The Earthquake

            On Sunday evening, March 17^th, 2013 I interviewed my father, James about the 1989 earthquake. That earthquake happened twenty four years ago on October 17^th, 1989 the Epicenter was near Santa Cruz and at around, 5 pm and it started and lasted for 10-15 seconds, measuring 6.9 on the Richter Scale which is very high. Because of that earthquake 63 people died, 3,757 were injured and 3,000-12,000 people were left homeless. The earthquake shook everything around San Francisco especially in Marina district.

“It was a beautiful afternoon, the streets were very quiet and no one was around. I was sitting in my living room watching a television, waiting for the World Series to begin” he said. The two teams remaining out of all the teams in Canada and the United States that competed in Major League Baseball were the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland Ace. So, almost everyone in the Bay Area was near a TV waiting to watch the game begin.

When that earthquake shook everything, my dad first thought of his shoes because everything started moving and falling down from the walls and from the ceiling so if you are wearing only socks you really want to know where your shoes are. So, he was lying down on the floor, wondering “when will it stop”. Then, the building was moving so much that he rolled over to a doorway and looked down to the hall, to see how far his shoes were.

The walls were moving like sheets of paper, waiving back and forth like they were made out of rubber or something. And, of course you cannot ever know when it would stop. The 1989 earthquake was one of the biggest earthquakes in the Bay Area. For example, the whole city was shut down for two days and many buildings caught on fire. Also, a section of Bay Bridge roadway fell and people were trapped in the Bart tube that goes under the Bay and many people had to walk to their homes, even some people crossed the city on foot. For example, some people who could not get back home walked all the way to my father’s house near the beach from downtown to spend a night or so. 

At first, I thought that fifteen seconds is a short amount of time to cause great damage but I realized that if you count to fifteen it is enough time to cause a lot of damage. In conclusion, my father recommends that If there is an earthquake, make sure you have a flashlight, food that does not need to be refrigerated, water and camp equipment because if there is a big earthquake it is going to be like as you are going for camping for a few days or more.

 By  Udval Battulga 
 San Francisco International High School 
 Class E, April 23, 2013