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Monday, Oct. 19, 2009

Images still vivid for photographer who covered Loma Prieta earthquake

I was standing in the Sun-Star newsroom on October 17, 1989, and was about to leave work after my shift when the entire building alarmingly shook around 5:04 p.m.

My immediate thought was that Merced is not that close to any major fault. So, the jolt we felt almost certainly meant that some other area in California had been hit really hard. Having lived and worked in San Francisco for seven years prior to coming to Merced, I had felt many earthquakes, but this one was particularly strong.

Another Sun-Star employee came into the newsroom saying the Bay Bridge had collapsed, as had a freeway in Oakland, and also there were fires burning in San Francisco. I couldn't believe the entire bridge had come down but it was clear San Francisco had been hit hard. We learned it was a small section on the upper deck of the bridge that collapsed.

Reports were coming in from Watsonville and Santa Cruz. The picture was very grim there, too.

Turning to Mike Blaesser, city editor at the time, I asked when I should go to San Francisco. "It's not in our circulation area so we aren't going to cover it," he said.

Totally stunned, I said something like, "Well, I'm off work as of 5 o'clock so I'm leaving for the city. Tomorrow morning when I begin my shift that's where I'll be."

This was, after all, the city I called home for many years and I still felt a keen affinity for it. Grabbing some film from the photo department, I hurried out the door and began driving.

I stopped to call my brother John, who lived in Berkeley at the time, to see if he was OK. He was. I spoke to my parents on the East Coast to tell them I was fine. It was the last time I would speak to them for days as the land phone lines became overloaded with callers seeking news of their loved ones.

I also called the city editor and asked if he had reconsidered covering this story. He had indeed but wanted me instead to come back to the paper, pick up reporter Stacy Baskins and cover the story from Santa Cruz. The epicenter was near Santa Cruz under a mountain named Loma Prieta.

In a weird twist of fate it was a good thing I called because the rolls of film I had grabbed in my haste were only 12 exposure rolls. I would have used up them in no time at all.

As Stacy and I traveled to Santa Cruz that night, the roads were eerily quiet with very few vehicles on them. It made me wonder just exactly what we would find at our destination. It turned out that I had little idea.

Near Watsonville, cars were beginning to flow into the county fairgrounds where emergency shelters were being set up for those who found themselves suddenly homeless due to damage from the earthquake.

In the town of Watsonville itself we passed a city park where people were setting up tents to sleep. It reminded me of pictures I'd seen of Hooverville camps during the Great Depression.

The magnitude of this thing was becoming clearer. Further down the road we came to a California Highway Patrol roadblock. After the officer checked our press credentials he said, "From here on, you guys are on your own." No, it didn't sound very good.

Arriving in Santa Cruz around 3 a.m., I noticed the hands of the clock in the clock tower had stopped at exactly 5:04 p.m. There was little moonlight that night. All the power was out. We could see almost nothing in the pitch-blackness surrounding us and the atmosphere was strangely hushed, almost as if nothing had happened. Yet, we were told many buildings had collapsed on Pacific Avenue in the main business district, particularly those of brick construction. The area was securely cordoned off but in the morning the media would be taken in to survey the damage. Actually there weren't that many media representatives there yet. Most had been sent to San Francisco first. All Stacy and I could do was wait. We put the seats all the way back in my car and tried to sleep a little.