The 

Loma Prieta earthquake, also known as the Quake of '89 and the World Series Earthquake,[4] was a major earthquake that

struck the San Francisco Bay Area of California on October 17, 1989, at 5:04 p.m. local time. Caused by a slip along the San

Andreas Fault, the quake lasted 10–15 seconds[1] and measured 6.9 on the moment magnitude scale[5] (surface-wave magnitude

7.1) or 6.9 on the open-ended Richter Scale.[1] The quake killed 63[2] people throughout northern California, injured 3,757[3] and left

some 3,000-12,000[1][6][7][8] people homeless.

The earthquake occurred during the warm-up practice for the third game of the 1989 World Series, featuring both of the Bay

Area's Major League Baseballteams, the Oakland Athletics and the San Francisco Giants. Because of game-related sports

coverage, this was the first major earthquake in the United States of America to have its initial jolt broadcast live on television.[9]

Fifty-seven of the deaths were directly caused by the earthquake; six further fatalities were ruled to have been caused indirectly.
[2]
 In addition, there were 3,757[3] injuries as a result of the earthquake—400 severely hurt.[1] The highest number of fatalities, 42,
[12]
 occurred in the City of Oakland because of the failure of the Cypress Street Viaduct on the Nimitz Freeway (Interstate 880),

where a double-deck portion of the freeway collapsed, crushing the cars on the lower deck. One 50-foot (15 m) section of the San

Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge also collapsed, leading to the single fatality on the bridge. Three people were killed in the collapse

of the Pacific Garden Mall in Santa Cruz, and five people were killed in the collapse of a brick wall on Bluxome Street in San

Francisco.[4]

When the earthquake hit, the third game of the 1989 World Series baseball championship was just beginning. Because of the

unusual circumstance that both of the World Series teams (the San Francisco Giants and Oakland Athletics) were based in the

affected area, many people had left work early or were staying late to participate in after work group viewings and parties. As a

consequence, the usually crowded freeways were experiencing exceptionally light traffic. If traffic had been normal for a

Tuesday rush hour, injuries and deaths could have been higher. The initial media reports failed to take into account the game's

effect on traffic and initially estimated the death toll at 300, a number that was corrected to 63 in the days after the earthquake.[13]

[edit]Damage

The earthquake caused severe damage in some very specific locations in the San Francisco Bay Area, most notably on unstable

soil in San Francisco andOakland, but also in many other communities throughout the region located in Alameda, San
Mateo, Santa Clara, San Benito, Santa Cruz, and Montereycounties. Major property damage in San Francisco's Marina

District 60 mi (97 km) from the epicenter resulted from liquefaction of soil used to create waterfront land. Other effects

included sand volcanoes, landslides, and ground ruptures. Some 12,000 homes and 2,600 businesses were damaged.[1] InSanta

Cruz, close to the epicenter, 40 buildings collapsed, killing six people.[14] At the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, the Plunge building

was significantly damaged.[15] Liquefaction also caused damage in the Watsonville area.[16] For example, sand volcanoes formed in

a field near Pajaro as well as in a strawberry field.[17] The Ford's department store in Watsonville experienced significant damage,

including a crack down the front of the building.[18] Many homes were dislodged if they were not bolted to their foundations.[19] There

were structural failures of twin bridges across Struve Slough near Watsonville.[20]In Moss Landing, the liquefaction destroyed the

causeway that carried the Moss Beach access road across tidewater basin, damaged the approach and abutment of the bridge

linking Moss Landing spit to the mainland and cracked the paved road on Paul's Island.[21] In the Old Town historical district of the

city of Salinas, unreinforced masonry buildings were partially destroyed.[22]

The quake caused an estimated $6 billion[1] ($11 billion in current value) in property damage, becoming one of the most expensive

natural disasters in U.S. history at the time. It was the largest earthquake to occur on the San Andreas Fault since the great 1906

San Francisco earthquake.[10] Private donations poured in to aid relief efforts and on October 26, President George H. W.

Bushsigned a $3.45 billion earthquake relief package for California.[8]

[edit]Marina District
Four people died in San Francisco's Marina District, four buildings were destroyed by fire, and seven buildings collapsed.[9] Another

63 damaged structures were judged too dangerous to live in.[9] Among the four deaths, one family lost their infant son who choked

on dust while trapped for an hour inside their collapsed apartment.[4]

The Marina district was built on filled land made of a mixture of sand, dirt, rubble, waste, and other materials containing a high

percentage of groundwater. Some of the fill was rubble discarded after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake but most was sand and

debris laid down in preparation for the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, a celebration of San Francisco's ability to

rebound after its terrible catastrophe in 1906.[23] After the Exposition, apartment buildings were erected on the filled land. In the

1989 earthquake, the water-saturated unconsolidated mud and sand suffered liquefaction, and the earthquake's vertical shock

waves rippled the ground more severely.[8]

At the intersection of Beach and Divisadero Streets in San Francisco, a natural gas main rupture caused a majorstructure fire.[24]
[25]
 The fire department selected bystanders to help run fire hoses from a distance because the nearby hydrant system failed. Water

from the bay was pumped by a fireboat, Phoenix, to engines on the shore and used to douse the burning buildings.[26][27] The

apartment structures that collapsed were older buildings that included ground floor garages, resulting in what engineers refer to as

a soft story building.[28]

In Santa Cruz, the Pacific Garden Mall was severely damaged, with falling debris killing three people, half of the six earthquake

deaths in the Santa Cruz and Monterey Counties.[14] Some 31 buildings were damaged enough to warrant demolition, seven of

which had been listed in the Santa Cruz Historic Building Survey.[29] The four oldest had been built in 1894; the five oldest had

withstood the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.[29]

Immediately, a number of civilians began to work to attempt to free victims from the rubble of Ford's Department Store and the

Santa Cruz Coffee Roasting Company—both buildings had collapsed inward on customers and employees alike.[14] Two police

officers who crawled through voids in the debris found one victim alive and another dead inside the coffee house.[30] Santa Cruz

beach lifeguards assisted in moving the victims.[30] Police dogs were brought in to help locate further victims.[30] A woman was found

dead inside Ford's.[31] The civilians who had been initially helpful soon were viewed by police and fire officials as a hindrance to

operations, with frantic coworkers and friends of a coffee house employee who was thought trapped under the rubble continuing

their efforts in the dark.[30] Police arrested those who refused to stop searching; this became a political issue in the coming days.
[32]
 The body of a young woman coffee worker was found under a collapsed wall late the next day.[33]

During the first few days following the quake, electric power was out to most Santa Cruz county subscribers and some areas had

no water. Limited phone service remained online, providing a crucial link to rescue workers.[32] Widespread search operations were

organized to find possible victims within fallen structures. As many as six teams of dogs and their handlers were at work identifying

the large number of damaged buildings that held no victims.[32]

The quake claimed one life in Watsonville;[32] a driver who collided with panicked horses after they escaped their collapsed corral.
[34]
 In other Santa Cruz and Monterey county locations such asHollister, Boulder Creek and Moss Landing, a number of structures

were damaged, with some knocked off of their foundations.[35] Many residents slept outside their homes out of concern for further

damage from aftershocks, of which there were 51 with magnitudes higher than 3.0 in the following 24 hours, and 16 more the

second day.[35] The earthquake damaged several historic buildings in the Old Town district of Salinas, and some were later

demolished.[36]

[edit]San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge

The San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge suffered relatively minor damage, as a 76-by-50-foot (23 × 15 m) section of the upper

deck on the eastern cantilever side crashed onto the deck below. The quake caused the Oakland side of the bridge to shift 7 in

(18 cm) to the east, and caused the bolts of one section to shear off, sending the 250-short-ton (230 t) section of roadbed crashing
down like a trapdoor.[37] When that part of the bridge collapsed, a few upper deck motorists drove into the hole but landed safely on

the lower deck. Traffic on both decks came to a halt, blocked by the section of roadbed. Police began unsnarling the traffic jam,

telling drivers to turn their cars around and drive back the way they had come. Eastbound drivers stuck on the lower deck between

the collapse and Yerba Buena Island were routed up to the upper deck and westward back to San Francisco. A miscommunication

made by emergency workers at Yerba Buena Island routed some of the drivers the wrong way; they were directed to the upper

deck where they drove eastward toward the collapse site.[4] One of these drivers did not see the open gap in time; the car plunged

over the edge and smashed onto the collapsed roadbed. The driver died and the passenger was seriously injured.[24]
[38]
 Caltrans removed and replaced the collapsed section, and re-opened the bridge on November 18.[8]

[edit]Oakland and Interstate 880/Cypress Viaduct

The worst disaster of the earthquake was the collapse of the two-level Cypress Street Viaduct of Interstate 880 in West Oakland.

The failure of a 1.25-mile (2.0 km) section[39] of the viaduct, also known as the "Cypress Structure" and the "Cypress Freeway",
[4]
 killed 42 and injured many more.[40]

Built in the late 1950s, the Cypress Street Viaduct, a stretch of Interstate 880, was a double-deck freeway section made of

nonductile reinforced concrete[41] that was constructed above and astride Cypress Street in Oakland. Roughly half of the land the

Cypress Viaduct was built on was filled marshland, and half was somewhat more stable alluvium.[7] Because of new highway

structure design guidelines—the requirement of ductile construction elements—instituted following the 1971 San Fernando

earthquake, a limited degree of earthquake reinforcement was retrofitted to the Cypress Viaduct in 1977. The added elements were

longitudinal restraints at transverse expansion joints in the box girder spans, but no studies were made of possible failure modes

specific to the Cypress Viaduct.[41]When the earthquake hit, the shaking was amplified on the former marshland, and soil

liquefaction occurred.[35]

During the earthquake, the freeway buckled and twisted to its limits before the support columns failed and sent the upper deck

crashing to the lower deck. In an instant, 41 people were crushed to death in their cars. Cars on the upper deck were tossed

around violently, some of them flipped sideways and some of them were left dangling at the edge of the highway. Nearby residents

and factory workers came to the rescue, climbing onto the wreckage with ladders and forklifts[11] and pulling trapped people out of

their mangled cars from under a four-foot gap in some sections. Some 60 members of Oakland's Public Works Agency left the
nearby city yard and joined rescue efforts.[39] Employees from Pacific Pipe (a now-shuttered factory adjoining the freeway) drove

heavy lift equipment to the scene and started using it to raise sections of fallen freeway enough to allow further rescue. Hard-hatted

factory workers continued their volunteer operation without stopping night and day until October 21, 1989, when they were forced to

pause as U.S. President George H. W. Bush and California Governor George Deukmejian viewed the damage.[42] The stubborn

efforts of the rescue workers were rewarded just after dawn on October 21 when survivor Buck Helm was freed from the wreckage,

having spent 90 hours trapped in his crushed car under the rubble.[43] Dubbed "Lucky Buck" by the local radio, Helm lived for

another 29 days on life support, but finally succumbed to respiratory failure at the age of 57.[44]

Rebuilding the freeway took 11 years.[45] In the meantime, traffic was detoured through nearby Interstate 980, causing increased

congestion.[45] Instead of rebuilding Interstate 880 over the same ground, Caltrans rerouted the freeway further west around the

outskirts of West Oakland to provide better access to the Port of Oaklandand the San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge, and to

meet community desires to keep the freeway from cutting through residential areas.[46] Street-level Mandela Parkway now occupies

the previous roadbed of the Cypress Structure.[46]

[edit]1989 World Series

The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake was one of the few times that the onset of an earthquake of such magnitude has occurred

during a live network television broadcast, and as a result, the first moments of the earthquake were seen around the world as it
happened. The Series was being televised that year by U.S. network ABC. At the moment the quake struck, sportscaster Tim

McCarver was narrating taped highlights of the previous Series game. Viewers saw the video signal begin to break up, heard

McCarver repeat a sentence as the shaking distracted him, and heard McCarver's colleague Al Michaels exclaim, "I'll tell you what

—we're having an earth—."[34] At that moment, the feed from Candlestick Park was lost.[47] The network put up a green ABC Sports

graphic as the audio was switched to a telephone link. Michaels cracked, "Well folks, that's the greatest open in the history of

television, bar none!" accompanied by the cheering of fans who had no idea of the devastation elsewhere.[48] ABC then switched to

their "rain delay" backup program, Roseanne, while attempting to restore electricity to their remote equipment. With

anchorman Ted Koppel in position in Washington, D.C., ABC News began continuous coverage of the quake about 5:40 p.m. (Al

Michaels, in the process, became a de facto on site reporter for ABC), at the same time as CBS News.[49] NBC News began

continuous coverage with Tom Brokaw about an hour later.[49] KGO-TV, a local affiliate of ABC, later won a Peabody Award for their

news coverage, as did radio station KCBS (AM).[50]

In Los Angeles, ABC owned and operated station KABC chose not to air the network feed. It aired its own coverage, anchored by

Mark Coogan. However, some network footage was incorporated into its coverage.

Fewer than half of the more than 62,000 fans[4] had reached their seats by the time of the quake, and the load on the structure of

the stadium was lower than maximum.[51] There had also been a seismic-strengthening project previously completed[52] on the upper

deck concrete windscreen. Fans reported that the stadium moved in an articulated manner as the earthquake wave passed through

it, that the light standards swayed by many feet, and that the concrete upper deck windscreen moved in a wave-like manner over a

distance of several feet. Electrical power to the stadium was lost, forcing the game to be postponed. The series did not resume for

10 days.[51]

After the shaking subsided, many of the players on both teams immediately searched for and gathered family[51] and friends from

the stands (while still in full uniform) before evacuating the facility.

Because of the importance of the World Series as a national sporting event, many members of local, regional and national

broadcast media were in attendance and would later broadcast their observations of the aftermath of the earthquake to viewers

around the world.[53] In addition to broadcast news, many photojournalists were present, and a collection of their photos was

released as the book Fifteen Seconds: The Great California Earthquake of 1989, which was published soon after the quake to raise

money for the victims.[53]

[edit]Effects on transportation

Immediately following the earthquake, San Francisco Bay Area airports closed to conduct visual inspection and damage

assessment procedures. San Jose International Airport,[55] Oakland International Airport and San Francisco International Airport all

opened the next morning.[56] Massive cracks in Oakland's runway and taxiway reduced the usable length to two-thirds normal, and

damage to the dike required quick remediation to avoid flooding the runway with water from the bay.[57] Oakland Airport repair costs

were assessed at $30 million.[57]

San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni) lost all power to electric transit systems when the quake hit, but otherwise suffered little

damage and no injuries to operators or riders.[58] Cable cars and electric trains and buses were stalled in place—half of Muni's

transport capability was lost for 12 hours. Muni relied on diesel buses to continue abbreviated service until electric power was

restored later that night, and electric units could be inspected and readied for service on the morning of October 18.[58] After 78

hours, 96 percent of Muni services were back in operation, including the cable cars.[58]

The earthquake changed the Bay Area's automobile transportation landscape. Not only did the quake force seismic retrofitting of all

San Francisco Bay Area bridges,[59] it caused enough damage that some parts of the region's freeway system had to be

demolished.[41] Damage to the region's transportation system was estimated at $1.8 billion.[35]

 San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge, Interstate 80: The Bay Bridge was repaired and reopened to traffic in a month.

However, the earthquake made it clear that the Bay Bridge, like many of California's toll bridges, required major repair or

replacement for long-term viability and safety. Construction on a replacement for the eastern span began on January 29, 2002.

The project is expected to be completed by 2013.

 Cypress Street Viaduct/Nimitz Freeway, Interstate 880: The double-decked Cypress Street Viaduct, Interstate 880 was

demolished soon after the earthquake, and was not rebuilt until July 1997. The rebuilt highway was a single- rather than

double-deck structure, and was re-routed around the outskirts of West Oakland, rather than bisecting it, as the Cypress Street

Viaduct had done. The former route of the Cypress Street Viaduct was reopened as the ground-level Mandela Parkway.

 Embarcadero Freeway, California State Route 480: Earthquake damage forced the closure and demolition of San

Francisco's incomplete and controversial Embarcadero Freeway (State Route 480). This removal opened up San

Francisco's Embarcadero area to new development. The elevated structure, which ran along San Francisco's waterfront, was

later demolished and replaced with a ground-level boulevard.

 Southern Freeway, Interstate 280: Seismic damage also forced the long-term closure of Interstate 280 in San Francisco

(north of US 101), another concrete freeway which had never been completed to its originally planned route. The uncompleted

northernmost stub of I-280 was demolished during August–October 1995[60] while one connecting ramp between northbound I-

280 and southbound US 101 was opened in December 1995.[61] The full I-280 project was completed in late 1997.[62]

 Central Freeway, U.S. Route 101: San Francisco's Central Freeway (part of US 101 and a key link to the Bay

Bridge flyover) was another concrete double-deck structure which faced demolition because of safety concerns. Originally

terminating at Franklin Street and Golden Gate Avenue near San Francisco's Civic Center, the section past Fell Street was

demolished first, then later the section between Mission and Fell Streets. The section from Mission Street to Market Street was

rebuilt (completed September 2005) as a single-deck elevated freeway, touching down at Market Street and feeding

into Octavia Boulevard, a ground-level urban parkway carrying traffic to and from the major San Francisco traffic arterials that

the old elevated freeway used to connect to directly, including Fell and Oak Streets (which serve the city's western

neighborhoods) and Franklin and Gough Streets (which serve northern neighborhoods and the Golden Gate Bridge).

 State Route 17: The mountain highway was closed for about one month because of a landslide. The route crosses the

San Andreas Fault in the Santa Cruz Mountains, near the earthquake's epicenter.

 State Route 1: In Watsonville, the Struve Slough Bridge collapsed, with concrete/steel support columns punching through

the bridge deck like toothpicks. The highway was closed for several months until it could be demolished and rebuilt. Another

section of Highway 1 through Monterey suffered damage and had to be rebuilt as well. Additionally, the bridge carrying

Highway 1 over the Salinas River near Fort Ord was damaged and subsequently rebuilt.

 Bay Area Rapid Transit: The BART rail system, which hauled commuters between the East Bay and San Francisco via

the Transbay Tube, was virtually undamaged and only closed for post-earthquake inspection. With the Bay Bridge closed

because of its damage, the Transbay Tube became the quickest way into San Francisco via Oakland for a month, and

ridership increased in the three work weeks following the earthquake, going from 218,000 riders per average weekday to more

than 330,000 post-quake, a 50 percent increase.[8] BART instituted round-the-clock train service until December 3 when they

returned to their normal schedule.[8]

 Transbay Ferries: Ferry service between San Francisco and Oakland, which had ended decades before, was revived

during the month-long closure of the Bay Bridge as an alternative to the overcrowded BART. A ferry terminal was put together

in Alameda, and the Army Corps of Engineers dredged a suitable ferry dock at the Berkeley Marina.[57] Additionally, the

demolition of the quake-damaged Embarcadero Freeway led to the Ferry Building Terminalrenovation, increasing the

efficiency of ferry service to the peninsula. The passenger-only service proved popular and continues to expand its service.
  1989: Earthquake hits San Francisco
 A powerful earthquake has rocked San Francisco killing nine people and injuring hundreds.
 The number of dead is expected to rise significantly. The two-tier Bay Bridge and Nimitz
freeway both partially collapsed and rescuers are waiting to recover bodies from cars crushed
by the quake.
 The epicentre of the quake, which measured 6.9 on the Richter scale, is thought to have been
Loma Prieta, 10 miles north of Santa Cruz on the San Andreas fault.
 A massive rescue effort is now underway in what experts believe is the second biggest
earthquake ever to hit the United States.
 Officials have reported "unbelievable damage to infrastructure" with collapsed bridges and
freeways, fires, shattered buildings, gaping cracks in roads and land slides.
 Tremors from the quake, which lasted 15 seconds, were reported 400 miles away in Los
Angeles and 200 miles away in Reno, Nevada.
 The quake struck at 1704 local time (18 October, 0004 GMT), as people were making their way
home after work. Traffic was brought to a standstill and many homes left without power.
 Fans waiting to see the baseball World Series match at Candlestick Park were also caught up in
the quake. Supporters ran onto the pitch as the whole stadium swayed.

We're getting mainly shock,

cuts and shortness of
breath
Ambulance worker Kimberly Kelly 

 Hospitals have been flooded with injured victims. Ambulance worker Kimberly Kelly said: "We're
getting mainly shock, cuts and shortness of breath."
 Officials are said to be shocked at the amount of damage as freeways and buildings are
supposed to be earthquake-proof.
 The Governor of California, George Deukmajian, said: "I had been under the impression that
the highways had been constructed to deal with any severe earthquake and I am very surprised
to see what has happened to some of those."
 "I think we are going to have some kind of inquiry to determine why they did not survive a
quake of the severity of this one."
