Here are the images and words of those who have, to varying degrees, risked their health to keep a nation working. Sign up for the newsletter here, and follow Chronicle Vault on Instagram. Pow! • Changed life: Thirty years ago, a firefighter made a vow while rescuing a woman after the Loma Prieta earthquake. San Francisco and San Mateo County Coast, IX. We thank our colleagues: Richard Pike, for his thorough scrutiny of the entire manuscript; Robert Mark, for reviewing the computer section; Edward Helley, who originally reviewed Open-File Report 90-547; Evelyn (Newman) Billo, David Traudt, Sue Mayfield, Sara Boore, George Havach, Peter Stauffer, and Bob Page for facilitating authoring of this report; Todd Fitzgibbon, for a short course in HTML; and Jack Hillhouse, for supporting the project. It had a moment magnitude of 6.9 and a surface wave magnitude of 7.1. Death, destruction, and havoc were again visited upon the San Francisco area in 1989. In Forest of Nicene Marks State Park, a state historic sign marks the approximate Ground Zero for October 17, 1989's Loma Prieta Earthquake, a magnitude 7.1. The epicenter was located near Loma Prieta peak in the Santa Cruz Mountains, approximately 14 km (9 mi) northeast of Santa … CLICK HERE to browse the screen-resolution images (JPEGs at about 768 x 512 pixels; /screens folder). Seen here October 25, 1989 Photo ran 10/31/1989, P. A6, A woman carries a box go donated food provided by volunteers, to families in Callaghan Park in Watsonville because they're homes are unsafe after the Loma Prieta earthquake, October 21, 1989, Virginia Romero hands out clothes the to the group of residents of Watsonville who are staying in tents at the Watsonville High School because their homes are unsafe after the Loma Prieta earthquake, November 15, 1989 Photo ran 11/20/1909, P. A6, Santa Cruz County agriculture faces severe losses after the Loma Prieta earthquake, October 28, 1989, Workers move the rubble of the damaged greenhouses after the Loma Prieta earthquake, October 26, 1989, A weary fire fighter leans against a tree seated next to pile of rubble in the Pacific Garden Mall in downtown Santa Cruz. “Watsonville continued to move its homeless from makeshift tent cities near the hard-hit downtown to two professionally run tent cities with hot food, running water, medical care and privacy for large families,” reporter John Wildermuth wrote Oct. 24, 1989. ), a magnitude 6.9 (moment magnitude; surface-wave magnitude, 7.1) earthquake severely shook the San Francisco and Monterey Bay regions. Watsonville, a farm town 15 miles away, was even harder hit. It can be easy to forget that Santa Cruz County was hit hard by the temblor on Oct. 17, 1989, when most of the memories seared into the collective consciousness are of the dramatic devastation around the Marina, the Embarcadero, the Bay Bridge and the Cypress Structure. 5:04 p.m., Tuesday, October 17, 1989. He has a weekly column “From the Archive”, that focuses on photo coverage of historic events. This publication consists of the online version of a CD-ROM publication, U.S. Geological Survey Digital Data Series DDS-29. “It was eerie,” Mardi Wormhoudt, then mayor, told Chronicle writer Carl Nolte 10 years later. He does research for reporters and editors and manages the photos, negatives and text archives. Up-to-date information about Photo CD is on the World Wide Web at http://www.kodak.com/go/photocd. It is edited by Taylor Kate Brown, The Chronicle’s newsletter editor. Thumbnail—[192 x 128 pixels] Contact-sheet-size images for quick previewing of the entire collection. The epicenter was located in the Santa Cruz Mountains west of Loma Prieta Peak on a previously undiscovered fault near the larger and well known San Andreas Fault. And downtown Santa Cruz largely ceased to exist. The Red Cross set up shelters to house 450 people, but many stayed outside instead, fearful of buildings as aftershocks continued to come. The mall was destroyed by the Loma Prieta earthquake, October 20, 1989, Photo: Michael Maloney / The Chronicle 1989, A portion of Highway 1 collapsed through it's support foundation during the Loma Prieta earthquake, October 18, 1989, The media is taken on tour of Pacific Garden Mall, severely damaged by the Loma Prieta earthquake, October 23, 1989, Photo: Chris Stewart / The Chronicle 1989, A group of residents of Watsonville are staying in tents at the Watsonville High School because their homes are unsafe after the Loma Prieta earthquake, October 21, 1989 Families find useful clothes the boxes of donated clothes, Santa Cruz County towns face unique problems rebuilding after after the Loma Prieta earthquake, October 27, 1989, Warning signs were posted throughout the SantaCruz area beaches after the Loma Prieta earthquake caused sewer pipe leaks. Bill Van Niekerken is the Library Director of the San Francisco Chronicle. This report is also available on CD-ROM from: USGS Information Services, Box 25286, Hundreds of homes were knocked off their foundations, with 1 in 8 houses destroyed — the highest per capita damage of the whole earthquake. (P.d.t. This online version does not include the Acrobat Search index files. The epicenter was located in the Santa Cruz mountains, near Loma Prieta peak, about 70 miles south of San Francisco. “He remembered staggering outside, the Earth’s violent rocking throwing him down three times and the Jaguar parked outside bouncing so high off the dirt road he could see underneath it,” DelVecchio wrote. The epicenter: Rediscovered photos show Loma Prieta quake’s Santa Cruz devastation, Photo: Scott Sommerdorf / The Chronicle 1989, A landslide caused the Loma Prieta earthquake would block southbound lanes Interstate Highway 17 across the Santa Cruz Mountains, October 18, 1989, Photo: Steve Castillo / The Chronicle 1989, Downtown Santa Cruz was severely damaged as seen here the day after the the Loma Prieta earthquake, October 23, 1989, Children walk by a home at the corner of 5th and Jefferson Ave. in Watsonville damaged by the Loma Prieta earthquake, October 26, 1989 Photo ran 11/2/1990, P 10, Briefing, A group of residents of Watsonville are staying in tents at the Watsonville High School because their homes are unsafe after the Loma Prieta earthquake, October 17, 1989, Santa Cruz County towns get blasted b y the the Loma Prieta earthquake, October 19, 1989, Bing Loeong Yim stood in the rain with other Pacific Garden Mall merchants in downtown Santa Cruz . HDTV High-Definition Television—[1536 x 1024 pixels] Sufficient resolution for high definition TV, newspapers, and high-quality half-page layouts. Seven people died in the county, and more than 800 were injured. 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 pm local time. Boulder Creek resident Robert Buonasera narrowly missed going down with his house. On Oct. 17, 1989, the magnitude 6.9 Loma Prieta earthquake hit the Bay Area. The shaking lasted 20 seconds. At 5:04 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 17, 1989, a magnitude-6.9 earthquake with an epicenter in the forests above Aptos abruptly ended Central California's long seismic slumber. This devastating 6.9-magnitude earthquake rocked Northern California on Oct. 17, 1989, with the Bay Area and Central Coast bearing the brunt of the impact. A San Francisco culture podcast, hosted by Peter Hartlaub. “The killer quake that walloped the Bay Area Tuesday tore gaping holes and ripped deep, ragged fissures in the rugged Santa Cruz Mountains where it was born,” reporters Tracie Thompson and Rick DelVecchio wrote a few days after the quake. Where. The diagonal beams are the original ones, while the straight ones were added by Reid. The earthquake occurred … • The big one: Long-forgotten Loma Prieta quake photos show disaster’s depths. In Santa Cruz, the quake brought significant damage to downtown. The preview thumbnail and screen-resolution images listed above are in GIF and JPEG formats, respectively, but undergo resolution loss due to downsizing, compression and (or) color-palate reduction relative to the original Photo CD images provided below. Like what you’re reading? FPO "For Placement Only"—[384 x 256 pixels] A proxy for high-resolution images to determine placement in page-layout programs. The data for this publication total 606 MB on the CD-ROM and 564 MB for this online version. • Oral history: The shaken Series — A’s vs. Giants in the World Series, an unprecedented slice of Bay Area sports history. San Francisco earthquake of 1989, also called Loma Prieta earthquake, major earthquake that struck the San Francisco Bay Area, California, U.S., on October 17, 1989, and caused 63 deaths, nearly 3,800 injuries, and an estimated $6 billion in property damage. “Most stood wordless before the trench, awed by the jagged wound in the redwood forest,” the reporters wrote. The Loma Prieta Earthquake was a powerful earthquake that struck at 5:04PM on Tuesday, October 17, 1989 in the San Francisco Bay area in Northern California (USA). Three were killed when an open-air shopping mall collapsed. As the 30th anniversary of the quake approaches, a search through our photo archive turned up dozens of dramatic photos — most never published — from the aftermath of the quake in Santa Cruz and Watsonville. Its GPS coordinates are 37.036 N, 121.883 W. He was inside inspecting the damage down to the structure. The earthquake accelerated trends in Watsonville that were already taking place, reporter Kevin Fagan wrote 20 years later, especially as a major recession hit. CLICK HERE to view a slideshow (slideshow.pdf; 36 MB). https://pubs.usgs.gov/dds/dds-29, Date created: December, 1995 CLICK HERE to browse the print-resolution images (TIFs at about 2000 x 3000 pixels; /tif folder). The epicenter of the Loma Prieta earthquake was in the Santa Cruz Mountains, about 16 … At the time of this publication, Kodak's policy on the distribution of color-management files is still unresolved, and so none is included in this publication. • Changed region: All of our 30th anniversary coverage of the 1989 quake. Santa Cruz County towns, particularly Watsonville face problems rebuilding after after the Loma Prieta earthquake, October 28, 1989, over 500 homes were destroyed. Feel free to use any of these images but please cite the photographer and the U.S. Geological Survey. The epicenter was approximately 8 miles north-northeast of Santa Cruz and 50 miles from downtown San Francisco. The town had already been behind in housing its residents when the quake hit. Our photographic coverage reflects the time and resources available immediately after the event and is not intended to portray the full extent of earthquake damage. 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