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Research Paper On San Francisco Earthquake

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San Francisco, a thriving city in the early 1900s. Gaining its wealth from the gold rush that previously happened in 1849. San Francisco gained 5 billion dollars from land and gold. San Francisco was at a very good economical place, being a rapidly growing city with a large population. The earthquake, was more of a when instead of an if, meaning that the earthquake was inevitable. Of course, due to today's technology and understanding over earthquakes, we know that they were bound to happen, but in the early 1900s, they did not have this knowledge. This earthquake, and the Loma Prieta, were both earthquakes caused from the San Andreas Fault. The San Andreas fault is the fault between the Pacific and the Northern Continental tectonic plates. …show more content…

The earthquake lasted a total of 45 seconds, but 26 aftershocks occurred over an extended amount of time afterwards. When the earthquake hit, most people, other than some police officers, were asleep. The earthquake had a magnitude of 7.9 on the richter scale, so the not so earthquake proof buildings, fell on people as they woke up. 400,000 people in San Francisco underwent this terrible shaking. There were reports of people feeling the shake from southern Oregon to Los Angeles and inland to Central Nevada. Although, there were rich people that had their houses in places such as Nob Hill. Nob Hill was made completely upon bedrock, making the earthquake quite small and unproblematic. The reason the city had the earthquake so bad, was because the city wasn’t built on bedrock, but built on some dirt and such. During San Francisco’s gold rush, they decided to expand the city, by literally creating their own land, by packing a combination of trash, dirt and sand, and then building over it. They were not anticipating what an earthquake could do to that particular land. That land, also called South of Market, was hit so badly, some buildings sunk in the loose sand, dirt and trash, up to three stories. During the fires, the water mains in the city broke due to the earthquake's intensity. The water was leaked into the soil, creating mud. One building that was over the broken water mains, sunk into the wet mud 3 stories, and the last …show more content…

250,000 became homeless, 3,000 went missing or died, and there were 28,000 buildings destroyed. The fires at their worst had a temperature of 2,700 degrees fahrenheit. The entire dilemma, in today’s money, would cost about 120 billion dollars. When the city started rebuilding, there was many problems. San Francisco was faced with poverty and disease. Many people were committing suicide because they had lost everything from family to property. The earthquake was given a symbol, a symbol to represent this earthquake and everything it stood for. The fire was like a phoenix because San Francisco rose from its own ashes to become the great city it is today. San Francisco had a reputation for surviving disasters, the city burned down no more than six times between 1849 and 1851, and after the fire in 1906. San Francisco was finally granted the symbol of a phoenix. The San Andreas Fault is still active. And there hasn’t been an earthquake in a while, which means the tension has been building up in the fault. There is bound to be another intense shaking, like the one in 1906. But like in 1906, the city while rise from its ashes, and be better than ever. Thank

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