The Port Oracle

TUESDAY APRIL 18 2006447-908-7777 1 DOLLAR

SPORTS

After 100 years, SanFrancisco ﬁnally gets abaseball team, startingtheir season today.

ENTERTAINMENT

Grand opening of DowntownGallery features art from theearthquake of 1906. Includingpaintings, photographs,sculptures, and drawings of people’s initial reactions.

TECHNOLOGY

GM creates greener version of all of their vehicles, increasing revenueand proﬁt, bouncing them out of bankruptcy.

The 100th Anniversary of the earthquake that shattered San Francisco and broke us all

REMEMBERINGTHE QUAKE

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By Kiefer N. SutherlandStaff Writer 100 years ago

, ourmothers, fathers, grandmothers,and grandfathers stood at thesite of what used to be theflourishing and nascent city of San Francisco. On that Wednesday morning at 5:10 am,one of the largest earthquakes tohit the West coast had crippledus with its destruction.Instantly houses werecrumbling, streets shattered, andpeople crushed. Chaos hadstarted, everyone was looking fora safe haven. After the initialquake, much damage wascaused, but not so much that reconstruction would take years.Firemen and otherauthoritative figures weredispatched throughout the city in order to keep peace, andprevent violence. Unfortunately,the destruction was not over.Due to the earthquake gaspipelines had been cracked, andas a result, fires blazed across thecity, burning everything in itspath. Chaos had yet to come.Several inexperiencedfiremen were to put out thefires, and they were to do so by using firebreaks. Firebreaks would be used to stop or slowdown the fire by secluding it toone area. Firemen woulddemolish buildings withdynamite, hoping to destroy allcombustible materials andcreating a gap between the fireand other burnable objects.Firebreaks started to work well,however due to the ineptfirefighters, too much dynamite was used, which resulted inbolstering the fire, and making iteven stronger and more difficult toabate.The fires eventually stopped,and were extinguished. Themilitary moved in to secure homesand keep peace, as they did beforethe fires.Citizens also moved in,going back to their homes tosearch for their belongings, andanything that they could salvage.Unfortunately, because of the lackof military personnel and patrol,looting took place, and levels of violence dramatically increased.Thousands upon thousandsof residents were displaced, andhomeless. However, governmentfunding and aid created severallarge homes to house hundreds of people. Thousands campedoutside, and lived in colonies, andhundreds moved to their country homes to wait out the disaster.After everything stopped,the city of San Francisco wascompletely destroyed. The geology was changed, no buildings stood,and the dark color of charcoal waseverywhere.Nothing was spared.By July of that year, most of the residents moved out, since they saw no progress in the rebuildingof San Francisco. For those whostayed however, they weresubjected to a living standard of third world countries, somethingthey never thought of living.Homelessness and constant tensionplagued the once peaceful city, andmade it more difficult for changeand decisions to be made.The hardest and mostgrueling of them all would happen in August of 1906.Frederick Tainy, a premierscientist at the time on geology senta letter to the Governor of California, stating that it would beimpossible to rebuild San Franciscoin its original location, due tochanges in geology, which affectedthe stability of the ground. The landof san Francisco was entirely too softto build on. The governor decided tomake a wild proposal.The people of California hadto vote on whether or not to rebuildSan Francisco on its original terrace.On September 4, a vote took place.Booths opened all over the state,regarding whether or not the city should be rebuilt. Before the vote,announcements and scholarly articles were written urging to voteagainst rebuilding in the same spot.it would take hundreds of millions of dollars to rebuild the city, settingdown what would be unnecessary foundations for buildings and roads.It worked.On the morning of September5, it was announced that SanFrancisco would not be rebuilt at itsformer location, but be built moresouth of the bay, on the coast. Amemorandum would be built toremember San Francisco’sunforgettable imprint on the UnitedState’s advancement.Reconstruction efforts seemedto be impossible at first. The thoughtof rebuildin a whole cit overawed

people, and seemed impossible.Even so, reconstruction effortsbegan that December, beginning with simple home developments.However, construction was haltedfor several years due to the GreatDepression. Nonetheless, over aperiod of 100 years the city wasrebuilt, even though not to itsoriginal size, the city wasconstructed into the new SanFrancisco. With similararchitecture and street namesused, the old San Francisco wasnever thought to be destroyed.The new city thrives today,being one of the most densely populated cities in the UnitedStates, and having a highpercentage of jobs. The city isalso visited by more than1,500,000 tourists a year, with thatnumber growing. the city stillowns its great potential, as it did100 years ago. Small businessesand corporations are seekingretail space. An airport is beingbuilt for the city, and universitiesand colleges are building newcampuses in and around the city.Museums and hotels are beingconstructed left and right, along with parks and plazas. It seemsthat new construction startseveryday.Even with the city’s highdemand for reconstruction, it isnot deeply in debt, surprisingly, itis in a surplus.By building newattractions, the city acts as amagnet to tourists. The revenueand profit brought in fromtourists, grants, and donationsprovide a constant credit flow.New jobs are created everyday,and work is easily found. We look back at thedisaster that happened in 1906,seeing it as something thatslowed our constant need of wanting to reach the AmericanDream. By some, they see it asbeing something that can beconsidered a long term benefit.Because of the disaster, new jobs, an improved economy,and countless other things werecreated.It’s hard to tell whetheror not all of the positiveoutcomes of the earthquake would have happened if the city wasn’t hit by an earthquake, ordestroyed as much. Either way, we’re all happy now.

Contact Staff writer Kiefer N. Sutherland at 447-203-0122 or kiefers@portnews.com

Previously thoughtto be extinct plantand flower speciesfound

By Patty Louhan

Associated Press

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BAY AREA -- Scientists havediscovered plant and flower speciesthat were previously thought to beextinct sue to the earthquake.The earthquake damagedmuch of the geology of SanFrancisco and the Bay Area’sgeology, resulting in the destructionof several plant and flower species.For more than 75 yearsseveral flowers were thought to belost and extinct, since they grewsolely in the bay area.Over the next few weeks,scientists intend to find areas thatshow an increased level of plantgrowth, specifically looking for the“extinct” plants and flowers.Scientists will then tag the flowersand monitor their growth rates overa period of time.Several soil and plant samples will also be retrieved in order tocomplete studies on geologicalchanges that happened in the area.This will lead scientists to theanswers of why the certain speciesgrew back, and whether they evolvedor not.Scientists hope to find morespecies that are extinct, and torepopulate what was once thegreenest bay in the nation.