By Amira Ramirez
In 1906 an earthquake hit San Francisco, the earthquake ruined hundreds and thousands of dollars worth of buildings. Then a fire followed up after the earthquake that damaged millions of dollars worth of property. San Francisco was ruined, there was nothing that remained other than some of the people that lived or worked there. There were no more businesses, residential areas or warehouses and factories. Chad and his wife Sophia find ways to work through this tough time and rebuild their life together after both their work places and house burned down.
Chad and Sophia were woken up in the early morning at 5:15am on April 18, 1906 by a 7.9 magnitude earthquake. They woke up in a panic from things falling and breaking trying to take cover in a safe area where nothing could fall on them. After the earthquake settled down they went around their house and cleaned up anything that was damaged. They both had work that day so around 7am they ate breakfast and got ready for work. While on their way to work they realized all the damage that happened to the city, the ruined houses, debris in the street, and some buildings even collapsed.
Chad works at a warehouse, there are different buildings at the warehouse he works at and some of them had severe damage. Luckily the warehouse Chad works in wasn’t that damaged so once he arrived at work he spent his morning helping his coworkers pick up around the warehouse and put things back in place. Sophia works as a receptionist at a hotel just outside the main city. There was no damage at her job so she continued her day as normal. As the day goes on buildings start catching on fire from all the damage the earthquake did and the fires start to spread rapidly. The warehouse buildings near where Chad works catch on fire, no one in the same building knows the building next to them is on fire until they see smoke coming in through the walls. At first they wondered what the smoke was then later realized it was fire.They all rushed and evacuated the building to realize once they got outside buildings were covered in flames and they had to evacuate the area.
Chad rushed to his wife’s job, while on his way to her job he’s watching the city go up in flames and firefighters trying to put out the fires. Chad gets to his wife’s job to tell her what happened. They decide to go home just in case the fires spread further to Sophia’s job. They make it home and while they are trying to rest some of Chad’s coworkers go to his house because their houses burned down. Chad and Sophia lived just outside the main city so while Chad’s coworkers were on the way to his house they realized the fires were spreading towards his house. Once his coworkers arrived at his house they told him they have to leave their house because the fires are spreading rapidly.
They all leave Chad and Sophia’s house and head to the outskirts of the city. Luckily Chad had some family who lived towards where they were headed so Chad, Sophia and some of Chad’s coworkers stayed at Chad’s brother’s house. That’s where they stayed until the fires calmed down, Chad and Sophia didn’t have enough money to buy a new house so they decided to live with Chad’s brother.
Author’s note:
This is a historical fiction story about the earthquake that hit San Francisco in 1906. I wrote this for a project in my English class. I decided to share this story because it was the first historical fiction story I’ve written. I’m most proud of the timeline, I feel like it’s very specific and easy to picture to follow along with the story.
