It ripped along 300 miles of the San Andreas Fault at speeds up to 13,000 mph. When the seismic energy hit San Francisco, it tore the city apart. The quake and subsequent firestorm killed an estimated 5,000 people and caused $524 million in property losses (1906 dollars).

Pipelines that carried water to the city fractured. When fires broke out, the San Francisco Fire Department was virtually helpless. For three days an urban wildfire leapfrogged from neighborhood to neighborhood destroying more than four square miles of the city's metropolitan area.

As the situation grew more desperate, buildings were torched and dynamited in an effort to "back-fire" the raging firestorm. But the firemen, inexperienced in the use of explosives, hesitated to demolish a broad enough path, and their initial efforts to halt the spreading maelstrom failed. Finally the fire department made a stand against the raging inferno at Van Ness Avenue. Row after row of expensive homes were destroyed in the attempt, but it worked and the advancing fire finally stalled.

By April 21, three and a half days after the earthquake, the fire was out. For 100 years the official toll from this disaster was 478 people. Civic boosters and business promoters downplayed the impact of the quake in order to encourage as much rebuilding investment capital as quickly as possible. But in recent years, in recognition of the 1906 quake, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors finally agreed to raise the official death toll to between 3,000 to 6,000 people.

Editor’s Note: : Mark McLaughlin is a Tahoe Historian who can be reached at mark@thestormking.com.