The Day I Survived an Earthquake

The whole idea that everything around you unfolds in slow motion during a traumatic life event really is true.  I had arrived at my hotel room about fifteen minutes earlier and was standing by the over-sized window, searching for visible signs that I was in truly in California for the first time in my life.  The cross-country pilgrimage to an educator’s convention in San Francisco had left its toll on me.  I was tired, grouchy, and waiting for my luggage to be delivered to my room (there were hundreds of conventioneers staying at this particular hotel, and the bellmen were running behind, trying to play catch-up). 

My first clue that something odd was going on was when I looked down at the bottom of the curtains hanging on each side of the large window.  They were shaking.  More than just shaking, they were literally dancing - jumping up-and-down frenetically – as if being assaulted by a ghost.  I heard a roaring noise before I felt anything.  It sounded like a 747 was landing on the roof of the hotel.  I was convinced at first it WAS an airplane because the hotel was, after all, located only a few minutes away from San Francisco International Airport.  Then, what can only be described as the sensation of a giant jackhammer pummeling the very floor beneath me set in motion a violent chain of events that rocked an entire city.

For a good 30 seconds or more I was confused.  Granted, I am easily confused.  I doubted that a plane (even one flying directly above my hotel) would cause such a deafening noise and dramatic vibration.  This was before 9-11, so nobody was really thinking about terrorists back then.  All at once I realized what it was.  I had never experienced one before.  Oh sure, I had heard about them.  I’d seen them in movies.  Read about them.  I was in California.  And there was no confusion now.  This was an earthquake!

It was 5:04pm (Pacific Standard Time) on October 17, 1989.  I was smack in the middle of the 7.1 magnitude now-famous Loma Prieta earthquake that rattled the Bay area, killing dozens and injuring and displacing thousands.

 Not being an expert in “earthquake management,” I did what any normal, East coast-bred earthquake virgin would do: I ran for my life.  All I knew was that I was on the third floor of a hotel that was about six or seven stories tall, and I didn’t want to get smashed like a pancake.  The only thing I could picture in my mind was the upper floors crashing down on top of me, and it didn’t matter how I was going to get out of that hotel.  I had to escape.

Naturally, this is the point where everything around me started happening in slow motion.  I spun around to head for the door of my hotel room.  As I did, I saw large cracks snaking up the plaster wall to my left.  At the same time, the TV rocked, then tumbled out of the armoire and crashed onto the floor.  I ran full-steam toward the door, and as I turned and looked into the bathroom, was amazed to see individual tiles popping out of the wall and falling onto the counter and into the sink.  The door to the room was somehow already opened, and as I looked into the hallway, saw nothing but the glow of emergency lights and water streaming from the ceiling.  The water, I later learned, was from the broken sprinkler system, where pipes snapped during the quake.  It was dark and there was dripping water, but I sprinted into the hall where I was met by three guys running toward the exit door at the end of the hallway.  One guy was still pulling up his pants as he ran.  Let’s just hope he wasn’t in the bathroom when this thing hit.  I guess I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t thrilled with the idea of being flattened by four floors of concrete.

As we were running down the hall, ceiling tiles were falling and I became overwhelmed with the dreadful feeling that I was going to die then and there.  It seemed to take an eternity to reach the end of the hallway.  And it IS true that events in your life are played on the movie screen of your mind and you wish you had done some things differently.  You wish you had been kinder to someone.  You wonder what would have happened if you had taken a different path.  You question your contribution to the world and whether you had taken advantage of every opportunity granted to you from above.  OK, well I maybe I WASN’T thinking all those things.  I did wonder if I was going to get out alive.

For all my faulty reasoning and naiveté when it came to earthquakes, I couldn’t imagine anything but being squished in a pile of rubble.  Never mind the fact that in California there are stringent building codes for quake-proof construction.  Or, that it’s recommended you crawl under heavy furniture or stand in a doorway to avoid the whole “being squashed like a bug” possibility.  When the four of us finally reached the door at the end of the hallway, it was stuck.  The door jamb was slightly askew, and one of my new friends stepped back and hurled himself into the door, forcing it to fly open.  To that point, I don’t think I had EVER moved as fast in my life.  Literally jumping down three flights of stairs, I reached the bottom and sprung into the light outside, tasting freedom and realizing that I had made it out alive.

And then it was over.  What seemed like an eternity lasted only about fifteen seconds.  Fifteen seconds.  Once outside, the distinct odor of gas was everywhere.  The first priority of the hotel staff was to shut off the natural gas.  Hotel patrons gathered in the parking lot, where I recall looking up at the light poles swaying back and forth from the aftershocks.  As some hotel guests played the radios in their cars, we began to realize the severity of the quake.  In San Francisco’s Marina District, homes were destroyed by fire and several buildings collapsed.  Most of the quake’s victims were killed on the Cypress Street Viaduct of Interstate 880 where what I feared the most actually happened: the upper deck of the roadway collapsed onto the cars below, crushing many.

At the hotel, we gathered around cars, mesmerized by continuous coverage of the disaster by local radio stations.  As the hotel was inspected by staff, we waited outside in the increasingly cool October night.  After several hours we were allowed to go back inside, but only in the ground floor lobby.  We were given a pillow and blanket and it was made clear that we should sleep on the floor.  I sprawled out only a few feet from the front door, ready to make my escape the middle of the night, if needed.  When I looked over toward the bell captain’s desk, I saw my luggage sitting on a cart with some other luggage.  I had completely forgotten about my bags.  I retrieved them and tried to sleep.  Of course I never went to sleep, convinced I was feeling aftershock upon aftershock all night long.  At around five in the morning we were allowed to return to our rooms, where I found my forlorn TV in pieces on the floor and everything strewn about like a tornado had blown through.

The next day an older couple told me the story of how they had driven to San Francisco for a vacation from somewhere in the Midwest.  After the long drive, they settled into their room and were having dinner in the hotel’s restaurant.  After being served their food, the husband exclaimed “Well, we’ve had a great trip.  Everything has gone perfectly.  The only thing that could spoil it now would be an earthquake.”  At that very moment, the quake rolled through.  A giant neon sign hanging in the restaurant crashed onto the bar below, breaking glasses and spewing alcohol everywhere.  The couple stared at each other for an instant, jumped up from their table, and ran out the front door!

A friend, Lynn, who was to attend the same convention I was, had an unusual experience as well.  Her plane was landing at the instant the earthquake was rattling the Bay area.  The pilots were directed by the control tower to abort the landing and proceed to San Diego.  Travelers were told nothing at the time, and were frightened and baffled by the abrupt change in direction.  Once back in the air and in route to San Diego, they were made aware of the unfolding drama on the ground.  Lynn, who by the time she met up with me in San Francisco was a nervous wreck, rented a car in San Diego and made her way up to where I was.  The night after the earthquake (even though there was a curfew in the city), we drove down to the Marina District to explore the aftermath.  There was no power in the city.  No stoplights.  No public transportation.  Everything was closed.  There were no people walking around.  Complete silence.  And the smell of the smoldering fires along the waterfront where people had lost their cherished homes and businesses.

The first sign across the U.S. that something catastrophic had occurred in San Francisco came when baseball fans watching game three of the World Series at Candlestick Park heard commentator Al Michaels exclaim “I’ll tell you what, we’re having an earth…” and saw the picture break up on their screens.  When the quake struck, fewer than half the 62,000 fans had taken their seats in the stadium.  There were reports that the upper deck of the stadium “undulated like a wave” and that lights poles were swaying many feet from side to side.  Because power to the park was knocked out, the game was postponed, then eventually rescheduled for ten days later.

My conference in San Francisco was cancelled.  Due to damage at the airport, flights didn’t resume until three days after the earthquake.  There was one consolation, though.  On the morning I checked out of the hotel, there was a letter from the Marriot’s staff tucked under my door: “Dear Mr. Hilton, due to the earthquake experienced by our guests on October 17, 1989, you will NOT be charged for that night’s stay…”