So this coming april, next april marks the 100 Year Anniversary of the San Francisco earthquake, which was an event that until up to fairly recently, was arguably the worst Natural Disaster in American History. However, what is often overlooked by those unfamiliar with the history of the 1906 earthquake is that the quake itself, measuring somewhere around 8, i believe on the Richter Scale, actually played a lesser role than some may think in the ensuing catastrophe. As dennis will surely explain, fire was the culprit of much of the devastation that came afterwards. And in the wake of recent events, it seems particularly timely to look to the 1906 quake for lessons in dealing with those catastrophes. And their aftermath, particularly the social and psychological consequences. So just to tell you a bit about dennis before we start, he is a former new york city firefighter. Now one of the leading historians on the subject of firefighting, and hes also the editor of fire house magazine. In addition, hes the best selling author of 11 books including the report from ground zero, report from Engine Company 82, and a song from mary. And he lives in new york city. So having said that, lets give dennis a warm welcome. [applause] dennis ok. If i can put this on. I think thats ok. My notes are interesting because as you all know, we began communications as human beings by writing paintings on the wall by drawing paintings on the wall in places like caves in europe. And then we developed language and words and now were back to just pictures again, because i found that i can deliver a story of 1906 much better without words at all. I just have picture after picture and it gives me a sense of where i am in this story. And its a very big story. On the on the morning of april 18, 1906, at 5 12, the earth began to rumble. And we estimate it was about an 8. 2 earthquake on the Richter Scale. Now of course, there was no Richter Scale in those days. There was something called the rossiferal scale. And it was a skill that will scale that judged earthquakes by the amount of damage the earthquake did. And the scientists found that much damage in earthquakes was caused by fire and other consequence collapses, and not just due to the earthquake. And so the rossi for a rossiferal scale was not a very satisfactory one. Then they developed the Richter Scale, which was satisfactory, a little better. And in todays world, they use something called the mm scale, the momentary magnitude scale, which more accurately measures earthquakes, particularly above the 8. 0 level. These are important distinctions because earthquakes are important to all of our futures and the more we understand them the better well thanks. The more we understand them the better well all be. I think i think that maybe yeah, that will be fine, thank you very much. On that morning when the earth shook, it shook for 40, about 45 seconds. And in that 45 seconds, it caused a terrific amount of damage. It broke the water pipes all over San Francisco, first of all the earthquake had a, had a ruination in the immediate vicinity of San Francisco, but up and down the coast for about two miles. It also severed most of the gas pipes in the city. It knocked over every candle and every morning fire. It displaced all the flutes and so the heat had no place to go but in the ceiling. So it created in the first few minutes after the fire, at 52 recorded fires in the city of San Francisco. And the San Francisco firefighters did an extraordinary job in containing these 52 fires in the very beginning of the day. Now San Francisco, in this great catastrophe, experienced two pieces of very bad luck. And the first piece was that general greely, in charge of the Pacific Division of the army edwin sent their had been sent, had gone to chicago to a wedding of his daughter, so consequently because he was out of the city, the next military person in charge was general funstine. And general funstine was a breeder in he was a brigadier and he was a man who had created for himself a very noteable reputation in the philippine war. He had won the metal of honor. He was a very distinguished military man. And that morning in San Francisco, he was, he arose like everybody else to the shaking, and went out to the streets to see what was wrong. And he immediately realized, i guess, that general greely was not in town and it was his responsibility. He in fact took over the management for, you know everybody agrees that everybody acquiesced to general funstens management prerogative. The other piece of bad news, bad luck was the chief of the Fire Department, Dennis Sullivan, was rendered unconscious in the first 90 minutes i am sorry 90 seconds of the earthquake. And, he had been at a third alarm fire earlier on that evening, and he had just got an few hours rest when this earthquake occurred. He was living in the top floor of a fire house on bush street. And the California Hotel next to it had a cuppola or a sort of a steeple that in the earthquake fell over and went down through the roof of the fire house through the fourth, third, second, and first floor of the fire house. Well, Dennis Sullivans wife tucked safely in her bed, fell with the steeple down into the basement of the fire house. And the bed miraculously landed on all four beds. And mrs. Sullivan was then covered with debris but still tucked into her bed. Although cut and bruised, she was relatively unhurt. And, relative certain to a her husband, who had come into her room looking for her in the first seconds, did not see the hole in the floor, and fell into it. And he was he was not as lucky. He fell down four stories and landed next to the boiler. Now, on the boiler of the fire house, the shaking had displaced several of the pipes and it was shooting steam. And that steam severely burned Dennis Sullivan, rendered him unconscious, although he did almost miraculously arise from the ashes of the plaster, and walk into the Firefighter Rescue team. They were quite amazed by his presence and then he collapsed. And when he collapsed, he never again regained consciousness and the died four days later. He died four days later. He died four days later. Now, why is this bad lubbling . Its bad luck buzz a fire chief in San Francisco had in an emergency. It was his baby. He had full control, and that was certified by law in an earlier case when the mayor had an administration, in which he sued the fire chief buzz the fire chief had thrown him off the fire ground of a fire one day when gearry thought he could run it better than this fire chief could. And the mayor lost and the court result resolved that the fire chief had complete control at the scene of an emergency. So Dennis Sullivan was not involved. There were two fire chiefs who were next in line. Amount of little bit of a conflict both of them have a little bit of a conflict because daurtry had already put his retirement in, and he realized that if he retired at a chief salary, he would have a very increased pension. So he wanted to do everything that he could do sympathize with and acquiesced to the demands of the mayor. So he was not willing to take full control. The other chief, a very young chief and he wanted the top job because he had a long career in front of him. So he didnt want to assert himself as being in full control. And the mayor finally appointed dauherty at acting chief, had no legal responsibility. And the mayor took incident demapped. But the mayor was under the influence of general funstine, without a doubt. There is much evidence to assert this. And, the reason why Dennis Sullivans loss was so vital to the city is because all reading about him has shown me that he was quite an intelligent man. He was an engineer. He was specifically a hydraulic engineer. He understood water systems. He came from boston, he was educated. He was the youngest chief in the history of the San FranciscoFire Department. He certainly would have known of the great baltimore fire four years preevetly in 1902 in the city of baltimore, in which dynamite was used at great costs to the city, because it was tremendously unsuccessful use of dynamite. And sullivan would have known that. He would not have permitted the sort of wanton use of dynamite that occurred in 1906. So, that is the first piece of bad luck. The second was funstine. Now, funstine was a great military man, and as i say, its not easy for me to indict a man who served our country so well. And, but but i do think that its safe to say that it is mostly under funstines direction that the whole fire of 1906 was mismanaged. Where was it mismanaged . Well, first of all, these 52 fires i mention to you were valiantly fought by the San Francisco firefighters. They did a great job, they contained just about all of them, except for one fire, which we now refer to as the chinese laundry fire, in which there were great men with irons , ironing sheets and pillow cases of the hotels. Those fires that we used to heat the irons were all displaced in the shaking and created an extraordinary fire. And when they found, when the firehouse on Howard Street responded, that they had no water. And so, and one of the ironic side bars to this story is that just a couple of blocks away were two million gallons of wine which were attached to hoses and pumps because they, in the wine warehouse they pumped the wine from one vat to another. And wine was warehoused in the city of San Francisco because it was temperature control. The city of San Francisco has a very level temperature. It hardly goes up or down and when it goes up its the most beautiful place in america and when it goes down its a little chilly. So, they storted the stored the wine in the city and they had the capability of using it as an extinguishing agent. It could have fought the fire as well as any other liquid. And they never realized that it was there. So one of the great ironies of the fire. And yet, right across the street from the chinese laundry fire was the place where firefighter oneil died. And he died because the sidewall of the firehouse fell down on top of him. He was the second fatality of the San Francisco fire force after Dennis Sullivan. So that fire did get out of control because there was no water. Nobody fires in the meantime you fires in the meantime now be fighters in the meantime now the fires in the meantime in the financial district, and there were quite a few fires there. And, were pretty much under control by the firefighters because they had systems there and they also had some water supply coming, so the idea that San Francisco was absolutely without water is not true. And they they did a really great job in holding the fire in the financial district. And then, at about 10 00 in the morning, there was a fire, the hayes valley fire which the holy paramedics fire which they called the aromatic fire the ham and eggs fire because a woman got up, and she put the breakfast on, she started the fire in the stove, and she didnt realize that her fluid had been displaced in the shaking. By the way, many people arose to the shaking in San Francisco and went back to bad. Many, many people. And i do write about one woman who went back to bad not realizing that the gas lamp had surged in her room and had put out the gas lamp and it got light just as the shaking began and so she didnt realize that the gas lamp had gone out and it was just that the light had gone out and the gas was emanating throughout her room and she died of asphyxiation because of that. And im sure there are many stories like that. So, the hayes valley fire got out of control rather quickly because it was absolutely without water in that part of the city. But yet, the firefighters fought diligently, and for the next couple of days. In the meantime, general funstine had come in early in the morning on the wednesday morning of the 18, the first day, and he had a meeting at about 7 00 with the mayor. And, im guessing at this point he realized that the city had to be it was in a disaster and it had to be controlled in some way. And i feel that he told the mayor at this point that he better, you know, have some command of the situation. An issue of proclamation that says if there is any looting there will be a shoot to kill. This is technically illegal, immoral and unethical. Yet, there was a proclamation issued and it was tacked to the doors. It was a shoot to kill order. Because of that, many people in San Francisco, all the evidence shows, and the newspapers as well, believed that marshal law had been declared in the city. Now of course it had not been declared because only the president of the United States can declare that. It had only been declared three times up until 1906. What they did was completely illegal. I think general funstine probably realized that and in his accounts, he had two differing accounts of his experience there. Both of them suggested that there was such widespread violence and rioting in the city and firefighters were confronted by raging fires without any water, all of which was pretty untrue. And, but yet, funstine let everybody assume that marshal law was in order. Because he was a military law, he brought a military sensibility to this emergency. He came into the city thinking that the city needed to be controlled, because his military experience told him that that is what Occupying Forces do. You control a community or a population. So he brought 17 troops, 1,700 troops into the city with fixed bayonets. When i feel very strongly that he should have brought 1,700 with work gloves and pails. Because had Dennis Sullivan lived, he would have recognized that without water you would have to revert a more traditional way of fighting fires. There is no water delivery system, so what do you do . So in any situation, particularly downtown, youre only five or six, or seven, or eight blocks from the water, from the bay, and with the amount of men and women who were available in San Francisco during those days, they could have easily set up those sort of bucket brigades that existed. Ill tell you this, because on 9 11, just as a sidebar. On 9 11 when we were searching in the first day of error first day there and the second and third day, we used bucket brigades. We had hundreds of men lined up putting pieces of steel and debris into the buckets. Clearing space so we could search for victims. Dennis sullivan certainly would have thought of that. He was a very bright man. Again, he was a great leader the firefighters loved him they thought he was a great inspired leader. But, general funstine instead thought that the city needed to be contained and then evacuated block by block. This was also a great mistake, because in the evacuation policy , people had no opportunity to preverve their homes. The soldiers went out and theres much, again, many, many accounts where soldiers at gun point push people out of their stores and businesses, men and women who wanted to stay there and fight the fire, whatever came. And on the other side of it, every story that i have found where people circumnavigated the soldiers and got back to their establishments and homes actually preserved them. With their meager amount of water that they had stored, or even in one case on the top of telegraph hill, a family they were making wine in the basement of their home, and they put it in buckets and they saturated their house with wine and that preserved their home because the radiant heat was not able to light it up. So, if you look at the photographs, and i have photographs in the books that show you, as the fire came up on Market Street and was going towards the cole building, the 18 story building, the talest building west of the mississippi. I suppose its worth saying now that San Francisco at that time was the fourth largest city in america. It was the city that was undoubtedly going to be the great metropolis in the western part of the United States. Without a doubt, it was the Commerce Center west of the mississippi. It was filled with entrepreneurial people that were starting businesses left and right, building was going on all around. All the photographs show that. But, as the fire spread through San Francisco, and you see it going up Market Street and you see the Call Building and the fire and the smoke going into the building, you also see hundreds of men standing there watching with their hands in their pockets. Now, any leader in an emergency knows that in an emergency you have no Second Chance really. Emergency, First Responders know this. When you go to the scene of an emergency you have to make decisions where you dont get a Second Chance. And your decision often will determine whether youre going to save a life or not. And here they saw this incredible accessability of manpower and they failed to utilize it. Why did they fail . Because i think general funstine thought all you had to do was evacuate the area and try to dynamite the building and create a fire space so the fire wouldnt jump