Loma Prieta

20 years ago today. Has it really been so long?

As I start this note, the clock reads 7:43pm EDT. In about 20 minutes it'll be the exact time.

Me? I was in Section 9, Row 10. The ticket stub says so.

Overlooking the Marina, Tuesday afternoon, October 17, 1989

During the summer of 1989, I began to realize that the best two teams in major league baseball were the two in the Bay Area, and that there was a good chance of a Bay Area World Series. When the Giants offered up guaranteed post-season tickets to anyone who committed to buy a 20-game season ticket plan for the following year, I took it. Sure enough, the Giants won the division, and then the National League playoffs -- though I had to miss the final two games as they were both played on Yom Kippur. The Oakland A's won the American League playoffs, so the Bay Area series was set. 

And I had tickets to the first home game.

Before the shaking.

October 17. The most perfect Bay Area day... ever. My college friend Andy flew in from San Diego to go to the game with me; I opted to take the day off from work and we bounced around San Francisco during the day. Went to the Marina district, drove through the Embarcadero, and finally on to Candlestick Park. We decided to get there very early, so as to catch warm-ups and pre-game activities. I wore my Giants cap, the one I had gotten when I had a similar 20-game plan 2 years earler; on my cap was my one "Croix de Candlestick" button -- the prize awarded to any attendee of an extra inning night game ("Veni Vidi Vixi," it read. to commemorate Candlestick's notoriously icy conditions). Andy and I wandered about a bit, I bought a commemorative post card that marked the date. I had my camera with me, and when we reached our seats I took a couple pictures, just to show the scoreboard flashing, "Welcome to Game 3 of the 1989 World Series." It was 3:25pm.

After the shaking. Note the hot dog vendor, lower right. The stadium was full: PLAY BALL!!

The sound started in right field. By now, just after 5pm, the stadium was beginning to fill in. On the field, they were setting up for pre-game festivities, the national broadcast was just beginning. It sounded like many people stomping their feet, as when there is a rally and the crowd is packed. I looked over to right field, and... nothing. No people stamping their feet. There weren't enough people there yet to make that loud a stomping noise, anyway. And then... then we were stomping too. I watched the press box windows down the left field line; as one window would bend in, the next would bend out. Other people said there were waves rolling along the outfield grass, and that the light standards bent down to an angle that didn't seem quite possible. After a few seconds, the lights went out.

Now, it would be easy to say I was scared for my life... but I wasn't. The thought did occur to me, however, that I was glad to be in the upper deck; after all, if the stadium collapsed, better to be on top. After a little while, maybe 20 seconds, the shaking stopped getting worse, and from that point it seemed the quake gained fans. As the shaking started to subside, a loud ovation began in the stands, and finally, after -- if my memory serves -- 51 seconds, the earthquake ended to a standing ovation. Someone near me said it couldn't be more than a 4... but I had been through a 6 when I lived in Orange County, and this was bigger. Someone else said that surely this was an omen for the home team, and pretty much everyone agreed. People with radios turned on to find out what was going on, but for a little while we couldn't pull in anything at all.

Players and officials gathered on the field.

After a few minutes, generators put back on some of the stadium lights, but the scoreboard showed only gibberish. Food vendors continued making their rounds. I got out my camera and snapped a few photos; in one of them a hot dog vendor is plainly visible. Players and officials from both teams stood around on the field, to be joined by emergency vehicles.

Emergency vehicles on the field, and an aftershock: Time to leave.

By game time, the stadium was full. The out-of-town press, one section over from me, was still in a panic, but not the home town fans. A chant rang out: "PLAY BALL!!!" But when the stadium lights went out again, it started to become apparent that that would not happen. Reports started coming in from the local radio news station, reports of fires and destruction outside the safe walls of the stadium. Then came the first big aftershock, and that, finally, started chasing people from the stadium.

Leaving the Candlestick parking lot as the sky darkened over unlit houses.

Next day at the office.

We waited in the parking lot as the sun descended over the unlit homes near Candlestick. Finally, we drove off toward my apartment in Palo Alto. 3 hours, driving about 10 miles per hour the entire way down route 101. Amazingly, not a thing in my apartment was damaged, nothing at all. We walked in, and the phone was ringing, my mother had gotten through.

Next morning, a trip to take Andy to the airport (it was open, with Red Cross stations all around), and a trip to the office to try clean it up (it was a disaster area; the picture only hints at the damage, and those that had been in the building at 5:04pm the previous afternoon wanted no part of it while the aftershocks were still coming). I learned that our glass elevators weren't so great in earth quakes, and that two of my co-workers had been trapped in one as it partially came off its tracks during the shaking. I also learned and that TI Explorers (the computers of some of my co-workers used at the time) had an unfortunate tendency to to become projectiles when bounced.

Damage to a stadium support. It was fixed prior to the game being played 10 days later.

Candlestick Park suffered some damage during the earthquake; how much became a bit of a political question, as the mayor tried to take credit for "fixing" Candlestick the prior year to make it safer in a quake. The game was not allowed to resume until the park was deemed safe; in the meantime the 49'ers played their next home game at Stanford Stadium. On October 27, Game 3 was finally played. Andy couldn't make it up for a 2nd trip. The Giants lost. By a lot.