earthquake – American Disasters

March 26, 2014December 16, 2020

How can you be so obtuse?

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After reading these articles by Steinberg and Davis, I no longer want to live in California. At least with hurricanes, tornadoes, and other natural calamities, modern technology provides us with at least some warning. A simple Google search confirmed my belief that scientists have yet to develop a warning system for earthquakes. Let’s get on that science.

We have, however, developed ways to reduce the damage caused by earthquakes. Even back in the early 1900s, there were at least some protective measures available for implementation. Following the destructive 1906 earthquake in San Francisco, one would think that the local government would try to make the city as safe as possible.

The reactions from Galveston and San Francisco following their respective disasters are polar opposites. The hurricane shattered Galveston’s ignorant view of safety from devastating storms. As such, the city did something to improve their chances against another possible storm by creating a sea wall and elevating the city. Mazel Tov, the modifications worked quite well fifteen years later. The earthquake in San Francisco, however, entrenched the city’s belief that earthquakes did not cause extensive damage. Instead, the local government focused on the fire as the main source of concern. Local government in San Francisco enacted a “Wind Bracing” ordinance to their building code. As Steinberg points out, this language was probably chosen deliberately to remove any mention of earthquakes. Earthquakes later on showed the ignorance regarding the building codes to be detrimental, especially to tge schools. Both cities were vying for economic dominance in their areas, but Galveston decided to make their city safer to encourage businesses to rebuild. San Francisco sought to sweep the problem under the rug, as Jean, Betsy, and Sherwood all aptly claim, to protect future business relations. This decision was incredibly ignorant, selfish, and irresponsible. Even the slight modifications that the city made to its building code were soon undermined to pursue cheaper building construction.

I think it’s pretty comical how a small earthquake in Canada sparked the recognition of earthquakes by insurance companies. My favorite line in Steinberg’s article relates to the insurance companies: “Thousands of Californians were putting up their own hard-earned money to protect themselves against a risk the business class had once said did not exist.” Furthermore, the Great Depression combined with the movie San Francisco forced California to acknowledge a natural problem with its geography.

Even today, citizens are testing the government’s safety mandates by making the government enforce its stricter and more expensive building codes. Alluding to arguments made by Davis, the climate may be destructive and on the brink of disaster, but the climate is why people move to California. It’s beautiful. Living near the beach carries risks of flood and hurricanes, but people take those risks to enjoy the beauty. Maybe the risk involved with living in these areas contributes to their beauty. To me, the cost of living in paradise should be higher than living in the desert of New Mexico or the plains of Arkansas.

March 25, 2014December 16, 2020

How Capitalism Can Shape Disaster Narratives

Blog Post 8 (for Thursday, 3/27)

In his article “Smoke and Mirrors,” Ted Steinberg describes a struggle between “those seeking to capitalize on the disaster’s entertainment value against California’s business class” (104). The former hoped to capitalize on peoples’ fascination with disaster by distributing reports, images and videos. One of the videos we watched in class on Tuesday was a dramatic recreation of the San Francisco fire, meant for consumers’ viewing across the country, for example. The latter hoped to preserve San Francisco’s reputation as a center of economic activity, worthy of investment. To that end, they sought to deemphasize the destructive capability of earthquakes in the Bay Area, and emphasize the many opportunities it offered in rebuilding. For example, John Marsh wrote in his blog post: “Rozario quotes a writer for the Times who noted that San Francisco’s natural advantages (its location as a hub of trade for the entire west coast) ensured its recovery.”

During the 19^th century we often think of capitalism as driving towards a single, specific goal— perhaps Machiavellian utilitarianism, or just ruthless efficiency? I’m not really sure how to sum it up. But in most narratives, capitalism seems uniformly against something, whether it be workers’ rights, environmental preservation, or something else. In the Johnstown Flood, for example, the poorly maintained dam was symbolic of the lack of concern that capitalists had for their workers, and their disinterest in quality, so long as the job got done. Interestingly enough, the struggle that Steinberg describes demonstrates capitalism at odds with itself— both groups had money on their minds, but their means of acquiring it conflicted. It is apparent that there wasn’t a single way to capitalize on the destruction in San Francisco.

I’m not quite convinced of Steinberg’s argument— or “conspiracy theory”— that the San Francisco earthquake and fire has been memorialized incorrectly because of some scheming businessmen. But this article has merit because it demonstrates how disaster narratives during the 19^th century were shaped by the push and pull of economic forces. With two distinct groups struggling to warp the San Francisco earthquake and fire into vastly different stories makes this phenomenon particularly clear.

March 24, 2014December 16, 2020

Distinctions between Blame and Responsibility in Fradkin’s The Great Earthquake and Firestorms of 1906

From his title alone—The Great Earthquake and Firestorms of 1906: How San Francisco Nearly Destroyed Itself—we can identify one of Fradkin’s main arguments: much of the damage wrought during the earthquake and firestorms was self-inflicted by those in charge in San Francisco. Fradkin identifies a number of different ways the leadership in San Francisco failed those it served. 300 distribution mains and 23,200 connecting pipes that spread water throughout the town were fractured, so firemen could not extinguish the fires with water (72). Firemen, instead of miners who had experience with explosives, tried (and failed) to fight fire with fire (76). Acting Commander Funston marched troops into the town with no orders to do so, leading civilians to believe they were under Marshall law and to an unclear chain of command (63). Mayor Schmitz ordered that all looters be shot on sight since there was no place for a prison (67).

Fradkin clearly conveys to his readers that these would have been avoidable occurrences had there been better preparation for earthquakes and fires, fewer class/language barriers, and more communication between government and people. However, the tone of this article is much more understanding and forgiving than narratives we have recently read about the Galveston Hurricane, which as Jeremiah points out implied a degree of hubris that I now associate with most Gilded Age disasters. While Fradkin notes that other towns looked down on San Francisco as being a “sinful city,” he does so in a remarkably objective manner, citing a poem advertising a whisky store which made light of the city’s poor reputation (171). He also tempers the argument that damage was self-inflicted with a counterargument that several aspects of the 1906 San Francisco fire were competently dealt with. Navy Lieutenant Frederick N. Freeman, Fradkin argues, saved the waterfront of San Francisco, providing a safe supply line for relief to enter the city (172).

I think Fradkin uses this disaster to separate blame from institutional and cultural disparities. For example, he does not blame any group or individual for the tragic inequality of experience felt by members of the clubs and inhabitants of Chinatown. Instead, Fradkin points to the commonalities between the two cultures in claiming that both sought places to worship. Although Fradkin points to racism, he often does so in the passive voice: “Few Asians were counted as victims. It was as if they did not exist” (110-111). Although I’m not sure whether or not I agree that we should separate blame from institutional and cultural disparities, I think this text is distinct from others we have read thus far.

February 26, 2014December 16, 2020

The Great San Francisco Earthquake and Its Role in Shaping a New California

Most estimates suggest that between 80 and 90 percent of San Francisco was ruined as a result of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. As a result, hundreds of thousands of people were displaced and forced to make new homes elsewhere as the city was being rebuilt. I would like to focus my paper primarily on the refugee phenomenon that occurred as a result of the fire, and more specifically how the earthquake helped to shape a new San Francisco, and more generally, a modern California. Prior to the fire, San Francisco had been the largest city on the West Coast, but population growth and commerce stalled following the fire. I would like to examine the places that experienced growth in population and commerce following the fire, and how such growth would foreshadow what California looks like today. For example, Los Angeles experienced growth following the earthquake in San Francisco, yet LA is located near the same San Andreas Fault that caused the destruction of San Francisco. In examining movement and development across California following the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906, I would like to pay particular attention to the movement patterns of different socioeconomic classes—especially immigrants. I think immigrants are interesting to pay attention to in the case of California as immigrants make up such a large part of the population, and play such distinct roles within California’s society. In terms of time frame, I will mostly focus on the few years following the fire, but then acknowledge how things changed further down the line, and note any parallels that can be made between California just post-earthquake and California today. Lastly, I would like to touch on the rebuilding of San Francisco, because that is important in itself to the shaping of a new, post-earthquake California.

In terms of primary sources, census records and photographs will prove to be particularly helpful as they can reveal information pre-earthquake and post-earthquake. Newspaper and magazine articles will help in terms of understanding the degree to which homelessness impacted citizens of San Francisco and the surrounding areas, after the earthquake and fires. Perhaps such primary sources could also reveal where people went following the fire, and maybe even further difference in movements between different social classes and demographics. Popular sentiment could also be expressed through print articles, which could suggest why people were moving away from the Bay Area if that was the case, or why not, if they chose to stay in the area.

January 27, 2014December 16, 2020

A Positive Understanding of Disaster: New Confidence From Gilded-Age “Innovation”

Blog Post 3 (for Tuesday, 1/28)

In his introduction to American Disasters, Steven Biel reinforces a notion that our class has grown familiar with over the last few weeks: the category of disaster is a seemingly arbitrary catchall for unusual destructive events. The essays that follow further demonstrate how the study of disaster can be approached from almost any angle.

Sheila Hones, in “Distant Disasters, Local Fears”, describes how local characterizations of distant disasters can illuminate “areas of immediate cultural or social concern” (171). In particular, she examines how a Boston publication called The Atlantic Monthly described disastrous events during late 19^th century. For example, “His Best” is the fictional tale of a working class Irishman who falls in love with an upper class girl in the midst of a flood. The narrative integrates the natural disaster as a metaphor/parallelism of the social instability that the romance represents. The working class man’s passion is a threat to societal order. Perhaps the “immediate… concern” that this particular story addresses is the problem of incorporating the immigrants that were “flooding” America during the late 19^th century. Additionally, Hones also explains that distance makes the event feel like a “safe theater” for social introspection (171). Because “His Best” is set in fictional Virginia, rather than real Boston, the author is free to explore the issues of class in a non-confrontational manner.

Kevin Rozario, in his essay “What Comes Down Must Go Up”, writes about the economic opportunities that result from disasters. Just as disasters promote social progress by revealing the “challenges to established ways”, they also promote economic progress through “creative destruction”—the idea that outdated systems must be eliminated to make way for more modern replacements (Biel 3, Rozario 73). For example, a businessman named George Harvey who witnessed the San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906 expressed excitement for the “resuscitated capital” (73). By this he meant the physically rebuilt capital city, but also alluded to “the revitalizing role of the calamity for American capitalism” (73). Inevitably, innovation and progress would replace what was destroyed by the quake. For Harvey, the San Francisco quake was an economic opportunity. This philosophy seems particularly well paired with the rapid industrialization that characterized the Gilded Age. And on a deeper level, the notion that “destruction breeds progress” is consistent with the Gilded Age’s lack of policy regarding industry regulation. Eli Caldwell describes how Gilded Age businessmen were hardly concerned with the ethics of industrialization, saying: “the so-called progressives of San Francisco cared as little about the effect of their plans on the working class as did Haussmann, though at least they did not blast away their housing with cannon.”

These two articles illuminate the cultural and social milieu of the Gilded Age while also demonstrating the manner in which disasters were understood during this period. Personally, I think that “His Best” and George Harvey both show that people who lived during the late 19^th and early 20^th century felt more confident in the face of disaster, because of social, intellectual, economic, and technological changes that they believed were “innovations.” The fictional story seems comfortable utilizing the disaster as a literary metaphor, and Harvey views disaster as an economic opportunity.

January 24, 2014December 16, 2020

From Trial to Triumph: Art and its Role in Beginning the Healing Process

On Friday, March 11, 2011, Japan was hit off the Pacific coast of Tōhoku with most powerful earthquake known ever to have hit their countryside. It was the fifth most powerful earthquake in the world since modern record-keeping began in 1900. This undersea megathrust earthquake triggered a powerful tsunami waves reaching heights of up to 40.5 meters which, in certain areas, travelled up to 10 kilometers inland. This earthquake tsunami combination inflicted damage on a colossal scale in terms of death, injury, infrastructural damage, and psychological damage. A report completed by the Japanese National Police Agency on September 12, 2012, confirmed 15,883 deaths, 6,150 injured, and 2,643 people missing. The earthquake and following tsunami inflicted extensive and severe structural damage in north eastern Japan, leveling thousands of buildings and partially leveling thousands more. In addition the tsunami initiated nuclear accidents. Areas surrounding the nuclear power plants were evacuated, while at least three nuclear reactors suffered explosions due to hydrogen gas that had built up within their outer containment buildings after cooling system failure.

The great struggle in the wake of unexpected, large scale destruction is how to understand or conceptualize what has occurred. How can communities process the tremendous loss they have experienced, and how can we, the larger world community, understand and talk about their loss both in terms of specific incidents and in broader world context? Coming to terms with the experience is an essential part of the healing process. In order for this to take place, a platform for discussion must be established. Art is a particularly useful medium because of its reconstructive and interactive nature. Through the creation of artwork, the artist must first identify the meaning they are trying to convey, then decide how to reconstruct that meaning in a physical space. In this way the artist must come to terms not only with the effects of the event, but also with how the event fits into a greater narrative. Furthermore, once the art is created, the observer then brings to the viewing of the art his or her own previous experiences. Thus, the piece is a facilitator for a unique dialogue between artist and observer that connects them through common human experience.

The artist Miki Kato-Starr, who lived through the earthquake and subsequent tsunami, created a piece for the 2011 earthquake and tsunami for the State of Emergency Exhibit which does just that. The piece that she created utilizes two trees. Strung from its branches are light bulbs and attached to its trunk is a series of strings, one that circles the trunk and several others that connect to the boats at the very base of the tree. Each one of these boats fashioned out of paper is filled with grains of rice, and the boats are arranged in a circle. This piece of art simultaneously captures the aftermath of the disaster as well as the process of moving on. In the words of the artist, the earthquake and tsunami ravaged the land and left Japan disoriented. The circle formation of the boats was meant to invoke a sense of directionless drifting. However, with time it has become clear that the Japanese people, now a few years after the earthquake, are beginning to piece their lives back together. Thus, Miki Kato-Starr gave the boats traveling in the circle a slight direction. The boats seem to curl in, slowly making effort to travel to the tree. Here the tree, with branches full of light, represents life and a hopeful future. The piece powerfully depicts that although a clear path has not yet been established, the Japanese people are forging ahead to create for themselves a new life and future in the wake of the disaster. Her use of rice to fill the boats is poignant as well in that it transcends class and regional barriers to provide a depiction of how all suffered from the disaster. Just as rice, as a staple part of the Japanese diet, is consumed by all, the rich and the poor alike lost their homes.

Art as a medium for discussing disaster can be useful in that it provides a rare opportunity for interactive experience in a way that words may fail us. Adjectives may never be big or exact enough to communicate how the disaster has touched the lives of those involved. Furthermore, it is transformative. It allows us to forge something beautiful from the ashes of devastation.

Amani Carter