Loma Prieta (from Spanish loma -hill, prieta -dark) is the highest peak in the Santa Cruz Mountains in Northern California , measuring 3,790 feet (1,160 m) in height.
87-528: Although the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake was named for this mountain, the actual epicenter was five miles southwest of the peak, across the San Andreas Fault , in The Forest of Nisene Marks State Park . In the 19th century, the peak was called Mount Bache, a name given in honor of Alexander Dallas Bache ; the name is no longer in use. From 1955 to 2005, the mountain was the longtime site for
174-876: A seismic gap ) until two moderate foreshocks occurred in June 1988 and again in August 1989. Damage was heavy in Santa Cruz County and less so to the south in Monterey County , but effects extended well to the north into the San Francisco Bay Area , both on the San Francisco Peninsula and across the bay in Oakland . No surface faulting occurred, though many other ground failures and landslides were present, especially in
261-459: A crack down the front of the building. Many homes were dislodged if they were not bolted to their foundations. There were structural failures of twin bridges across Struve Slough near Watsonville. In Moss Landing, the liquefaction destroyed the causeway that carried the Moss Beach access road across a tidewater basin, damaged the approach and abutment of the bridge linking Moss Landing spit to
348-566: A crucial link to rescue workers. Widespread search operations were organized to find possible victims inside the remains of 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. The quake claimed one life in Watsonville : a driver who collided with panicked horses after they escaped their collapsed corral. In other Santa Cruz and Monterey county locations such as Boulder Creek and Moss Landing ,
435-486: A hodgepodge of wharves and industrial plants was built extending from what is now Laguna Street to Steiner Street. However, all of this was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake. During reconstruction of the city after the 1906 earthquake, the area was chosen as the site of the Panama–Pacific International Exposition . Although rubble from the earthquake was used as part of the land reclamation, most of
522-476: A large slide and one person was killed by a rockfall along the coast. Other areas with certain soil conditions were susceptible to site amplification due to the effects of liquefaction , especially near the shore of San Francisco Bay (where its effects were severe in the Marina District ) and to the west of the epicenter near rivers and other bodies of water. Minor lateral spreading was also seen along
609-403: A left bend in the San Andreas Fault . Starting near Uvas Canyon , the fault stops trending northwest but instead bends west-northwest for about eight miles before continuing its northwest direction. This left bend is renowned among geologists as an archetypal restraining bend which acts to oppose strike-slip motion along the fault. From the perspective of Loma Prieta and other mountains atop
696-648: A length of 290 mi (470 km) during the 1906 shock, both to the north of San Francisco and to the south in the Santa Cruz Mountains region. Several long term forecasts for a large shock along the San Andreas Fault in that area had been made public prior to 1989 (the event and its aftershocks occurred within a recognized seismic gap ) but the earthquake that transpired was not what had been anticipated. The 1989 Loma Prieta event originated on an undiscovered oblique-slip reverse fault that
783-476: A number of structures were damaged, with some knocked off of their foundations. Many residents slept outside their homes out of concern for further damage from aftershocks, of which there were 51 with magnitudes greater than 3.0 in the following 24 hours, and 16 more the second day. The earthquake damaged several historic buildings in the Old Town district of Salinas , and some were later demolished. Damage to
870-453: A substantial increase in noise was measured in the frequency range 0.01–10 Hz. The measurement instrument was a single-axis search-coil magnetometer that was being used for low frequency research. Precursor increases of noise apparently started a few days before the earthquake, with noise in the range 0.01–0.5 Hz rising to exceptionally high levels about three hours before the earthquake. The Fraser-Smith et al. report remains one of
957-498: A thing. McCarver: I guess Dave Parker ... Michaels: Well, heh, I don't know if we're on the air or not, and I'm not sure I care at this particular moment but we are. Well, folks, that's the greatest open in the history of television! Bar none! McCarver: Opened with a bang! Marina District, San Francisco The Marina District is a neighborhood located in San Francisco , California . The neighborhood sits on
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#17327661710991044-535: Is also noted for its demographics, which since the 1980s have shifted from mostly middle-class families and pensioners, to professionals in their twenties and thirties. These now make up more than half of the population, although a small, affluent older population remains. San Francisco's Academy of Art University has a campus housing building at the Southern edge of the neighborhood on Lombard Street. The San Francisco Police Department Northern Station serves
1131-468: Is located adjacent to the San Andreas Fault. Since many forecasts had been presented for the region near Loma Prieta, seismologists were not taken by surprise by the October 1989 event. Between 1910 and 1989 there were 20 widely varying forecasts that were announced, with some that were highly specific, covering multiple aspects of an event, while others were less complete and vague. With a M6.5 event on
1218-422: Is not seen in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Three scenarios were presented that might explain this disparity. The first is that the geometry of the San Andreas Fault goes through a transition every several thousand years. Secondly, slip type could vary from event to event. And lastly, the 1989 event did not occur on the San Andreas Fault. While the effects of a four-year drought limited the potential of landslides ,
1305-588: The Oakland Athletics , it is sometimes referred to as the "World Series earthquake" , with the championship games of the year being referred to as the "Earthquake Series". Rush-hour traffic on the Bay Area freeways was much lighter than normal because the game, being played at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, was about to begin, and this may have prevented a larger loss of life, as several of
1392-548: The Salinas River rail bridge and subsequent repairs led to reduced traffic on the Monterey Branch Line , which contributed to the discontinuance of freight rail services in western Monterey County. The San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge suffered severe damage, as a 76-by-50-foot (23 m × 15 m) section of the upper deck on the eastern cantilever side fell onto the deck below. The quake caused
1479-704: The San Andreas Fault system because of its strong influence in the state as the boundary between the Pacific plate and the North American plate ; it is the most studied fault on Earth. Andrew Lawson , a geologist from the University of California, Berkeley , had named the fault after the San Andreas Lake (prior to the occurrence of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake ) and later led an investigation into that event. The San Andreas Fault ruptured for
1566-899: The Sierra Azul block , the Pacific Plate is trying to shear them off the North American Plate but can't break them off. Rather, the resulting transpression force pushes up the local terrain and helps explain why these are the highest peaks in the Santa Cruz Mountains . From 1976 through 1990 amateur astronomer Donald Machholz set up his telescope an average of 120 times a year on the south slope of this mountain to search for comets. From this site he discovered three new comets that bear his name, including Periodic Comet Machholz 1 96P/Machholz on May 12, 1986. The first official West Coast Messier marathon
1653-530: The State office of Emergency Services issued (for the first time in Bay Area history) short term advisories for a possible large earthquake, which meant there was "a slightly increased likelihood of an M6.5 event on the Santa Cruz Mountains segment of the San Andreas fault". The advisories following the two Lake Elsman events were issued in part because of the statements made by WGCEP and because they were two of
1740-614: The Summit area of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Liquefaction was also a significant issue, especially in the heavily damaged Marina District of San Francisco , but its effects were also seen in the East Bay, and near the shore of Monterey Bay , where a non-destructive tsunami was also observed. Because it happened during a national live broadcast of the 1989 World Series , the annual championship series of Major League Baseball , taking place between Bay Area teams San Francisco Giants and
1827-524: The Transbay Tube between the date of the earthquake and December 3 that same year. The worst disaster of the earthquake was the collapse of the double-deck Cypress Street Viaduct of Interstate 880 in West Oakland . The failure of a 1.25-mile (2.0 km) section of the viaduct, also known as the "Cypress Structure" and the "Cypress Freeway", killed 42 and injured many more. Built in
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#17327661710991914-482: The 1915 Exposition fairgrounds. The grounds around the Palace are a year-round attraction for tourists and locals, and are used as a location for weddings and wedding party photographs for couples. Chestnut Street is another attraction for locals and tourists. Stretching from Fillmore Street down to Lyon Street, Chestnut is lined with a collection of stores, restaurants, bakeries, coffee shops and bars. The neighborhood
2001-567: The Bay Area's major transportation structures suffered catastrophic failures. The collapse of a section of the double-deck Nimitz Freeway in Oakland was the site of the largest number of casualties for the event, but the collapse of human-made structures and other related accidents contributed to casualties occurring in San Francisco, Los Gatos , and Santa Cruz. The history of earthquake investigations in California has been largely focused on
2088-647: The Cypress Street Viaduct in Oakland) the intensity of the shaking was more severe and lasted longer. The strong motion records also allowed for the causative fault to be determined – the rupture was related to the San Andreas Fault System. While a Mercalli Intensity of VIII ( Severe ) covered a large swath of territory relatively close to the epicenter (including the cities of Los Gatos, Santa Cruz, and Watsonville ) farther to
2175-516: The Emergency Broadcast System to the public after the quake because the engineering department at KNBR experienced major technical malfunctions and difficulties. The malfunctions during the aftermath of the earthquake caused confusion as to whether an earthquake would cause the Emergency Broadcast System to activate. KNBR began using an emergency generator, hooking up the signal from a command center right after their nearby studio
2262-424: 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; 500,000 lb; 226,800 kg) section of roadbed crashing down like a trapdoor. Traffic on both decks came to a halt, blocked by the section of the roadbed. Police began unsnarling the traffic jam, telling drivers to turn their cars around and drive back
2349-575: The San Juan Bautista segment, or an M7 event on the San Francisco Peninsula segment, United States Geological Survey (USGS) seismologist Allan Lindh's 1983 forecasted rupture length of 25 miles (40 km) (starting near Pajaro Gap, and continuing to the northwest) for the San Juan Bautista segment nearly matched the actual rupture length of the 1989 event. An updated forecast was presented in 1988, at which time Lindh took
2436-585: The Santa Cruz Historic Building Survey. The four oldest were built in 1894, the five oldest withstood the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Immediately, a number of civilians began 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. Two police officers crawled through voids in
2523-469: The Santa Cruz Mountains was about 15 seconds, but strong ground motion recordings revealed that the duration of shaking was not uniform throughout the affected area (because of different types and thicknesses of soil ). At sites with rocky terrain, the duration was shorter and the shaking was much less intense, and at locations with unconsolidated soil (like the Marina District in San Francisco or
2610-608: The Santa Cruz Mountains, pieces of concrete fell from a parking structure at the Sunnyvale Town Center , a two-level shopping mall in Santa Clara County. More moderate damage resulted from the August 8, 1989, shock (intensity VII, Very strong ) when chimneys were toppled in Cupertino , Los Gatos, and Redwood Estates . Other damage included cracked walls and foundations and broken underground pipes. At
2697-425: 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 normally crowded freeways contained unusually light traffic. If traffic had been normal for a Tuesday rush hour , injuries and deaths would certainly have been higher. The initial media reports failed to take into account the game's effect on traffic and initially estimated
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2784-630: The cable cars. Amtrak intercity rail service into Oakland from the California Zephyr continued, but the Coast Starlight was temporarily suspended north of Salinas because of damage to the Southern Pacific 's Coast Line . The earthquake changed the Bay Area's automobile transportation landscape. Not only did the quake force seismic retrofitting of all Bay Area bridges, it caused enough damage that some parts of
2871-681: The collapse of buildings along 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. When the earthquake hit, the third game of the 1989 World Series baseball championship was about to begin. Because of the unusual circumstance that both of the World Series teams (the San Francisco Giants and Oakland Athletics ) were based in
2958-636: The collapse of the Cypress Street Viaduct on the Nimitz Freeway ( Interstate 880 ), where the upper level of a double-deck portion of the freeway collapsed, crushing the cars on the lower level, and causing crashes on the upper level. One 50-foot (15 m) section of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge also collapsed, leading to a single fatality, Anamafi Moala, a 23-year-old woman. Three people were killed in
3045-434: The damage. That same day, survivor Buck Helm was freed from the wreckage, having spent 90 hours trapped in his car. Dubbed "Lucky Buck" by the local radio, Helm lived for another 29 days on life support , but then died of respiratory failure at the age of 58. Although the freeway reopened in stages between 1997 and 1999, it was not fully rebuilt until 2001 so that it would comply with safety and reinforcement standards. In
3132-468: The death toll at 300, a number that was corrected to 63 in the days after the earthquake. After the earthquake occurred, a group led by Antony C. Fraser-Smith of Stanford University reported that the event was preceded by disturbances in background magnetic field noise as measured by a sensor placed in Corralitos , about 4.5 miles (7 km) from the epicenter. From October 5, they reported that
3219-444: The debris, found one victim alive and another dead inside the coffee house. Santa Cruz beach lifeguards assisted in moving the victims. Police dogs were brought in to help locate other victims. A woman was found dead inside Ford's. The civilians who were helpful initially, were soon viewed by police and fire officials as a hindrance to operations, with frantic coworkers and friends of a coffee house employee thought to be trapped under
3306-490: The earthquake struck at approximately 5:04 PDT, sportscaster Tim McCarver was narrating taped highlights of Game 2, which had been played two days prior across the Bay Bridge in Oakland. Television 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 – ." At that moment,
3393-629: The earthquake. In Santa Cruz , close to the epicenter, 40 buildings collapsed, killing six people. At the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, the Plunge Building was significantly damaged. Liquefaction also caused damage in the Watsonville area. For example, sand volcanoes formed in a field near Pajaro as well as in a strawberry field. The Ford's department store in Watsonville experienced significant damage, including
3480-681: The edge of the freeway. Nearby residents and factory workers came to the rescue, climbing onto the wreckage with ladders and forklifts and pulling trapped people out of their cars from under a four-foot gap in some sections. 60 members of Oakland's Public Works Agency left the nearby city yard and joined rescue efforts. Employees from Pacific Pipe drove heavy lift equipment to the scene and started using it to raise sections of fallen freeway enough to allow further rescue. Local workers continued their volunteer operation nonstop until October 21, 1989, when they were forced to pause as U.S. President George H. W. Bush and California Governor George Deukmejian viewed
3567-422: The entire neighborhood during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake . The area in the 19th century prior to the 1906 earthquake consisted of bay shallows, tidal pools, sand dunes, and marshland similar to nearby Crissy Field . Human habitation and development came in the mid to late 19th century in the form of a sandwall and of a road from the nearby Presidio to Fort Mason. Most of the sand dunes were leveled out and
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3654-399: 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. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) turned people who were homeless prior to the earthquake away from homeless shelters and provided shelter for those with homes prior to
3741-400: The four deaths, one family lost their infant son who choked on dust while trapped for an hour inside their collapsed apartment. The Marina district was built on a landfill made of a mixture of sand, dirt, rubble, waste, and other materials containing a high percentage of groundwater . Some of the fill was rubble dumped into San Francisco Bay after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, but most
3828-438: The ground more severely. At the intersection of Beach and Divisadero Streets in San Francisco, a natural gas main rupture caused a major structure fire . The San Francisco Fire Department selected civilians to help run fire hoses from a distance because the nearby hydrant system failed. Since the bay was only two blocks from the burning buildings, water from the bay was pumped by the fireboat Phoenix , to engines on
3915-466: The landfill came from dredging mud and sand from the bottom of the Bay. After the end of the exposition in 1915, the land was sold to private developers, who tore down nearly all of the fair's attractions and developed the area into a residential neighborhood. This major redevelopment was completed in the 1920s. In the 1930s, with the completion of the nearby Golden Gate Bridge , Lombard Street (now Highway 101)
4002-512: The large magnitude mainshock, the four accelerometers captured a useful record of the main event and more than half an hour of the early aftershock activity. The June 27, 1988, shock occurred with a maximum intensity of VI ( Strong ). Its effects included broken windows in Los Gatos, and other light damage in Holy City , where increased flow was observed at a water well . Farther away from
4089-507: The late 1950s and opened to traffic in 1957 (as SR 17), the Cypress Street Viaduct, a stretch of Interstate 880, was a double-deck freeway section made of nonductile reinforced concrete 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 the other half somewhat more stable alluvium . Because of new highway structure design guidelines –
4176-415: The local ABC station in San Francisco, was off the air for about 15 minutes, while KRON-TV (at the time the region's NBC affiliate) was off the air for about half an hour, and KGO-AM ( ABC News Radio ) was off the air for about 40 minutes. About an hour and 40 minutes after the quake, Fox affiliate KTVU resumed broadcasting, with their news anchors, Dennis Richmond and Elaine Corral reporting from
4263-413: The mainland and cracked the paved road on Paul's Island. In the Old Town historical district of the city of Salinas, unreinforced masonry buildings were partially destroyed. Following the quake, an estimated 1.4 million people experienced power losses that were mainly due to damaged electrical substations . Many San Francisco radio and television stations were temporarily knocked off the air. KGO-TV ,
4350-547: The meantime, traffic was detoured through nearby Interstate 980 , causing increased congestion. Instead of rebuilding Interstate 880 over the same ground, Caltrans rerouted the freeway farther west around the outskirts of West Oakland to provide better access to the Port of Oakland and the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, and to meet community desires to keep the freeway from cutting through residential areas (at
4437-449: The most expensive natural disasters in U.S. history at the time. Private donations poured into aid relief efforts and on October 26, President George H. W. Bush signed a $ 1.1 billion ($ 2.7 billion today) earthquake relief package for California. Four people died in San Francisco's Marina District, four buildings were destroyed by fire, and seven buildings collapsed. Another 63 damaged structures were judged too dangerous to live in. Among
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#17327661710994524-480: The most frequently cited claims of a specific earthquake precursor; more recent studies have cast doubt on the connection, attributing the Corralitos signals to either unrelated magnetic disturbance or, even more simply, to sensor-system malfunction. The earthquake caused severe damage in some very specific locations in the Bay Area, most notably on unstable soil in San Francisco and Oakland . Oakland City Hall
4611-520: The neighborhood appears to have changed very little since its construction in the 1920s. The neighborhood is most famous for the Palace of Fine Arts , which until 2013 housed the Exploratorium , a hands-on science museum and children's educational center, and which takes up much of the western section of the neighborhood. The Palace is the only building left standing in its original location within
4698-400: The next morning. Large 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. Oakland Airport repair costs were assessed at $ 30 million (equivalent to $ 77 million today). San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni) lost all power to electric transit systems when
4785-491: The next several hours, some of it picked up and broadcast nationally over their respective networks, as well as on CNN , in a manner anticipating later major catastrophes such as the 1994 Los Angeles earthquake and the 9/11 terror attacks ). Power was restored to most of San Francisco by midnight, and all but 12,000 customers had their power restored within two days. The quake caused an estimated $ 6 billion (equivalent to $ 15 billion today) in property damage, becoming one of
4872-561: The north, portions of San Francisco were assessed at intensity IX ( Violent ). At more than 44 miles (70 km) distant, the San Francisco Bay Area recorded peak horizontal accelerations that were as high as 0.26 g , and close to the epicenter they peaked at more than 0.6 g . In a general way, the location of aftershocks of the event delineated the extent of the faulting, which (according to seismologist Bruce Bolt ) extended about 24 miles (40 km) in length. Because
4959-523: The occurrence of an event at the location that was forecast by the WGCEP in 1988 was coincidental. The contrasting characteristics of the 1906 and 1989 events were examined by seismologists Hiroo Kanamori and Kenji Satake . The significant amount of vertical displacement in 1989 was a key aspect to consider because a long-term sequence of 1989-type events (with an 80–100-year recurrence interval) normally result in regions with high topographic relief , which
5046-490: The office of the Los Gatos City Manager, a window that was cracked had also been broken in the earlier shock. Also in Los Gatos, one man died when he fell or jumped through a window and impacted the ground five stories below. The Loma Prieta earthquake was named for Loma Prieta Peak in the Santa Cruz Mountains, which lies just to the east of the mainshock epicenter. The duration of the heaviest shaking in
5133-402: The open gap in time; the 1980 Mercury Zephyr plunged over the edge and smashed onto the collapsed roadbed. The driver, Anamafi Moala, died, and the passenger, her brother, was seriously injured. Caltrans removed and replaced the collapsed section, and re-opened the bridge on November 18. To assist with transportation during Bay Bridge repairs, Bay Area Rapid Transit ran 24-hour service in
5220-552: The opportunity to assign a new name to the San Juan Bautista segment – the Loma Prieta segment. In early 1988, the Working Group for California Earthquake Probabilities (WGCEP) made several statements regarding their forecasts for the 225 mi (360 km) northern San Andreas Fault segment, the 56 mi (90 km) San Francisco Peninsula segment, and a 18.8–22 mi (30–35 km) portion of that segment which
5307-501: The quake hit, but otherwise suffered little damage and no injuries to operators or riders. 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. After 78 hours, 96 percent of Muni services were back in operation, including
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#17327661710995394-498: The region's freeway system had to be demolished. Damage to the region's transportation system was estimated at $ 1.8 billion (equivalent to $ 4.4 billion today). The 1989 World Series featured the Oakland Athletics and the San Francisco Giants in the first cross-town World Series since 1956 . Game 3 of the series was scheduled to begin at San Francisco's Candlestick Park on October 17 at 5:35 PDT, and American television network ABC began its pre-game show at 5:00 PDT . When
5481-466: 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. Caltrans has since received widespread backlash for not thoroughly studying
5568-438: The rubble continuing their efforts in the dark. Police arrested those who refused to stop searching. This became a political issue in the following days. The body of a young woman coffee worker was found under a collapsed wall late the next day. During the first few days following the quake, electric power to most Santa Cruz County subscribers was out, and some areas had no water. Limited phone service remained online, providing
5655-414: The rupture took place bilaterally, the duration of strong shaking was about half of what it would have been had it ruptured in one direction only. The duration of a typical M6.9 shock with a comparable rupture length would have been about twice as long. Gregory Beroza , a seismologist with Stanford University , made several distinctions regarding the 1906 and 1989 events. Near Loma Prieta, the 1906 rupture
5742-531: The shocks affected the mainshock's rupture process. Following the August 8, 1989, shock, in anticipation of an upcoming large earthquake, staff at the University of California, Santa Cruz deployed four accelerometers in the area, which were positioned at the UCSC campus, two residences in Santa Cruz, and a home in Los Gatos . Unlike other nearby (high gain ) seismographs that were overwhelmed (driven off scale) by
5829-473: The shore, and from there sprayed on the fire. The apartment structures that collapsed were older buildings that included ground-floor garages, which engineers refer to as a soft story building . In Santa Cruz, the Pacific Garden Mall was severely damaged, with falling debris killing three people, half of the six earthquake deaths in Santa Cruz and Monterey Counties. Some 31 buildings were damaged enough to warrant demolition, seven of which had been listed in
5916-447: The shores of San Francisco Bay and to the south near Monterey Bay. Other ground effects included downslope movement, slumps , and ground cracks. Fifty-seven of the deaths were directly caused by the earthquake; six further fatalities were ruled to have been caused indirectly. In addition, there were 3,757 injuries as a result of the earthquake, 400 of which were serious. The highest number of deaths, 42, occurred in Oakland because of
6003-533: The signal from Candlestick Park was lost. The network put up a green ABC Sports "World Series" technical difficulties telop graphic while it scrambled to repair the video feed (the broadcast cameras and mics were powered by the local power supply), but audio from the stadium was restored after thirteen seconds via a telephone link: Al Michaels: Well, heh, I don't know if we're on the air... We are in commercial, I guess. Jim Palmer : Yes, yes, we hear you. Tim McCarver: I guess... Michaels: I don't hear
6090-474: The site of the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition , staged after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake to celebrate the reemergence of the city. Aside from the Palace of Fine Arts , all other buildings were demolished to make the current neighborhood. The area is bounded to the east by Van Ness Avenue and Fort Mason ; on the west by Lyon Street and the Presidio National Park ; on
6177-644: The south by Cow Hollow and Lombard St , which bisects the southern edge of the Marina District. The northern half of the Marina is a shoreline of the San Francisco Bay , and features the Marina Green , a park adjacent to the municipal boat marina from which the neighborhood takes its name. Much of the Marina is built on former landfill , and is susceptible to soil liquefaction during strong earthquakes. This phenomenon caused extensive damage to
6264-409: The station's parking lot. KCBS-AM ( CBS News Radio ) switched immediately to backup power and managed to stay on air despite a subsequent generator failure. KCBS later won a Peabody Award for their news coverage, as did KGO-TV. KNBR-AM (the designated station for the Bay Area's Emergency Broadcast System at the time) failed to communicate a catastrophe with the activation and instructions of
6351-602: The steep terrain near the epicenter was prone to movement, and up to 4,000 landslides may have occurred during the event. The majority of landslides occurred to the southwest of the epicenter, especially along road cuts in the Santa Cruz Mountains and in the Summit Road area, but also along the bluffs of the Pacific Coast, and as far north as the Marin Peninsula. Highway 17 was blocked for several weeks by
6438-432: The structure. When the earthquake hit, the shaking was amplified on the former marshland, and soil liquefaction occurred. When the earthquake struck, the freeway buckled and twisted before the support columns failed and the upper deck fell on the lower deck. Forty-two people were crushed to death in their cars. Cars on the upper deck were tossed around violently, some of them flipped sideways, and some were left dangling at
6525-455: The three largest shocks to occur along the 1906 earthquake's rupture zone since 1914. The M L 5.3 June 1988 and the M L 5.4 August 1989 events also occurred on previously unknown oblique reverse faults and were within 3 mi (4.8 km) of the M6.9 Loma Prieta mainshock epicenter, near the intersection of the San Andreas and Sargent faults. Total displacement for these shocks
6612-535: The time the original viaduct was constructed, West Oakland was predominantly occupied by African- and Hispanic-Americans). Street-level Mandela Parkway now occupies the previous roadbed of the Cypress structure. Immediately after the earthquake, Bay Area airports were closed so officials could conduct a visual inspection and damage assessment procedures. San Jose International Airport , Oakland International Airport and San Francisco International Airport all opened
6699-447: The transmitter tower of San Jose television station KNTV . In September 2005, it moved its transmitter 83 kilometres (52 mi) northwest to San Bruno Mountain after it became the Bay Area's NBC affiliate. Loma Prieta is the tallest peak in the Santa Cruz Mountains and it is common to see snow on the mountain during the winter. Loma Prieta and other nearby mountain peaks are pushed upward by local collision forces associated with
6786-404: 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 drivers the wrong way; they were directed to the upper deck where they drove eastward toward the collapse site. One of these drivers did not see
6873-733: Was conducted from this site in March 1979. 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake On October 17, 1989, at 5:04 p.m. local time, the Loma Prieta earthquake occurred at the Central Coast of California. The shock was centered in The Forest of Nisene Marks State Park in Santa Cruz County , approximately 10 mi (16 km) northeast of Santa Cruz on a section of the San Andreas Fault System and
6960-473: Was evacuated after the earthquake until a US$ 80 million (equivalent to US$ 197 million today) seismic retrofit and hazard abatement work was completed in 1995. Many other communities sustained severe damage throughout the region located in Alameda , San Mateo , Santa Clara , San Benito , Santa Cruz and Monterey counties. Major property damage in San Francisco's Marina District 60 mi (97 km) from
7047-404: Was more shallow, had more strike-slip, and occurred on a fault that was near vertical. The 1989 event's oblique-slip rupture was at 10 km and below on a fault plane that dipped 70° to the southwest. Because much of the slip in 1989 occurred at depth and the rupture propagated up dip, Beroza proposed that the overlying San Andreas Fault actually inhibited further rupture and also maintains that
7134-401: Was named for the nearby Loma Prieta Peak in the Santa Cruz Mountains . With an M w magnitude of 6.9 and a maximum Modified Mercalli intensity of IX ( Violent ), the shock was responsible for 63 deaths and 3,757 injuries. The Loma Prieta segment of the San Andreas Fault System had been relatively inactive since the 1906 San Francisco earthquake (to the degree that it was designated
7221-668: Was referred to as the southern Santa Cruz Mountains segment. The thirty year probability for one or more M7 earthquakes in the study area was given as 50%, but because of a lack of information and low confidence, a 30% probability was assigned to the Southern Santa Cruz Mountains segment. Two moderate shocks, referred to as the Lake Elsman earthquakes by the USGS, occurred in the Santa Cruz Mountains region in June 1988 and again in August 1989. Following each event,
7308-429: Was relatively small (approximately 4 in (100 mm) of strike-slip and substantially less reverse-slip) and although they occurred on separate faults and well before the mainshock, a group of seismologists considered these to be foreshocks because of when and where they occurred relative to the main event. Each event's aftershock sequence and effect on stress drop was closely examined, and their study indicated that
7395-471: 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 catastrophe in 1906. After the Exposition, apartment buildings were erected on the landfill. In the 1989 earthquake, the water-saturated unconsolidated mud, sand, and rubble suffered liquefaction , and the earthquake's vertical shock waves rippled
7482-456: Was severely shaken during the quake, when most of the KNBR staff were at Candlestick for the World Series. The Mayor of San Francisco, Art Agnos , later came on the air and provided an update on the earthquake. (All four network-affiliated TV stations (KRON, KGO, KTVU and CBS affiliate KPIX ) would recover enough to broadcast continuous breaking news coverage of the aftermath of the quake for
7569-401: Was widened, and soon developed into a strip of roadside motels . The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused severe liquefaction of the fill upon which the neighborhood is built, causing major damage including a small firestorm . Firefighters resorted to pumping water directly from the Bay, to replace water unavailable from broken water mains . The neighborhood was quickly rebuilt. Physically,
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