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99-539: After the devastating 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fires, Albert Nion Tucker, Colbert Coldwell and John Conant Lynch formed Tucker, Lynch and Coldwell on August 27, 1906. Benjamin Arthur Banker joined the firm as a salesman in 1913, and became a partner in 1914. The company changed its name to Coldwell, Kern & Banker in 1918. In 1919 the name became Coldwell, Kern, Cornwall & Banker, and in 1920, Coldwell Cornwall & Banker. Cornwall retired in 1940, and

198-714: A backdoor to the Chinese Exclusion Act , and bring in their relatives from China . The earthquake was also responsible for the development of the Pacific Heights neighborhood. The immense power of the earthquake had destroyed almost all of the mansions on Nob Hill except for the James C. Flood Mansion . Others that had not been destroyed were dynamited by the Army forces aiding the firefighting efforts in attempts to create firebreaks. As one indirect result,

297-564: A corporation in 1961, and went public in 1968. In 1981 it was bought by Sears, Roebuck , and became part of the Sears Financial Network. In 1989, Sears sold Coldwell Banker's commercial unit to a management-led buyout group including The Carlyle Group for approximately $ 300 million. As part of the sale, the residential unit retained the Coldwell Banker name; the commercial group has changed names several times after

396-542: A dog adoption website. 1906 San Francisco earthquake At 05:12 AM Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the coast of Northern California was struck by a major earthquake with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI ( Extreme ). High-intensity shaking was felt from Eureka on the North Coast to the Salinas Valley , an agricultural region to

495-532: A fireman who told me that people in that neighborhood were firing their houses...they were told that they would not get their insurance on buildings damaged by the earthquake unless they were damaged by fire". One landmark building lost in the fire was the Palace Hotel , subsequently rebuilt, which had many famous visitors including royalty and celebrated performers. It was constructed in 1875 primarily financed by Bank of California co-founder William Ralston ,

594-557: A makeshift tent city in Golden Gate Park and were treated by the faculty of the Affiliated Colleges. This brought the school, which until then was located on the western outskirts of the city, in contact with significant population and fueled the commitment of the school towards civic responsibility and health care, increasing the momentum towards the construction of its own health facilities. In April 1907, one of

693-422: A practical method of assigning an absolute measure of magnitude. First, to span the wide range of possible values, Richter adopted Gutenberg's suggestion of a logarithmic scale, where each step represents a tenfold increase of magnitude, similar to the magnitude scale used by astronomers for star brightness . Second, he wanted a magnitude of zero to be around the limit of human perceptibility. Third, he specified

792-469: A seismogram recorded by a Wood-Anderson torsion seismometer. Finally, Richter calculated a table of distance corrections, in that for distances less than 200 kilometers the attenuation is strongly affected by the structure and properties of the regional geology. When Richter presented the resulting scale in 1935, he called it (at the suggestion of Harry Wood) simply a "magnitude" scale. "Richter magnitude" appears to have originated when Perry Byerly told

891-408: A seismograph anywhere in the world, so long as its sensors are not located in the earthquake's shadow . The following describes the typical effects of earthquakes of various magnitudes near the epicenter. The values are typical and may not be exact in a future event because intensity and ground effects depend not only on the magnitude but also on (1) the distance to the epicenter, (2) the depth of

990-531: A shallow earthquake in a populated area with soil of certain types can be far more intense in impact than a much more energetic deep earthquake in an isolated area. Several scales have been historically described as the "Richter scale", , especially the local magnitude M L   and the surface wave M s   scale. In addition, the body wave magnitude , mb , and the moment magnitude , M w  , abbreviated MMS, have been widely used for decades. A couple of new techniques to measure magnitude are in

1089-405: A similar large-scale rupture occurred elsewhere). Such an earthquake would cause ground motions for up to an hour, with tsunamis hitting shores while the ground is still shaking, and if this kind of earthquake occurred, it would probably be a 1-in-10,000-year event. Prior to the development of the magnitude scale, the only measure of an earthquake's strength or "size" was a subjective assessment of

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1188-509: A time when the science of seismology was blossoming. Although the impact of the earthquake on San Francisco was the most famous, the earthquake also inflicted considerable damage on several other cities. These include San Jose and Santa Rosa , the entire downtown of which was essentially destroyed. As damaging as the earthquake and its aftershocks were, the fires that burned out of control afterward were far more destructive. It has been estimated that at least 80%, and at most over 95%, of

1287-457: A total of 296 miles (476 km). Shaking was felt from Oregon to Los Angeles, and as far inland as central Nevada . A strong foreshock preceded the main shock by about 20 to 25 seconds. The strong shaking of the main shock lasted about 42 seconds. There were decades of minor earthquakes – more than at any other time in the historical record for northern California – before the 1906 quake. Previously interpreted as precursory activity to

1386-599: A woman who lit her stove to prepare breakfast, unaware of the badly damaged chimney, destroying a 30-block area, including a college, the Hall of Records and City Hall. Some of the fires were started when San Francisco Fire Department firefighters, untrained in the use of dynamite , attempted to demolish buildings to create firebreaks . The dynamited buildings often caught fire. The city's fire chief, Dennis T. Sullivan , who would have been responsible for coordinating firefighting efforts, had died from injuries sustained in

1485-600: Is a continental transform fault that forms part of the tectonic boundary between the Pacific plate and the North American plate . The strike-slip fault is characterized by mainly lateral motion in a dextral sense, where the western (Pacific) plate moves northward relative to the eastern (North American) plate. This fault runs the length of California from the Salton Sea in the south to Cape Mendocino in

1584-419: Is about 7 and about 8.5 for M s  . New techniques to avoid the saturation problem and to measure magnitudes rapidly for very large earthquakes are being developed. One of these is based on the long-period P-wave; The other is based on a recently discovered channel wave. The energy release of an earthquake, which closely correlates to its destructive power, scales with the 3 ⁄ 2 power of

1683-450: Is credited with saving nearly 1,500 specimens, including the entire type specimen collection for a newly discovered and extremely rare species, before the remainder of the largest botanical collection in the western United States was destroyed in the fire. The entire laboratory and all the records of Benjamin R. Jacobs , a biochemist who was researching the nutrition of everyday foods, were destroyed. The original California flag used in

1782-427: Is equivalent to $ 10.2 billion in 2023 dollars. An insurance industry source tallies insured losses at $ 235 million, the equivalent to $ 5.97 billion in 2023 dollars. Political and business leaders strongly downplayed the effects of the earthquake, fearing loss of outside investment in the city which was badly needed to rebuild. In his first public statement, California Governor George Pardee emphasized

1881-468: Is still uncertain, but various reports presented a range of 700–3,000+. In 2005, the city's Board of Supervisors voted unanimously in support of a resolution written by novelist James Dalessandro ("1906") and city historian Gladys Hansen ("Denial of Disaster") to recognize the figure of 3,000+ as the official total. Most of the deaths occurred within San Francisco, but 189 were reported elsewhere in

1980-562: Is talking of it this afternoon, and no one is in the least degree dismayed. I have talked and listened in two clubs, watched people in cars and in the street, and one man is glad that Chinatown will be cleared out for good; another's chief solicitude is for Millet 's Man with a Hoe . 'They'll cut it out of the frame,' he says, a little anxiously. 'Sure.' But there is no doubt anywhere that San Francisco can be rebuilt, larger, better, and soon. Just as there would be none at all if all this New York that has so obsessed me with its limitless bigness

2079-573: The Journal of Geophysical Research , severe deformations in the Earth's crust took place both before and after the earthquake's impact. Accumulated strain on the faults in the system was relieved during the earthquake, which is the supposed cause of the damage along the 280-mile-long (450 km) segment of the San Andreas plate boundary. The 1906 rupture propagated both northward and southward for

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2178-527: The Bank of Canada in Ottawa gave $ 25,000. The U.S. government quickly voted for one million dollars in relief supplies which were immediately rushed to the area, including supplies for food kitchens and many thousands of tents that city dwellers would occupy the next several years. These relief efforts were not enough to get families on their feet again, and consequently the burden was placed on wealthier members of

2277-629: The California Institute of Technology and the Carnegie Institute , a network of seismographs stretching across Southern California . He also recruited the young and unknown Charles Richter to measure the seismograms and locate the earthquakes generating the seismic waves. In 1931, Kiyoo Wadati showed how he had measured, for several strong earthquakes in Japan, the amplitude of the shaking observed at various distances from

2376-619: The California Senate enacted the California Standard Form of Fire Insurance Policy, which did not contain any earthquake clause. Thus the state decided that insurers would have to pay again if another earthquake was followed by fires. Other earthquake-endangered countries followed the California example. The 1906 Centennial Alliance was set up as a clearing-house for various centennial events commemorating

2475-590: The Gutenberg–Richter scale , is a measure of the strength of earthquakes , developed by Charles Richter in collaboration with Beno Gutenberg , and presented in Richter's landmark 1935 paper, where he called it the "magnitude scale". This was later revised and renamed the local magnitude scale , denoted as ML or M L  . Because of various shortcomings of the original M L   scale, most seismological authorities now use other similar scales such as

2574-471: The Modified Mercalli intensity scale reached XI ( Extreme ) in San Francisco and areas to the north like Santa Rosa where destruction was devastating. The main shock was followed by many aftershocks and some remotely triggered events . As with the 1857 Fort Tejon earthquake , there were fewer aftershocks than would have been expected for a shock of that size. Very few of them were located along

2673-472: The S-wave velocity ( supershear ). Supershear propagation has now been recognized for many earthquakes associated with strike-slip faulting. In 2019, using an old photograph and an eyewitness account, researchers were able to refine the location of the hypocenter of the earthquake as offshore from San Francisco or near San Juan Bautista , confirming previous estimates. The most important characteristic of

2772-498: The U.S. Mint , post office, and county jail. They aided the fire department in dynamiting to demolish buildings in the path of the fires. The Army also became responsible for feeding, sheltering, and clothing the tens of thousands of displaced residents of the city. Under the command of Funston's superior, Major General Adolphus Greely , Commanding Officer of the Pacific Division, over 4,000 federal troops saw service during

2871-456: The moment magnitude scale (M w  ) to report earthquake magnitudes, but much of the news media still erroneously refers to these as "Richter" magnitudes. All magnitude scales retain the logarithmic character of the original and are scaled to have roughly comparable numeric values (typically in the middle of the scale). Due to the variance in earthquakes, it is essential to understand the Richter scale uses common logarithms simply to make

2970-645: The "man who built San Francisco". In April 1906, the tenor Enrico Caruso and members of the Metropolitan Opera Company came to San Francisco to give a series of performances at the Grand Opera House . The night after Caruso's performance in Carmen , the tenor was awakened in the early morning in his Palace Hotel suite by a strong jolt. Clutching an autographed photo of President Theodore Roosevelt , Caruso made an effort to get out of

3069-527: The 1846 Bear Flag Revolt at Sonoma , which at the time was being stored in a state building in San Francisco, was also destroyed in the fire. The city's fire chief, Dennis T. Sullivan, was gravely injured when the earthquake first struck and later died from his injuries. The interim fire chief sent an urgent request to the Presidio, a United States Army post on the edge of the stricken city, for dynamite. General Frederick Funston had already decided that

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3168-648: The 1906 earthquake, they have been found to have a strong seasonal pattern and are now believed to be caused by large seasonal sediment loads in coastal bays that overlie faults as a result of the erosion caused by hydraulic mining in the later years of the California Gold Rush . For years, the epicenter of the quake was assumed to be near the town of Olema , in the Point Reyes area of Marin County , due to local earth displacement measurements. In

3267-533: The 1960s, a seismologist at UC Berkeley proposed that the epicenter was more likely offshore of San Francisco, to the northwest of the Golden Gate . The most recent analyses support an offshore location for the epicenter, although significant uncertainty remains. An offshore epicenter is supported by the occurrence of a local tsunami recorded by a tide gauge at the San Francisco Presidio ;

3366-450: The 22nd Infantry and other military units involved in the emergency. Ord later wrote a long letter to his mother on April 20 regarding Schmitz's "Shoot-to-Kill" order and some "despicable" behavior of certain soldiers of the 22nd Infantry who were looting. He also made it clear that the majority of soldiers served the community well. Property losses from the disaster have been estimated to be more than $ 400 million in 1906 dollars. This

3465-687: The Bay Area; nearby cities such as Santa Rosa and San Jose also suffered severe damage. Between 227,000 and 300,000 people were left homeless out of a population of about 410,000; half of those who evacuated fled across the bay to Oakland and Berkeley . Newspapers described Golden Gate Park , the Presidio, the Panhandle and the beaches between Ingleside and North Beach as covered with makeshift tents. More than two years later, many of these refugee camps were still in operation. The earthquake and fire left long-standing and significant pressures on

3564-494: The Chinese population and export Chinatown (and other poor populations) to the edge of the county where the Chinese could still contribute to the local taxbase. The Chinese occupants had other ideas and prevailed instead. Chinatown was rebuilt in the newer, modern, Western form that exists today. The destruction of City Hall and the Hall of Records enabled thousands of Chinese immigrants to claim residency and citizenship, creating

3663-644: The Federal Government of the United States had not conducted the serious studies that were needed to gather data about earthquakes on the west coast. He said public discussion was being stifled by fears that acknowledgement of earthquakes would drive away business and investors, and that geologists were told not to gather information about the 1906 earthquake, and certainly to not publish it. Some people went as far as to deny that an earthquake had happened. Branner argued that preparation for earthquakes

3762-638: The Highlanders (soon to be the Yankees) and the Philadelphia Athletics to raise money for quake survivors. William James , the pioneering American psychologist, was teaching at Stanford at the time of the earthquake and traveled into San Francisco to observe first-hand its aftermath. He was most impressed by the positive attitude of the survivors and the speed with which they improvised services and created order out of chaos. This formed

3861-626: The Richter scale, numerical values are approximately the same. Although values measured for earthquakes now are M w  , they are frequently reported by the press as Richter values, even for earthquakes of magnitude over 8, when the Richter scale becomes meaningless. The Richter and MMS scales measure the energy released by an earthquake; another scale, the Mercalli intensity scale , classifies earthquakes by their effects , from detectable by instruments but not noticeable, to catastrophic. The energy and effects are not necessarily strongly correlated;

3960-494: The Wood–Anderson seismograph as the standard instrument for producing seismograms. Magnitude was then defined as "the logarithm of the maximum trace amplitude, expressed in microns ", measured at a distance of 100 km (62 mi). The scale was calibrated by defining a magnitude 0 shock as one that produces (at a distance of 100 km (62 mi)) a maximum amplitude of 1 micron (1 μm, or 0.001 millimeters) on

4059-407: The amplitude of a precisely defined wave. All scales, except M w  , saturate for large earthquakes, meaning they are based on the amplitudes of waves that have a wavelength shorter than the rupture length of the earthquakes. These short waves (high-frequency waves) are too short a yardstick to measure the extent of the event. The resulting effective upper limit of measurement for M L  

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4158-413: The amplitudes of different types of elastic waves must be measured. M L   is the scale used for the majority of earthquakes reported (tens of thousands) by local and regional seismological observatories. For large earthquakes worldwide, the moment magnitude scale (MMS) is most common, although M s   is also reported frequently. The seismic moment , M 0   , is proportional to

4257-402: The area of the rupture times the average slip that took place in the earthquake, thus it measures the physical size of the event. M w   is derived from it empirically as a quantity without units, just a number designed to conform to the M s   scale. A spectral analysis is required to obtain M 0  . In contrast, the other magnitudes are derived from a simple measurement of

4356-494: The arts colony reputation that continues today. The 1908 Lawson Report, a study of the 1906 quake led and edited by Professor Andrew Lawson of the University of California, showed that the same San Andreas Fault which had caused the disaster in San Francisco ran close to Los Angeles as well. The earthquake was the first natural disaster of its magnitude to be documented by photography and motion picture footage and occurred at

4455-540: The basis of the chapter "On some Mental Effects of the Earthquake" in his book Memories and Studies . H. G. Wells had just arrived in New York on his first visit to America when he learned of the San Francisco earthquake. What struck him about the reaction of those around him was that "it does not seem to have affected any one with a sense of final destruction, with any foreboding of irreparable disaster. Every one

4554-471: The buildings was renovated for outpatient care with 75 beds. This created the need to train nursing students, and the UC Training School for Nurses was established, adding a fourth professional school to the Affiliated Colleges. The grandeur of citywide reconstruction schemes required investment from Eastern monetary sources, hence the spin and de-emphasis of the earthquake, the promulgation of

4653-597: The city and its "rise from the ashes". Since 1915, the city has officially commemorated the disaster each year by gathering the remaining survivors at Lotta's Fountain , a fountain in the city's financial district that served as a meeting point during the disaster for people to look for loved ones and exchange information. The Army built 5,610 redwood and fir "relief houses" to accommodate 20,000 displaced people. The houses were designed by John McLaren , and were grouped in eleven camps, packed close to each other and rented to people for two dollars per month until rebuilding

4752-493: The city, first by boat and then by train, and vowed never to return to San Francisco. Caruso died in 1921, having remained true to his word. The Metropolitan Opera Company lost all of its traveling sets and costumes in the earthquake and ensuing fires. Some of the greatest losses from fire were in scientific laboratories. Alice Eastwood , the curator of botany at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco,

4851-566: The city, who were reluctant to assist in the rebuilding of homes they were not responsible for. All residents were eligible for daily meals served from a number of communal soup kitchens, and citizens as far away as Idaho and Utah were known to send daily loaves of bread to San Francisco as relief supplies were coordinated by the railroads. Insurance companies, faced with staggering claims of $ 250 million, paid out between $ 235 million and $ 265 million on policyholders' claims, often for fire damage only, since shake damage from earthquakes

4950-727: The company name changed again to Coldwell, Banker & Company, which was shortened to Coldwell Banker in 1974. Banker and Coldwell remained active in the company throughout their lives. In 1920, Coldwell Banker moved to a three-story building in San Francisco. It opened an office in Phoenix, Arizona , its first outside California, in 1952. In the 1970s the company expanded by acquiring firms in Atlanta, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. The first international Coldwell Banker office opened in Toronto, Canada in 1996. Coldwell Banker & Company became

5049-627: The development of California. At the time of the disaster, San Francisco had been the ninth-largest city in the United States and the largest on the West Coast . Over a period of 60 years, the city had become the financial, trade, and cultural center of the West , operating the busiest port on the West Coast. It was the "gateway to the Pacific", through which growing U.S. economic and military power

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5148-449: The development stage by seismologists. All magnitude scales have been designed to give numerically similar results. This goal has been achieved well for M L  , M s  , and M w  . The mb  scale gives somewhat different values than the other scales. The reason for so many different ways to measure the same thing is that at different distances, for different hypocentral depths, and for different earthquake sizes,

5247-777: The earthquake when it became too much trouble for them. Del Monte and another survivor, Rose Cliver (1902–2012), then 106, attended the earthquake reunion celebration on April 18, 2009, the 103rd anniversary of the earthquake. Nancy Stoner Sage (1905–2010) died, aged 105, in Colorado just three days short of the 104th anniversary of the earthquake on April 18, 2010. Del Monte attended the event at Lotta's Fountain in 2010. 107-year-old George Quilici (1905–2012) died in May 2012, and 113-year-old Ruth Newman (1901–2015) in July 2015. William Del Monte (1906–2016), who died 11 days shy of his 110th birthday,

5346-426: The earthquake's focus beneath the epicenter, (3) the location of the epicenter, and (4) geological conditions . ( Based on U.S. Geological Survey documents. ) The intensity and death toll depend on several factors (earthquake depth, epicenter location, and population density, to name a few) and can vary widely. Millions of minor earthquakes occur every year worldwide, equating to hundreds every hour every day. On

5445-529: The earthquake. Award presentations, religious services, a National Geographic TV movie, a projection of fire onto the Coit Tower, memorials, and lectures were part of the commemorations. The USGS Earthquake Hazards Program issued a series of Internet documents, and the tourism industry promoted the 100th anniversary as well. Eleven survivors of the 1906 earthquake attended the centennial commemorations in 2006, including Irma Mae Weule (1899–2008), who

5544-490: The earthquake. The original formula is: where A is the maximum excursion of the Wood-Anderson seismograph , the empirical function A 0 depends only on the epicentral distance of the station, δ {\displaystyle \delta } . In practice, readings from all observing stations are averaged after adjustment with station-specific corrections to obtain the M L   value. Because of

5643-428: The emergency. Police officers, firefighters, and soldiers would regularly commandeer passing civilians for work details to remove rubble and assist in rescues. On July 1, 1906, non-military authorities assumed responsibility for relief efforts, and the Army withdrew from the city. On April 18, in response to riots among evacuees and looting, Mayor Schmitz issued and ordered posted a proclamation that "The Federal Troops,

5742-897: The energy released. The elastic energy radiated is best derived from an integration of the radiated spectrum, but an estimate can be based on mb  because most energy is carried by the high-frequency waves. These formulae for Richter magnitude   M L   {\displaystyle \ M_{\mathsf {L}}\ } are alternatives to using Richter correlation tables based on Richter standard seismic event (   M L = 0   , {\displaystyle {\big (}\ M_{\mathsf {L}}=0\ ,}   A = 0.001   m m   , {\displaystyle \ A=0.001\ {\mathsf {mm}}\ ,}   D = 100   k m   )   . {\displaystyle \ D=100\ {\mathsf {km}}\ {\big )}~.} In

5841-489: The epicenter. He then plotted the logarithm of the amplitude against the distance and found a series of curves that showed a rough correlation with the estimated magnitudes of the earthquakes. Richter resolved some difficulties with this method and then, using data collected by his colleague Beno Gutenberg , he produced similar curves, confirming that they could be used to compare the relative magnitudes of different earthquakes. Additional developments were required to produce

5940-441: The fire had the effect of increasing the share of land used for nonresidential purposes: "Overall, relative to unburned blocks, residential land shares on burned blocks fell while nonresidential land shares rose by 1931. The study also provides insight into what held the city back from making these changes before 1906: the presence of old residential buildings. In reconstruction, developers built relatively fewer of these buildings, and

6039-478: The first few days after news of the disaster reached the rest of the world, relief efforts reached over $ 5,000,000, equivalent to $ 169,560,000 in 2023. London raised hundreds of thousands of dollars. Individual citizens and businesses donated large sums of money for the relief effort: Standard Oil and Andrew Carnegie each gave $ 100,000; the Dominion of Canada made a special appropriation of $ 100,000; and even

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6138-512: The initial quake. In total, the fires burned for four days and nights. Most of the destruction in the city was attributed to the fires, since widespread practice by insurers was to indemnify San Francisco properties from fire but not from earthquake damage. Some property owners deliberately set fire to damaged properties to claim them on their insurance. Captain Leonard D. Wildman of the U.S. Army Signal Corps reported that he "was stopped by

6237-454: The intensity of shaking observed near the epicenter of the earthquake, categorized by various seismic intensity scales such as the Rossi–Forel scale . ("Size" is used in the sense of the quantity of energy released, not the size of the area affected by shaking, though higher-energy earthquakes do tend to affect a wider area, depending on the local geology.) In 1883, John Milne surmised that

6336-583: The international financial system. Gold transfers from European insurance companies to policyholders in San Francisco led to a rise in interest rates, subsequently to a lack of available loans and finally to the Knickerbocker Trust Company crisis of October 1907 which led to the Panic of 1907 . After the 1906 earthquake, global discussion arose concerning a legally flawless exclusion of the earthquake hazard from fire insurance contracts. It

6435-506: The largest urban park in the world, stretching from Twin Peaks to Lake Merced with a large atheneum at its peak. But this plan was dismissed during the aftermath of the earthquake. For example, real estate investors and other land owners were against the idea because of the large amount of land the city would have to purchase to realize such proposals. While the original street grid was restored, many of Burnham's proposals inadvertently saw

6534-410: The light of day, such as a neoclassical civic center complex, wider streets, a preference of arterial thoroughfares, a subway under Market Street , a more people-friendly Fisherman's Wharf , and a monument to the city on Telegraph Hill , Coit Tower . Limestone used to reconstruct city buildings was quarried at the nearby Rockaway Quarry . City fathers likewise attempted at the time to eliminate

6633-421: The logarithmic basis of the scale, each whole number increase in magnitude represents a tenfold increase in measured amplitude. In terms of energy, each whole number increase corresponds to an increase of about 31.6 times the amount of energy released, and each increase of 0.2 corresponds to approximately a doubling of the energy released. Events with magnitudes greater than 4.5 are strong enough to be recorded by

6732-434: The majority of the reduction came through single-family houses. Also, aside from merely expanding nonresidential uses in many neighborhoods, the fire created economic opportunities in new areas, resulting in clusters of business activity that emerged only in the wake of the disaster. These effects of the fire still remain today, and thus large shocks can be sufficient catalysts for permanently reshaping urban settings." During

6831-412: The measurements manageable (i.e., a magnitude 3 quake factors 10³ while a magnitude 5 quake factors 10 and has seismometer readings 100 times larger). The Richter magnitude of an earthquake is determined from the logarithm of the amplitude of waves recorded by seismographs. Adjustments are included to compensate for the variation in the distance between the various seismographs and the epicenter of

6930-654: The members of the Regular Police Force and all Special Police Officers have been authorized by me to kill any and all persons found engaged in Looting or in the Commission of Any Other Crime". Accusations of soldiers engaging in looting also surfaced. Retired Captain Edward Ord of the 22nd Infantry Regiment was appointed a special police officer by Schmitz and liaised with Greely for relief work with

7029-516: The need to rebuild quickly: "This is not the first time that San Francisco has been destroyed by fire, I have not the slightest doubt that the City by the Golden Gate will be speedily rebuilt, and will, almost before we know it, resume her former great activity". The earthquake is not even mentioned in the statement. Fatality and monetary damage estimates were manipulated. Almost immediately after

7128-549: The north, a distance of about 810 miles (1,300 km). The maximum observed surface displacement was about 20 feet (6 m); geodetic measurements show displacements of up to 28 feet (8.5 m). The 1906 earthquake preceded the development of the Richter scale by three decades. The most widely accepted estimate for the magnitude of the quake on the modern moment magnitude scale is 7.9; values from 7.7 to as high as 8.3 have been proposed. According to findings published in

7227-523: The other hand, earthquakes of magnitude ≥8.0 occur about once a year, on average. The largest recorded earthquake was the Great Chilean earthquake of May 22, 1960, which had a magnitude of 9.5 on the moment magnitude scale . Seismologist Susan Hough has suggested that a magnitude 10 quake may represent a very approximate upper limit for what the Earth's tectonic zones are capable of, which would be

7326-425: The particular circumstances refer to it being defined for Southern California and "implicitly incorporates the attenuative properties of Southern California crust and mantle." The particular instrument used would become saturated by strong earthquakes and unable to record high values. The scale was replaced in the 1970s by the moment magnitude scale (MMS, symbol M w  ); for earthquakes adequately measured by

7425-442: The press that the scale was Richter's and "should be referred to as such." In 1956, Gutenberg and Richter, while still referring to "magnitude scale", labelled it "local magnitude", with the symbol M L  , to distinguish it from two other scales they had developed, the surface-wave magnitude (M S ) and body wave magnitude (M B ) scales. The Richter scale was defined in 1935 for particular circumstances and instruments;

7524-437: The quake (and even during the disaster), planning and reconstruction plans were hatched to quickly rebuild the city. Rebuilding funds were immediately tied up by the fact that virtually all the major banks had been sites of the conflagration, requiring a lengthy wait of seven to ten days before their fire-proof vaults could cool sufficiently to be safely opened. The Bank of Italy (now Bank of America ) had evacuated its funds and

7623-653: The result of the largest known continuous belt of faults rupturing together (along the Pacific coast of the Americas). A research at the Tohoku University in Japan found that a magnitude 10 earthquake was theoretically possible if a combined 3,000 kilometres (1,900 mi) of faults from the Japan Trench to the Kuril–Kamchatka Trench ruptured together and moved by 60 metres (200 ft) (or if

7722-706: The sale and various mergers and acquisitions, and is now CBRE Group . Sears sold Coldwell Banker's surviving residential unit to the Fremont Group, a California investment company, for $ 230 million in 1993. It was sold to HFS Inc., later Cendant , in 1996. When Cendant broke up in 2006, the real estate businesses were spun off as Realogy, which was sold to Apollo Management for about $ 7.75 billion. In 2022, Realogy rebranded as Anywhere Real Estate , Inc. In 2006 helped to raise $ 5 million to support 100 Habitat for Humanity homes to commemorate its 100th anniversary. In February 2015 it collaborated with Adopt-a-Pet.com ,

7821-724: The same size more than three years later at 22:45 PST on October 28 near Cape Mendocino. Remotely triggered events included an earthquake swarm in the Imperial Valley area, which culminated in an earthquake of about 6.1 M I   at 16:30 PST on April 18, 1906. Another event of this type occurred at 12:31 PST on April 19, 1906, with an estimated magnitude of about 5.0 M I  , and an epicenter beneath Santa Monica Bay . Early death counts ranged from 375 to over 500. However, hundreds of fatalities in Chinatown went ignored and unrecorded. The total number of deaths

7920-519: The shaking amplitude (see Moment magnitude scale for an explanation). Thus, a difference in magnitude of 1.0 is equivalent to a factor of 31.6 ( = ( 10 1.0 ) ( 3 / 2 ) {\displaystyle =({10^{1.0}})^{(3/2)}} ) in the energy released; a difference in magnitude of 2.0 is equivalent to a factor of 1000 ( = ( 10 2.0 ) ( 3 / 2 ) {\displaystyle =({10^{2.0}})^{(3/2)}} ) in

8019-553: The shaking intensity noted in Andrew Lawson 's 1908 report was the clear correlation of intensity with underlying geologic conditions. Areas situated in sediment -filled valleys sustained stronger shaking than nearby bedrock sites, and the strongest shaking occurred in areas of former bay where soil liquefaction had occurred. Modern seismic-zonation practice accounts for the differences in seismic hazard posed by varying geologic conditions. The shaking intensity as described on

8118-560: The shaking of large earthquakes might generate waves detectable around the globe, and in 1899 E. Von Rehbur Paschvitz observed in Germany seismic waves attributable to an earthquake in Tokyo . In the 1920s, Harry O. Wood and John A. Anderson developed the Wood–Anderson seismograph , one of the first practical instruments for recording seismic waves. Wood then built, under the auspices of

8217-581: The situation required the use of federal troops. Telephoning a San Francisco Police Department officer, he sent word to Mayor Eugene Schmitz of his decision to assist and then ordered federal troops from nearby Angel Island to mobilize and enter the city. Explosives were ferried across the bay from the California Powder Works in what is now Hercules . During the first few days, soldiers provided valuable services like patrolling streets to discourage looting and guarding buildings such as

8316-586: The south of the San Francisco Bay Area . Devastating fires soon broke out in San Francisco and lasted for several days. More than 3,000 people died, and over 80% of the city was destroyed. The event is remembered as the deadliest earthquake in the history of the United States . The death toll remains the greatest loss of life from a natural disaster in California's history and high on the lists of American disasters. The San Andreas Fault

8415-469: The total destruction was the result of the subsequent fires. Within three days, over 30 fires, caused by ruptured gas mains, destroyed approximately 25,000 buildings on 490 city blocks. The fires cost an estimated $ 350 million at the time (equivalent to $ 8.9 billion in 2023). The Ham and Eggs fire, in the morning on the 18th, at Hayes and Gough Streets, in Hayes Valley , was started by

8514-428: The tough new building codes, and subsequent reputation sensitive actions such as the official low death toll. One of the more famous and ambitious plans came from famed urban planner Daniel Burnham . His bold plan called for, among other proposals, Haussmann -style avenues, boulevards, arterial thoroughfares that radiated across the city, a massive civic center complex with classical structures, and what would have been

8613-609: The trace of the 1906 rupture, tending to concentrate near the ends of the rupture or on other structures away from the San Andreas Fault, such as the Hayward Fault . The only aftershock in the first few days of near M 5 or greater occurred near Santa Cruz at 14:28 PST on April 18, with a magnitude of about 4.9 M I . The largest aftershock happened at 01:10 PST on April 23, west of Eureka with an estimated magnitude of about 6.7 M I  , with another of

8712-488: The wave had an amplitude of approximately 3 inches (7.6 cm) and an approximate period of 40–45 minutes. Analysis of triangulation data before and after the earthquake strongly suggests that the rupture along the San Andreas Fault was about 310 miles (500 km) in length, in agreement with observed intensity data. The available seismological data support a significantly shorter rupture length, but these observations can be reconciled by allowing propagation at speeds above

8811-418: The wealthy looked westward where the land was cheap and relatively undeveloped, and where there were better views. Constructing new mansions without reclaiming and clearing rubble simply sped attaining new homes in the tent city during the reconstruction. Reconstruction was swift, and largely completed by 1915, in time for the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition which celebrated the reconstruction of

8910-401: Was able to provide liquidity in the immediate aftermath. Its president also immediately chartered and financed the sending of two ships to return with shiploads of lumber from Washington and Oregon mills which provided the initial reconstruction materials and surge. In an article written in 1913, John C. Branner, who was the first to begin study of the San Andreas fault in 1891 complained that

9009-496: Was closed on June 30, 1908. Most of the cottages have been destroyed, but at least 30 survived. Of the remaining structures, there is a historically restored pair in the Presidio. Others have been built on as part of private homes, with a high concentration around the Bernal Heights neighborhood. One of the modest 720 sq ft (67 m ) homes was purchased in 2006 for more than $ 600,000. A 2017 study found that

9108-452: Was completed. They were painted navy blue, partly to blend in with the site and partly because the military had large quantities of navy blue paint on hand. The camps had a peak population of 16,448 people, but by 1907 most people had moved out. The camps were then re-used as garages, storage spaces or shops. The cottages cost on average $ 100 to build. The $ 2 monthly rents went towards the full purchase price of $ 50. The last official refugee camp

9207-695: Was excluded from coverage under most policies. At least 137 insurance companies were directly involved and another 17 as reinsurers. Twenty companies went bankrupt. Lloyd's of London reports having paid all claims in full, more than $ 50 million, thanks to the leadership of Cuthbert Heath . Insurance companies in Hartford, Connecticut , report paying every claim in full, with the Hartford Fire Insurance Company paying over $ 11 million and Aetna Insurance Company almost $ 3 million. The insurance payments heavily affected

9306-679: Was itself a blazing ruin. I believe these people would more than half like the situation." The earthquake was crucial in the development of the University of California, San Francisco and its medical facilities. Until 1906, the school faculty had provided care at the City-County Hospital (now the San Francisco General Hospital ), but did not have a hospital of its own. Following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, more than 40,000 people were relocated to

9405-547: Was possible and necessary: The only way we know of to deal successfully with any natural phenomenon is to get acquainted with it, to find out all we can about it, and thus to meet it on its own grounds. That is the way mankind has succeeded thus far, and it is safe to conclude that it is the only way it will ever succeed. Eleven days after the earthquake a rare Sunday baseball game was played in New York City (which would not allow regular Sunday baseball until 1919) between

9504-465: Was pressed ahead mainly by re-insurers. Their aim: a uniform solution to insurance payouts resulting from fires caused by earthquakes. Until 1910, a few countries, especially in Europe, followed the call for an exclusion of the earthquake hazard from all fire insurance contracts. In the U.S., the question was discussed differently. But the traumatized public reacted with fierce opposition. On August 1, 1909,

9603-488: Was projected into the Pacific and Asia. Over 80% of the city was destroyed by the earthquake and fire. Though San Francisco rebuilt quickly, the disaster diverted trade, industry, and population growth south to Los Angeles, which during the 20th century became the largest and most important urban area in the West. Many of the city's leading poets and writers retreated to Carmel-by-the-Sea where, as "The Barness", they established

9702-667: Was the oldest survivor of the quake at the time of her death in August 2008, aged 109. Vivian Illing (1900–2009) was believed to be the second-oldest survivor at the time of her death, aged 108, leaving Herbert Hamrol (1903–2009) as the last known remaining survivor at the time of his death, aged 106. Another survivor, Libera Armstrong (1902–2007), attended the 2006 anniversary but died in 2007, aged 105. Shortly after Hamrol's death, two additional survivors were discovered. William Del Monte, then 103, and Jeanette Scola Trapani (1902–2009), 106, stated that they stopped attending events commemorating

9801-477: Was thought to be the last survivor. In 2005 the National Film Registry added San Francisco Earthquake and Fire, April 18, 1906 , a newsreel documentary made soon after the earthquake, to its list of American films worthy of preservation. Richter scale The Richter scale ( / ˈ r ɪ k t ər / ), also called the Richter magnitude scale , Richter's magnitude scale , and

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