The San Francisco Earthquake: A Minute-by-Minute Account of the 1906 Disaster

This is the story of the San Francisco earthquake of 1906: It contains never before published documents of the insurance companies, the military, and the Red Cross to tear away the myths and expose the real villains and heroes

The last big earthquake in the United States came at 5:13 a.m. on April 18, 1906, in San Francisco. No one knows when the next, even more devastating earthquake will come to San Francisco, but one will come. Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan Witts have written a spellbinding moment-by-moment account of the 1906 earthquake and dramatic prediction-based on expert opinion-of the next one.

The authors use never-before-published eyewitness reports and previously ignored documents of the insurance companies, the military, and the Red Cross to tear away the myths surrounding the holocaust. They expose the real villains and heroes, show how the political powers tried to conceal the amount of damage caused by the earthquake, reveal that the fire was spread by the inexperienced dynamite squads trying to contain it, and tell how the military executed people without trial. The reader joins the great Italian tenor Caruso, the founder of the Bank of America Giannini, the writer-adventurer Jack London, the temperamental star John Barrymore, and the thousands of less famous in their struggle for survival.

The authors ask unsettling questions. How prepared is the city for the coming catastrophe? Why is there, for instance, only one fire boat in San Francisco Bay? Why does the subway tunnel through the San Andreas fault? Why have new skyscrapers been built in the part most likely to go?