Talk:1906 San Francisco earthquake

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later analyses. What the newspapers initially reported. The areas most affected and the people who lived there. Were there aftershocks and for what length of time did they last. There is not a single word about aftershocks but newspapers on the very day of the quake are reporting a very strong one occurred at about 8:15 later that morning. That of all things belongs here. The initial inconsistencies (as most news still does to this day) in early reports. I have an article that says "no loss of life" along Market St. where "low rent and hotels" were located. Then 2 paragraphs later is speaks of the exact same location and says there is "expected to be great loss of life there." You see, there are two parts to this quake. One is a scientific look but the other is the historic look. History and science are two separate entities and so I feel that they should be separated. No, I don't mean no mentioning of science but it should be limited in this article. I am not an expert and have no experience to speak of with this subject. I just happened to be reading an old article and came here only to find it full of scientific information, rather than historic. I'll be happy to look up newspaper reports for anyone working on this article, but that's about the extent I'm qualified to do. Sorry this was so long. ETA..

500: 479: 3363:, For the not so very important -revert that was made by you: I would like to remind you, that the sidewalk detail which I added on article is one of the few and most visible everyday reminder of that incident for the citizens of the city. It is a detail that local tourist guides tell to people who come to visit in the city from all over the world. I consider it quite an important. On such revert you do not contribute on making Knowledge (XXG) better dictionary. Let's put it this way: which would you consider to be more important edit? The detail on San Francisco sidewalks reminding the 1906 earthquake or the revert you made to disguise it. 1862:. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review. I am quick failing this nomination because of the lack of references in the article. It currently contains 19 "citation needed" tags, and there are other statements that should also be sourced. There are also two cleanup banners. I realize that much of this tagging was done after the nomination, but one cleanup banner has been in place since October 2007. Please ensure that the article is thoroughly sourced before it is renominated. Please also note that citations need to be properly formatted with at least a title, publisher, URL, and accessdate; see 3155:

of the quake were allowed, it would likely be a candidate to remain -- it had previously been at the top of the article for years. The photo of a ship listing on its side (coastal liner Columbia) could be anything -- a damaged ship in port, a collision at sea -- but it does not really tell us that much about the San Francisco Earthquake. If any photo should be deleted, it should be the Columbia, and then be replaced by Arnold Genthe's very unique and descriptive photo. With careful thinking, discussion, and collaboration it is possible to maintain essential photos and still preserve a professional presentation.

1996:. The reason no mention has been made of damage outside SF is because nobody has bothered to add anything about it, which is not actually bias. An example of bias by omission would be if there had been a section about damage elsewhere citing the Carnegie Institution of Washington report which had been removed. I totally understand why it could look like active POV pushing given the source and reasons you cited, but since nobody is stopping you from adding info about other areas damaged in this quake there isn't actually a POV dispute. 3564:"The 1906 San Francisco earthquake struck the coast of mexico at 5:12 a.m. on April 2" Uhh found this googling 1906 SF earthquake just now, and I know it didn't happen on April 2. But Wiki shows up in the top options for google, and the whole intro to the page boggled me (Mexico wasn't capitalised, additionally, SF is quite a ways away from Mexico, and I *know* that that's the Pacific Ocean, not the Coast of Mexico.) Shouldn't it be 18 April, 1906, and too far from the Coast of Mexico to be mentioned? 200: 1612:

broken, also the firefighters were worn out. One house survived since the owner fought for it with the watertanks in the house. He saved his whole flag-collection. The insurance companies mostly blamed the fire on the earthquake since it was that or going belly up. A few insurance companies which had few insurances in California paid up. Since my memory of the books is somewhat faulty I will wait until I can get hold of the books again before I change the chapter about fire.

1931:. It was erroneously stated that the river was diverted north to a new river mouth between Moss Landing and Watsonville. In fact this is the previous river bed. The present course of the Salinas River is straight to sea just north of Marina. This was also in error on the Wiki Salinas River page. I have corrected it there also and posted a link to an on-line resource that contains ariel photography from the 1930s and charts from before the 'quake to reflect this. 705: 684: 3140:, I'm concerned about an intention to overcrowd the article with "valuable historic photos". That is the state the article was in about a year ago before it was improved to its current state. Having an article with excessive image deteriorates the presentation and looks sloppy. A child can easily place many images in an article, but it takes some effort for an editor to carefully choose and place appropriate images for a true readable and attractive article. 1779:

references. There are probably at least 30 more citations necessary across the article. Moreover, the quality of some references is suspect. For example, doesn't appear to relate to the sentence at whose end it is placed. is a pretty thin source for the statement it supposedly verifies - a soldier reports that he is told by a fireman that people were setting fire to their houses for insurance purposes. I'd want more verification than that.

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destruction of Santa Rosa. Then nothing of other regional effects. Exactly what in Santa Rosa was destroyed. Why no mention of the destruction of San Jose State, San Jose High School, St. Patrick's Church, the main Post Office, the Hotel Vendome, and other major buildings in Downtown San Jose. What about the 100 patients killed when Agnews State Hospital collapsed in Santa Clara? The article as it stands is woefully incomplete.

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standard." But is there really such a Wiki standard that says a map must be in EVERY Info-box? Or is this a personal standard of yours, since you like to edit articles on earthquakes? Perhaps you should be more flexible, and less dictatorial concerning articles on earthquakes. Deleting, or reducing in size this simplistic graphic would be a way to decrease its DISTRACTION at the head of a potentially exciting article.

270: 857: 1716:"There were decades of minor earthquakes - more than at any other time in the historical record for northern California - before the 1906 quake. Widely previously interpreted as precursory activity to the 1906 earthquake, they have been found to have a strong seasonal pattern and were found to be due to large seasonal sediment loads in coastal bays that overlie faults as a result of the California Gold Rush." 1088:, which is on Everything2. The people there say that $ 400m was the figure in 1906 money. $ 400m isn't much money nowadays, but then again San Francisco had fewer things to burn in 1906! I don't know if Everything2 is a good source. It would be good if the article could give some scale to that figure. How much could $ 400m buy in 1906? This article is going to get a lot of attention in the coming days. 411: 1013: 972: 390: 342: 191: 917: 3256:

interested in it! They will first want an introduction, a broad stokes description of the event in TERMS that they can UNDERSTAND -- the destruction of buildings infrastructure, the serious fire that consumed much of the city, and how the people and government of that time attempted to deal with the catastrophe.

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This article tends to ramble. I feel that modern study wars should probably have its on article. This many analyses should really go somewhere else. In my opinion, and I'm aware that it is only an opinion and may not matter to most of you, I feel this article should reflect the disaster only. Not the

3227:

Comments about Nevada – I have in my possession a very detailed list of felt intensities for this event. It was felt in Nevada, and I could add that to the article, so it won't remain a blank and unused area. I can do that this weekend if you like. I intended to do that last year, but got distracted.

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Eureka – The north coast and the town of Eureka was significantly affected. As you can see, the damage portion of the article is only two sentences. I imagine that there could be quite a bit of new content written about the damage throughout the region. I placed the map with these locations with that

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I agree with you 100% on the image. In fact, I noticed how the Columbia image wasn't the best fit about a year ago, so I'm glad that you mentioned something to replace it. I've replaced it and it is an improvement. Thanks for that. With regard to the map: We don't need to treat this event differently

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It's true that some order should be adhered to for readability and that too many photos can be problematic, but not at the cost of deleting such a dramatic and valuable photo as the historic photo of the quake by Arnold Genthe ( San_Francisco_Fire_Sacramento_Street_1906-04-18.jpg ). If only one photo

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1. Actual cost in money: $ 300 million to a few billion 2. Death toll from quake (not counting fire casualties in Chinatown and police shootings): 478 to upwards of 3,000; approaching 5,000 (counting done by San Fran. historians and geneologists) 3. Areas of great quake damage (most damage was blamed

3259:

We should put what is most interesting to the unknowledgeable reader at the top of an article as an introduction, to best engage the reader encourage to continue to reading the article. However, later in an article is where we should go into depth and include technical data. IMO, your broad edits of

1350:

A recent edit to the infobox figure caused me to check around for the best estimates. The high figures (3,000 +) seem to come from a book called 'Denial of Disaster: The Untold Story and Photographs of the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 by Gladys Hansen & Emmet Condon' that I don't have access

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Oddly, this article seems to have very little treatment of the actual earthquake. The first section is "Subsequent fires". It might be worthwhile to have a discussion of the geology, the fault, the liquefaction of the filled-in areas, and probably building codes and masonry construction (and weren't

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I strongly DISAGREE. All this technical jargon and facts are mostly interesting only to you, because you are an earthquake buff. Imagine the average reader (might be a kid in school) who first hears about the devastating earthquake of 1906 -- they will not understand all this technical jargon or be

2016:

Dear Anynobody, You are wrong about my understanding of the meaning of POV. I agree this is not a POV problem, but I simply couldn't find a tag that exactly captured the fact that in the article damage outside of SF is not given sufficient weight. Even if you remove the tag, the problem remains.

1895:

This article completely fails in one very important area. The article has an almost complete lack of any effects of the earthquake outside the limits of San Francisco County. There are throw away mentions of 296 miles of fault rupture, the quake being felt up to several hundred miles away, and the

1626:

I am reading a book called "Life after Doomsday" by Bruce Clayton, and on page 8 he wrote, "the local fire chief had insisted to the city council that San Francisco was inadequately protected against fire. For one thing, the water mains all crossed the San Andreas Fault, and no provisions had been

1486:

I've found a verification for the $ 5 billion figure (well, $ 4.9 billion), which makes clear it's in 2005 dollars and that it refers to insured losses; the 1906 equivalent was $ 235 million per the source, which is the Insurance Information Institute. A higher figure ($ 400 million in losses) is

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According to the books I have read, the initial fires were almost all put out with the available water, but then a new fire started (Ham and Eggs Fire). That fire raged for more than a day and did most of the damage. It could run unchecked because most pounded water was gone and water mains were

1778:

Although I admire your audacity in pushing for GA at this stage, I can't help feeling that this is premature. The article has a long-standing "more citations needed" tag on the Aftermath and reconstruction section; I have just added another to an earlier section which is also woefully short on

3187:

The Location map (concentric circles) in the Info-box is very simplistic, does not tell us very much, and does take a lot of space. Why do we need to see the entire state of Nevada as a blank zone? IMO we should delete it. In defense of the map you say, "there's no reason to deviate from the

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I know you know this, but the "concentric circles" are the bullseye (the epicenter of the shock). Removing the map and bullseye would eliminate this elementary aspect of the event (location). Also, how is it a distraction when it shows the locations of places that are discussed (or should be

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I very much agree that we need a separate and early section (similar but different to the Subsequent Fires section) on the huge fire that occurred during the earthquake. The fire burned for out of control for over three days and did 10 times as much damage to property than the actual

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which gives a 1,500 estimate, but says that the work is ongoing and in review of the book at Amazon an estimate of 3,500 is mentioned. Does anyone have access to the book who can verify this? In any case a range should probably be in the article rather than a definitive figure IMO.

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Another source claims the earthquake can be classified as having a magnitude of 8.3 on the Richter Scale, so I changed that. Subsequently, I changed that citation. There was a bit more information discussing crustal deformation, so I added some information regarding that, too.

1072:? At the very least, a disclaimer should be put in to read something like "It remains the worst natural disaster in US history in terms of property damage." Because the Galveston Hurricane in 1900 claimed anywhere from 6,000-12,000 deaths, while the fire 'only' claimed 3,000. 2208:

Many insurance companies launched public relations campaigns right after the earthquake, claiming that they had paid all policyholder claims without discount – which was nothing else than their legal obligation. Some companies continue this to this day. For instance,

2487:

I agree with Cla68. These images should be added to the article, and I also believe them to be in the public domain. I believe the article would benefit from them because the color photos would give readers a better sense of the magnitude of the devastation.

1807:

The images are brilliant. One question - how do we know that the "looting soldiers" were actually looting? Couldn't they have been collecting abandoned property? Unless there is very specific evidence, beyond "reports", I'd alter the caption to say "allegedly

1497:

I've deleted the sentence "The official estimate of $ 300 million in damage has been shown to be upward of $ 5 billion." It's now clear that it compares apples and oranges--1906 and present dollars. I've moved the damage estimates to the top of the section.

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I've flagged the following statement as "cite needed": "The official estimate of $ 300 million in damage has been shown to be upward of $ 5 billion." The estimate on the National Geological Survey Web site is much lower, $ 400 million in 1906 dollars. (cf.

2373:

We should add something about the treatment of Chinese during the aftermath. Many were forced away from their homes to new locations away from the city(but still close enough so they could pay taxes)....many were shot and pushed around by the Army's "Aid"

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The opening sentence, which reads: "The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 was a major earthquake that struck San Francisco..." This is somewhat repetitive and clumsy. There is later close repetition in the lead of the phrase "the earthquake and resulting

3406:

Thanks for proper reference and interesting reading. Seems that the justification was incorrect then, the actual reason for revert made being wrong information based on the source, not the importance of the detail itself as was written on the comment.

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on fires) 4. # of police and army shootings: just a few to 500+ 5. Alteration of photos (durastic changes in hue to origional images revealed multiple pencil marks and airbrushing) (on one image about 30% was retouch) 6. "spin" in publications etc.

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One other question, because it is somewhat ambiguous: Is the $ 400,000,000 in damage actual 1906 dollars, or adjusted to 2005 dollars. The Galveston Hurricane article has both. It should be noted if the figure given is in 1906 or 2005 dollars.

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This seems like an incredible assertion; only backed up by a 2004 paper which we are unable to read, aside from the abstract. Is there any independent analysis or reaction to this paper, which would indicate its premise is widely accepted?

4078:

I've added a sub-section on aftershocks. This does not include the aftershock that you mention five minutes after the mainshock, although that is listed in the "Lawson report" that I linked to above, which gives it an intensity of IV

3292:, am I correct in assuming that you would like to see a better summary of the quake in broad-strokes at the top of the article (way it was in December 2014), rather than have the article jump right into all this new tectonic jargon? 2110:

I'd have fixed them myself, but apparently you have to be a "trusted" user of Knowledge (XXG), and I'm not. I can only assume that's due to not being a user for long and not contributing much yet. Thanks for fixing them, though!

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Claiming that was a massive cover up and that the police and army shot people isn't a conspiracy theory? Sorry, Pop Docs intended to sensationalize and juice up drama to attract viewers does not count as a good or unbiased source.

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Do not know if there was more lost... It was just in the last two weeks, however. I just noticed that section was missing, Looks to be a full time job keeping this free of vandalism. Will keep a lookout on this every once in a

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I don't know about you, but to me, these details make the scope of this event incredible, and having the map (along with an intensity table) certainly helps to paint that picture. I'll start working on the intensity table.

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I fixed the two I found, and a quick search of the page finds no more occurrences of "it's". Thanks for bringing it up, and feel free to fix those kinds of things in the future, if you're so inclined (some might say to be

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Did anyone heard something from Libra Armstrong, who was at age 103 in 2006, when she attended the 100th year memorial. Is she died or is she living? What happened to her? Nothing I can found about her since 2006.

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I apologize that while I am a Knowledge (XXG) user I am not familar with how to properly edit a page. A request was made for a citation about the post 1906 building codes. It should fall about citation number 21

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there some new steel structures? how did they fare by comparison?). The other is the "Aftermath" section which seems to devote more words (barely) to plans that were never realized, than to what was done. --

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Well, I've not re-worded it. Damage could have been $ 5 billion, which is $ 100 billion in 2005 dollars. After all, the entire downtown of the city was destroyed. It does need a reference, however.--

1414:

the entire section on the subsequent fires is now lost -- including all of the information on Eastwood and Jacobs -- through vandalism. The reverts missed that. The fires created the greatest damage.

1376:

I've heard estimates has high as 35,000 in seminars but can't think of a printed source for this. Nevertheless, as a historian I am inclined to believe the high number. I would say at least 35,000.

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made for the possibility that they would break in an earthquake and leave the city without water." It is an interesting bit of trivia and might be interesting enough for the main page. - cymbol

1251:

The article mentions a "conservative" death toll of 13,000 and some estimates of 27,000. However, I've never seen a credible estimate much higher than 3,000. Where do these numbers come from?--

4206:

I have an italian tourist booklet that cannot be considered a WIKI-worth source, so I write this only because someone may recover this info from a suitable source and insert it if felt useful.

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The third paragraph of this section is worded like it describing the picture in this section. If so, it needs to be placed in the picture's caption, not made into a text paragraph. Thanks.

3015:), a very dramatic story is revealed on how the residents joined in to fight a vast fire, but with no water to use as a resource ( most water pipes had been destroyed by the earthquake ). 1792:

In the Geology section, rather than give the Modified Mercelli intensity scale values of VIII and IX, forcing the reader to use the link, you could easily say "destructive" and "ruinous".

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That does seem to be a gap in the article. A fairly full record of the aftershocks can be found in the second volume of the report of the State Earthquake Investigation Commission (see

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In the 4th paragraph of the "Aftermath and Reconstruction" section, the improper use of the contraction "it's" is used at least twice when discussing banks. Please change to "its".

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I've never heard of any damage besides the destruction of San Francisco so maybe the bias is not that significant. Why not simply start a section on damage outside of San Francisco?

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The Salinas River mouth did not change position as a result of the 1906 earthquake. This is an error propagated from a brief incorrect history written by the Census Bureau in 2016.

1592:

I heard somewhere that the cover up was supported by local businessmen in order to attract further immigration to SF. Even the event was called SF Great Fire, to omit the quake...

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In essence, the hurricane and Katrina references at the top are somewhat distracting and not pertinent to the topic. It is inappropriate to have theme there. I've deleted them.

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discussed) in the article? These locations, with the exception of Los Angeles, all experienced high-intensity shaking (VIII or higher) and were chosen based on these factors:

4285: 1795:"There were decades of minor earthquakes..." doesn't actually make sense, though I know what you mean (minor earthquakes had been occurring for decades). You should reword. 4350: 4330: 4305: 4141:

disappointing to see a bunch of crap in this article beyond long since verified researched vetted facts - attempts to reframe events as caused by human activity for one

3970: 3966: 3952: 3789: 3785: 3771: 3673: 3669: 3655: 3388:, to be a far more important result of the earthquake and fire, and very San Franciscan. Nothing about the system has been written into this article, which is a shame. 721: 427: 4275: 2940: