Here is an experience typical of hundreds told by Sam Wolf, a guest at the Grand Hotel:
"When I awakened the house was shaken as a terrier would shake a rat.
I dressed and made for the street which seemed to move like waves of water. On my way down Market street the whole side of a building fell out and came so near me that I was covered and blinded by the dust.
Then I saw the first dead come by. They were piled up in an automobile like carca.s.ses in a butcher"s wagon, all over blood, with crushed skulls and broken limbs, and b.l.o.o.d.y faces.
"A man cried out to me, "Look out for that live wire." I just had time to sidestep certain death. On each side of me the fires were burning fiercely. I finally got into the open s.p.a.ce before the ferry. The ground was still shaking and gaping open in places. Women and children knelt on the cold asphalt and prayed G.o.d would be merciful to them. At last we got on the boat. Not a woman in that crowd had enough clothing to keep her warm, let alone the money for fare. I took off my hat, put a little money in it, and we got enough money right there to pay all their fares."
W. H. Sanders, consulting engineer of the United States geological survey, insisted on paying his hotel bill before he left the St.
Francis. He says:
"Before leaving my room I made my toilet and packed my grip. The other guests had left the house. As I hurried down the lobby I met the clerk who had rushed in to get something. I told him I wanted to pay my bill. "I guess not," he said, "this is no time for settlement."
"As he ran into the office I cornered him, paid him the money, and got his receipt hurriedly stamped."
Dr. Taggart of Los Angeles, a leader of the Los Angeles relief bureau, accidentally shot himself while entering a hospital at the corner of Page and Baker streets, Sat.u.r.day, April 21. He was mounting the stairs, stumbled and fell. A pistol which he carried in his inside coat pocket was discharged, the bullet entering near the heart. He rose to his feet and cried, "I am dying," and fell into the arms of a physician on the step below. Death was almost instantaneous.
Mrs. Lucien Shaw, of Los Angeles, wife of Judge Shaw of the State Supreme Court, disappeared in the war of the elements that raged in San Francisco.
At day dawn Thursday morning, April 19, the Shaw apartments, on Pope street, San Francisco, were burned. Mrs. Shaw fled with the refugees to the hills.
Judge Lucien Shaw went north on that first special on Wednesday that cleared for the Oakland mole.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Copyright 1906 by Tom M. Phillips.
=FREE WATER.=
The most welcome visitor to the Mission district.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Copyright 1906 by Tom M. Phillips.
=DISTRIBUTING CLOTHES.=
Handing out clothes to all who need them.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Copyright 1906 by Tom M. Phillips.
=WIRES DOWN.=
The earthquake shook down wires and poles.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Copyright 1906 by Tom M. Phillips.
=MILITARY CAMP.=
View in Golden Gate Park. Too much praise cannot be given our soldiers.]
Thursday morning at daybreak he reached his apartments on Pope street. Flames were burning fiercely. A friend told him that his wife had fled less than fifteen minutes before. She carried only a few articles in a hand satchel.
For two days and nights Judge Shaw wandered over hills and through the parks about San Francisco seeking among the 200,000 refugees for his wife.
During that heart-breaking quest, according to his own words, he had "no sleep, little food and less water." At noon Sat.u.r.day he gave up the search and hurried back to Los Angeles, hoping to find that she had arrived before him. He hastened to his home on West Fourth street.
"Where"s mother?" was the first greeting from his son, Hartley Shaw.
Judge Shaw sank fainting on his own doorstep. The search for the missing woman was continued but proved fruitless.
One of the beautiful little features on the human side of the disaster was the devotion of the Chinese servants to the children of the families which they served. And this was not the only thing, for often a Chinaman acted as the only man in families of homeless women and children. Except for the inevitable panic of the first morning, when the Chinese tore into Portsmouth square and fought with the Italians for a place of safety, the Chinese were orderly, easy to manage, and philosophical. They staggered around under loads of household goods which would have broken the back of a horse, and they took hard the order of the troops which commanded all pa.s.sengers to leave their bundles at the ferry.
A letter to a friend in Fond du Lac, Wis., from Mrs. Bragg, wife of General E. S. Bragg, late consul general at Hong Kong, and one-time commander of the Iron Brigade, gave the following account of the escape of the Braggs in the Frisco quake. Mrs. Bragg says under date of April 20:
"We reached San Francisco a week ago today, but it seems a month, so much have we been through. We were going over to Oakland the very morning of the earthquake, so, of course, we never went, as it is as bad there as here.
"General Bragg had to wait to collect some money on a draft, but the banks were all destroyed. The chimneys fell in and all hotels were burned as well as public buildings. There was no water to put out the fires which raged for blocks in every square and provisions were running low everywhere. Eggs were $5 a dozen, etc.; no telegraph, no nothing.
"We went from the Occidental to the Plymouth and from there to the Park n.o.b hill, where we lay, not slept, all Wednesday night, the day of the earthquake. From there we took refuge on the Pacific with friends who were obliged to get out also and we all came over together to Fort Mason, leaving there last night. We came from there to the flagship Chicago, the admiral having sent a boat for us.
"General Bragg is very well and we have both stood it wonderfully. The Chicago fire was bad enough, but this is worse in our old age. May we live till we reach home. So many here have lost everything, homes as well, we consider ourselves quite fortunate. May I never live to see another earthquake.
"The General had a very narrow escape from falling plaster; never thought to leave the first hotel alive. Many were killed or burned.
G.o.d is good to us. Our baggage was rescued by our nephews alone. No one else"s was to be got out for love or money. The baggage was sent to the Presidio, not four miles from us."
CHAPTER VII.
THRILLING PERSONAL EXPERIENCES.
=Scenes of Horror and Panic Described by Victims of the Quake Who Escaped--How Helpless People Were Crushed to Death by Falling Buildings and Debris--Some Marvelous Escapes.=
The stories of hundreds who experienced the earthquake shock but escaped with life and limb const.i.tute a series of thrilling stories unrivalled outside of fiction. Those that contain the most marvellous features are herewith narrated:
Albert H. Gould, of Chicago, describes the scene in the Palace Hotel following the first quake:
"I was asleep on the seventh floor of the Palace Hotel," he said, "at the time of the first quake. I was thrown out of my bed and half way across the room.
"Immediately realizing the import of the occurrence, and fearing that the building was about to collapse, I made my way down the six flights of stairs and into the main corridor.
"I was the first guest to appear. The clerks and hotel employes were running about as if they were mad. Within two minutes after I had appeared other guests began to flock into the corridor. Few if any of them wore other than their night clothing. Men, women, and children with blanched faces stood as if fixed. Children and women cried, and the men were little less affected.