Quake – Spots Unknown

Zoom Around a Leveled San Francisco

I just spent way too much time immersed in this post-earthquake-and-fire aerial photo of SF. You will too.

Photographed by George R. Lawrence with a kite a few weeks after the disaster:

It is a 160-degree panorama from a kite taken 2000 feet (600 m) in the air above the San Francisco Bay that showed the entire city on a single 17-by-48-inch contact print made from a single piece of film. Each print sold for $125 and Lawrence made at least $15,000 in sales from this one photograph. The camera used in this photograph weighed 49 pounds (22 kg) and used a celluloid-film plate.

‘We’ are the First Responders in an Earthquake

A great post on MissionLoc@l today reveals a brutal and likely scenario:

“We’ve done the calculations based on Loma Prieta,” the instructor says, an image of a large fireball on the screen behind him. “In a major earthquake with just winds of 10 miles per hour, we’ll see 71 large fires, 40 major rescue operations. We’ll need 273 engines.

“We don’t have those,” he says, flatly. “So where are we going to get the help?”

That would be the folks themselves – those of us who live in the affected neighborhoods.

If this article doesn’t make you want to take NERT or CERT training, it will probably at least make you think again about how to take care of yourself in the case of an untimely shake.

And let’s face it, it seems like everywhere but Northern California has been hit lately, so our number is due to come up soon.

The Marina Shows It Cares About Haiti

Way to sympathize, guys!

It is recommended that people donate money, not stuff. The above pic is perhaps the best possible demonstration of why.

Aside from all that, though: ew.

(Spotted @)

Today’s ’06 Lesson: Mission Dolores

Something about the empty space in front of San Francisco’s oldest building, pictured above in 1881 according to the caption on Flickr, draws me in. It was made of adobe. The brick-construction Gothic Revival replacement next to it crumbled in the ’06 quake:

Most Unfortunate Business Timing Ever?

These fine fellows look like they’re feeling on top of the world in their well-stocked glass shop at 18 Sutter Street, San Francisco. The year? You guessed it: 1905.

As the story goes, the business didn’t survive the quake of ’06 and the family relocated to Los Angeles. Ironically, I’m sure there was a tremendous demand for their product as the rebuilding commenced.

(Spotted @ the Flickr stream of bcgreeneiv)