The Story of an Eyewitness

ANNOUNCER: Now, the SpecialEnglish program, AMERICAN STORIES.

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The western American city ofSan Francisco,Californiasuffered a huge earthquake onApril eighteenth, nineteen-oh-six. 

More than three thousandpeople are known to have died.  The true number of dead will never beknown.  Two hundred fifty thousand people lost their homes. Just a fewhours after the terrible earthquake, a magazine named Collierˇs sent atelegraph message to the famous American writer Jack London.  They askedMister London to go toSan Franciscoand report about what he saw. 

He arrived in the city onlya few hours after the earthquake.  The report he wrote is called, ¨THESTORY OF AN EYEWITNESS.〃  Here is Doug Johnsonwith the story.

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STORYTELLER: Not in historyhas a modern city been so completely destroyed. San Franciscois gone.  Nothing remainsof it but memories and a few homes that were near the edge of the city. Its industrial area is gone.  Its business area is gone. Its social andliving areas are gone.  The factories, great stores and newspaperbuildings, the hotels and the huge homes of the very rich, are all gone. 

Within minutes of theearthquake the fires began.  Within an hour a huge tower of smoke causedby the fires could be seen a hundred miles away.  And for three days andnights this huge fire moved in the sky, reddening the sun, darkening the dayand filling the land with smoke.

There was no opposing theflames.  There was no organization, no communication.  The earthquakehad smashed all of the modern inventions of a twentieth century city.  Thestreets were broken and filled with pieces of fallen walls.  The telephoneand telegraph systems were broken.  And the great water pipes hadburst.  All inventions and safety plans of man had been destroyed bythirty seconds of movement by the earth.

By Wednesday afternoon, onlytwelve hours after the earthquake, half the heart of the city was gone. Iwatched the huge fire.  It was very calm.  There was no wind. Yet from every side, wind was pouring in upon the city.  East, west, northand south, strong winds were blowing upon the dying city.

The heated air made a hugewind that pulled air into the fire, rising into the atmosphere.  Day andnight the calm continued, and yet, near the flames, the wind was often asstrong as a storm.

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ANNOUNCER: There was nowater to fight the fire.  Fire fighters decided to use explosives todestroy buildings in its path.  They hoped this would create a block toslow or stop the fire.  Building after building was destroyed.  Andstill the great fires continued.  Jack London told how people tried tosave some of their possessions from the fire.

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STORYTELLER: Wednesdaynight the whole city crashed and roared into ruin, yet the city wasquiet.  There were no crowds.  There was no shouting andyelling.  There was no disorder.  I passed Wednesday night in thepath of the fire and in all those terrible hours I saw not one woman who cried,not one man who was excited, not one person who caused trouble.

Throughout the night, tensof thousands of homeless ones fled the fire.  Some were wrapped inblankets. Others carried bedding and dear household treasures.

Many of the poor left theirhomes with everything they could carry.  Many of their loads wereextremely heavy.  Throughout the night they dropped items they could nolonger hold.  They left on the street clothing and treasures they hadcarried for miles.

Many carried large boxescalled trunks. They held onto these the longest.  It was a hard nightand the hills ofSan Franciscoare steep.  And up these hills, mile after mile, were the trunksdragged.  Many a strong man broke his heart that night.

Before the march of the firewere soldiers. Their job was to keep the people moving away from thefire.  The extremely tired people would arise and struggle up the steephills, pausing from weakness every five or ten feet.  Often, afterreaching the top of a heart-breaking hill, they would find the fire was movingat them from a different direction. 

After working hour afterhour through the night to save part of their lives, thousands were forced toleave their trunks and flee.

At night I walked downthrough the very heart of the city.  I walked through mile after mile ofbeautiful buildings.  Here was no fire.  All was in perfectorder.  The police patrolled the streets.  And yet it was all doomed,all of it.  There was no water.  The explosives were almost usedup.  And two huge fires were coming toward this part of the city fromdifferent directions. 

Four hours later I walkedthrough this same part of the city.  Everything still stood asbefore.  And yet there was a change.  A rain of ashes wasfalling.  The police had been withdrawn.  There were no firemen, nofire engines, and no men using explosives.  I stood at the corner ofKearneyand Market Streets in the very heart ofSan Francisco.  Nothing could be done. Nothing could be saved.  The surrender wascomplete. 

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It was impossible to guesswhere the fire would move next.  In the early evening I passed throughUnion Square. It was packed with refugees.  Thousands of them had gone to bed on thegrass.  Government tents had been set up, food was being cooked and therefugees were lining up for free meals. 

Late that night I passedUnion Squareagain.  Three sides of the Square were in flames.  The Square, withmountains of trunks, was deserted.  The troops, refugees and all hadretreated.

The next morning I sat infront of a home on San Franciscoˇs famous Nob Hill.  With me sat Japanese,Italians, Chinese and Negroes.  All about were the huge homes of the veryrich.  To the east and south of us were advancing two huge walls offire. 

I went inside one house andtalked to the owner.  He smiled and said the earthquake had destroyedeverything he owned.  All he had left was his beautiful house.  Helooked at me and said, ¨The fire will be here in fifteen minutes.〃

Outside the house the troopswere falling back and forcing the refugees ahead of them.  From every sidecame the roaring of flames, the crashing of walls and the sound of explosives.

Day was trying to dawnthrough the heavy smoke.  A sickly light was creeping over the face ofthings.  When the sun broke through the smoke it was blood-red andsmall.  The smoke changed color from red to rose to purple. 

I walked past the brokendome of the City Hall building. This part of the city was already a waste of smokingruins.  Here and there through the smoke came a few men and women. It was like the meeting of a few survivors the day after the world ended.

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ANNOUNCER: The huge firescontinued to burn on.  Nothing could stop them.  Mister London walkedfrom place to place in the city, watching the huge fires destroy thecity.  Nothing could be done to halt the firestorm.

In the end, the fire wentout by itself because there was nothing left to burn.  Jack Londonfinishes his story:

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STORYTELLER: All dayThursday and all Thursday night, all day Friday and Friday night, the flamesraged on.  Friday night saw the huge fires finally conquered, but notbefore the fires had swept three-quarters of a mile of docks and store housesat the waterfront.

San Franciscoat the present timeis like the center of a volcano.  Around this volcano are tens ofthousands of refugees.  All the surrounding cities and towns are jammedwith the homeless ones.  The refugees were carried free by the railroadsto any place they wished to go.  It is said that more than one hundredthousand people have left the peninsula on whichSan Franciscostood. 

The government has controlof the situation, and thanks to the immediate relief given by the wholeUnited States,there is no lack of food.  The bankers and businessmen have already begunmaking the necessary plans to rebuild this once beautiful city ofSan Francisco.

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ANNOUNCER: You have justheard ¨THE STORY OF AN EYEWITNESS.〃  Itwas written by Jack London and adapted for Special English by Paul Thompson. Itwas published in Collierˇs Magazine, May fifth, nineteen-oh-six.  Yournarrator was Doug Johnson. 

Join us again next week foranother AMERICAN STORY, in Special English, on the Voice of . This isShirley Griffith.            

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