20 Years Ago Today

Introduction
On October 17, 1989, at 5:04:15 p.m. (P.d.t.), a magnitude 6.9 (moment magnitude; surface-wave magnitude, 7.1) earthquake severely shook the San Francisco and Monterey Bay regions. The epicenter was located at 37.04° N. latitude, 121.88° W. longitude near Loma Prieta peak in the Santa Cruz Mountains, approximately 14 km (9 mi) northeast of Santa Cruz and 96 km (60 mi) south-southeast of San Francisco. The earthquake occurred when the crustal rocks comprising the Pacific and North American Plates abruptly slipped as much as 2 meters (7 ft) along their common boundary-the San Andreas fault system. The rupture initiated at a depth of 18 km (11 mi) and extended 35 km (22 mi) along the fault, but it did not break the surface of the Earth .
OAKLAND, Calif. -- On Saturday, the Bay Area marked twenty years since the Loma Prieta earthquake struck, collapsing buildings and freeways, spawning several fires, killing 63 people, and leaving thousands homeless.
Fifteen seconds after the 6.9 earthquake struck along the San Andreas fault, the landscape from Monterey to San Francisco was forever changed.
San Francisco marked the exact moment the massive earthquake hit the region with a ceremony and moment of silence. In the East Bay, emergency sirens sounded in Oakland, Alameda and San Leandro, and on Coast Guard Island to mark the somber occasion.
On October 17, 1989, 42 men, women and children were killed when the Cypress Structure on Interstate 880 in Oakland collapsed.
As aftershocks shook the crumbling freeway, good samaritans and emergency workers rushed in and managed to save scores of people who were trapped in their crushed cars and trucks beneath the pancaked freeway.
The quake also collapsed a 50-foot-long section of the Bay Bridge’s upper deck, sending it crashing onto the deck below and killing 23-year-old Anamafi Moala of Berkeley when her Ford Escort plunged into the gap.
In San Francisco, the Marina District suffered the brunt of the quake. Built on landfill, the ground beneath neighborhoods liquefied, creating cracks in residents’ walls, and causing several homes to collapse and burn. Four people died, including a three-month-old boy.
In addition to remembering the tragedies the earthquake left in its wake, and the many people who helped with rescue efforts, Bay Area cities used the weekend to advocate disaster preparedness.
Organizations from Santa Cruz to San Francisco staged drills and held training sessions on earthquake emergency protocol and preparedness.
On Saturday, volunteers from San Francisco’s Neighborhood Emergency Team – a program founded by the fire department in response to the 1989 quake -- marked the anniversary by practicing freeing trapped earthquake victims at San Francisco's Marina Green.
“What we noticed 20 years ago is that the damage was contained to the Marina District -- and there were citizens who assisted us with the response,” said Erica Arteseros of the San Francisco fire department. “So what we have now are citizens are actually trained to do that. It’s not so impromptu,” she said.

Where was I?
I had just walked into my shared 'apartment' which actually was a huge room that was once used to be a part of the Sears Roebuck Department Store on Market Stree and Army. The building was since converted into the unemployment office on the ground floor facing Market Street.
I remember walking into the huge room and going up to one of the walls that had my artworks hanging along with my roomate's who was also an artist and selecting a piece off the wall to give my friend David Carlson as a birthday present. It was a litho print of a mask of 'Yamantaka', the Tibetan demon I had done while in college in Green Bay, Wisconsin. I took it off the wall and laid it on the floorv leaning against the wall and decided to take a nap.
As i was about to lay on my single bed I was startled by loud popping noises coming fron around the walls like gunshot and i got up quickly as i realized that the whole building was shaking. The loud popping shots were from the dry walls which were erected as makeshift walls to both our rooms, the walls were cracking at the seams! I dashed under the doorjam instinct telling me that I would be safe there and as I stood there a loud shot popped at my feet infront of me and a piece of 'U' shaped metal bounced of the concrete floor leaving a small crack in it, and then another a few feet away and i looked up and saw that the water piping, (or whatever piping it was) was flexing up and down like a wave and everytime it does this a pin holding the pipe to the ceilling would be shot out on to the floor. This was accompanied by a very loud roar outside some where like the rolling of a train that came to an abrupt stop.
The lights went out and i found someone standing beside me in the dark appologizing as she held me in a tight embrace. We stood there for sometime and from a room nextdoor somewhere came the voice of a child crying and then a phone ringing. The lady who was standing with me said it was her phone and took off to answer it. She came back and told me her friend had called from Tokyo and that there had been a major earhtquake and a part of the Oakland bay Bridge had fallen. It was on on TV as it happened as everyone was watching the World Series where The SF Giants were playing against the Oakland 'A's. A game my very close friend the Buddha Ron from Stinson beach was calling the game of the century for San Franciscans as the Oakland'A's were from right across the Bay.
One of the things I remember immediately after the quake was the sound of car alarms going off and dogs barking all around the building below me.I did not realize how bad the damage was to the City untill i took a walk from Army Street down Market Street all the way to the Marina Bay area. (To get a feeling of the size of the damage that took place you can just look it up on the internet, they have great shots of the event). I felt strange walking for awhile as though the road was still undulating under me as I walked. I spent the evening later talking about the quake with my friends at 191, Haight Street Apartment where my friend david lived along with nine other roomates or was it six? I met my late wife Nancy there and later we were married the same year At Green Gulch Farm in a Buddhist ceremony. According to her she was in the dentist's chair with our favorite dentist Dr, Kirkland of the University Berkley Dental School working on her teeth. She was highly sedated she said and could not tell if it was an earthquake or that she was just high. David celebrated his birthday and i handed him his'Face of Yamantaka birthday gift.
Had I been more concientious and thinking I would have carried a camera with me and taken alot of great shots of the things I saw along my walk to the Marina. But instead i did not even carried a sketchbook. Well on looking back today I dont really mind it that much anymore as what i experienced during the Loma Prieta Earthquake will always be in my mind, the fact that mother nature can carry one hell of a wallop when you least expect. To be there in itself and had a close brush with death of being run through by a celling peg that shot to the floor within inches of where i stood was a miracle. Had i taken another step away from the door jam the metal used to hold the pipe to the ceilling would have pierced right through my skull. The Loma Prieta would have been my last earthly experience living in the San francisco Bay Area if i had not followed a simple instruction about being in and earthquake situation, not that the makeshift doorjam was any protection when it comes down to it but it saved my life by instinctively following a simple rule.