened. The fire spread over
three-fourths of the city and could not be controlled, no water to
fight it, no light, and the earth still trembling.
"Building after building was dismantled to check the progress of the
flames, but all of no avail. We were fortunate to secure conveyances
and fled to Nob Hill, from which we witnessed the indescribable drama.
Block after block was devastated. The fires blazed like volcanoes, and
all business houses, hotels, theaters--in fact, the entire business
portion--lay in ruins, and two-thirds of the residences."