San Francisco's '89 Loma Prieta Earthquake - My Insight Story & the Cypress Structure Collapse
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I was driving a taxicab back in 1989. My shift began at 5pm in beautiful Lake Tahoe on the California - Nevada border. I had just picked my cab up and was taking my day-driver home. We had just stopped at the signal light at Rufus Allen Blvd and Lake Tahoe Blvd in So. Lake Tahoe, California. All of a sudden the car started rocking back and forth, and my passenger said, "what is that?"
I said, "earthquake!" Lake Tahoe seldom experiences earthquakes and knowing that I said "some place must have had one hell of an earthquake. We had the radio on preparing to listen to the World Series from Candlestick Park. As we approached the stateline (about a mile from where we felt things) the reports began to come in that the game was cancelled and people were beginning to leave the park.
Reference Map - SF is on the left - Lake Tahoe on right -- 200 miles
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the Marina District of SF -- photo via SF Chronicle
The scariest of all the news that was coming over the radio was the collapse of a section of the bay bridge, the San Francisco Marina District was on fire, and scariest of all, for me, was the collapse of the "Cypress Structure," which was a double decker elevated freeway carrying north-south traffic from the Bay Bridge south through East Bay communities to about where Laney College exists at the southwest corner of downtown Oakland where it flowed into lanes side-by-side.
recovery on the Cypress Structure -- photo via SF Chronicle
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Smaller picture is the Cypress Structure
It was rush hour. The quake hit at 504pm. About a mile of the structure collapsed, with the top deck crushing cars on its lower deck.
Years before (1981-83) I had worked the Cypress Structure as a tow truck driver for AAA. Many times I had handled accidents on the structure-itself. I had great fears about that section of highway. Every accident I ever was involved in handling I frantically worked to get off the structure. Standing on it with cars wizzing by the "structure" would bounce you. It scared the hell out of me even back then.
I remember looking over the side of it and wondering "if an earthquake ever was to happen could I jump to the road below and get away? The other drivers who worked with me always laughed because in the summer, when it was warm or hot they would always break for lunch and park under it for the shade.
I always refused to park under it. Being around the Cypress Structure made my skin crawl. I hated getting a call for assistance on the Cypress Structure. Thank God its gone. Sadly, it took 42 people with it.
And, even though I was 200 miles from San Francisco I was, in a way, there too. I drove tow truck for a long time, on lots of freeways elevated and not, assisted with hundreds of freeway calls and mountain recoveries, and to this day when I read or think about the , now gone, Cypress Structure, I still get chills of the thought of it.
The San Francisco Chronicle has a 63-photo essay about this earthquake from 20 years ago. Officially called the Loma Prieta earthquake the San Francisco Bay Area has recovered and recovered better than before, learning from the experience.
Here's the link to the SF Chronicle's photo essay of 63 pictures:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/g/a/2009/09/30/Loma_Prieta.DTL
All pictures used in this article are via the San Francisco Chronicle.
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