Two watchmen in separate lighthouses along the San Mateo coast both reported the same strange occurrence on the Pacific Ocean as the San Andreas fault lurched so devastatingly at 5:12 a.m. on April 18, 1906. The water became eerily calm at that moment, and even the waves stopped breaking.
Fortunately, the earthquake caused no deaths in San Mateo. But virtually every brick and cement building was damaged, some far beyond repair. These photos show the devastation residents witnessed 100 years ago.
As one lighthouse keeper reported: “During the actual period of shaking, the ocean was smooth, without even the customary motion,” according to “The Report of the California Earthquake Commission.”
But on land, chaos and terror erupted. People described a terrible low roar emanating from the ground. Dogs and cats “split their throats in an effort to express their intense alarm,” one witness reported. “The sound coming forth from the dogs and cats especially were more nerve wracking than the noise of the quake itself.”
Throughout Northern California, people leapt from their beds and fled outside seeking safety from collapsing roofs, falling beams and toppling furniture. Crowds on the streets gazed numbly around them at the surreal scene of brick rubble, tilted homes and twisted roads, as though God and nature turned on them in a moment, destroying a world that minutes before was orderly and peaceful.
