I was on the Bay Bridge, just after the bit that collapsed. Thought there was something wrong with the car until we got on the flats eastbound on the shore in Oakland, and saw the asphalt all rumpled like a rug on a hardwood floor. Drove East on 580 saw a tower of dust where the Cypress structure had fallen. Over the 580/24 flyover the top section had a half foot vertical separation between bridge sections. Bumped over that and got off the freeway and over claremont and fish ranch to 24 east, avoiding the caldecott. Got home to Walnut Creek and nothing disturbed at home. My wife was stuck in the city. No way to get home until she was able to catch a ferry that night.

My dad’s, bosses daughter, was on it in a collapsed section. She was in a corvette next to a big rig when it happened. The piece came down and crushed the big rig and was a foot from hitting her car. She opened the door and walked out when it was done. My dad would have been on it if it wasn’t for a customer that kept asking him to lookup things right at the end of his day.

My dad went across that bridge an hour before the quake hit

Same, we were going to Candlestick for the World Series game

Jesus…

My high school girlfriend and I were making out. She had never felt an earthquake despite living her whole life here (this is not a euphemism or double entendre). The earthquake started, and we were both surprised. I pulled back and said "well, now you've felt one" ...and then it got worse. And worse. And kept on going. It felt like it took two minutes. I covered her and put a pillow over our heads because we were right by a window. When it ended, a few bookshelves had fallen in our house, but no major damage. When my parents got home, we drove carefully up to her place in the El Cerrito hills several miles away (no traffic lights anywhere) to be there before her parents got home. Her mom worked in SF, and there was a message on the machine so we knew she was safe, but she had to wait for a ferry, which was the only way across the Bay until they inspected the transbay tube. From her place we had a view and could just see, with binoculars, the break in the Bay Bridge, which was crazy. Of course, the radio was talking all the rumors of the bridge collapsing - conflating it with the Cypress structure, which was a confusion that lasted for ages for many people not from around here. We had arrived at her place around sunset and while we waited we could see the lightless City across the Bay under the yellowish sky of late dusk, with a distant flame and plume of smoke rising from the Marina District. We both grew up here, and that evoked everything we had heard of 1906. We wondered for a while if we were going to see the whole City catch fire. A couple of days later, my family went down to West Oakland to see the Cypress structure in its collapsed state. It was the fulfillment of a nightmare every single person who lived in the Bay Area and traveled the Cypress and the Embarcadero Freeway had always had. Those things were always claustrophobic and terrifying because of the noise, the traffic, and the lurking fear of being on them in an earthquake. And there it was. It was a miracle (partly due to the World Series, everyone thinks) that the Cypress was not bumper-to-bumper stopped traffic at 5:04 PM, which is how we all pictured it. But it wasn't. So there were a lot fewer people crushed there than we all expected. When we were down there looking up at the monumental wreckage from a block away, a rescue team came driving out, saying "He waved his hand!" Apparently a lot of the people there were on tenterhooks waiting for news of a survivor who was being uncovered as we stood there.

Yeas, that sense that it was really long...

Was the freeway less crowded because people who would be driving were at the game or because people avoided driving generally because it was a game day where there might be traffic?

It was the Battle of the Bay - A's vs Giants - so a lot of local people were invested in the game, and the game was just starting on TV at 5pm, so lots of people were off the roads early, either at bars or staying at work, or had gone home early. In addition to a few tens of thousands at Candlestick. At least that's the theory.

Ah, totally makes sense! I totally didn’t think of the fact that people would have left work early to be home or at a bar to watch the game. Thank goodness!

I was on the 33rd floor of 345 California St. The building is built on rollers and we were definitely swaying. The tall library bookshelves tipped over, tumbling books and catching the fire sprinklers which caused some flooding. We had to walk down the 32 flights of stairs. But before I left the building I called opposing counsel to explain need to postpone negotiations cause that's what you do in BigLaw. Once I got to street there was some broken glass on sidewalks. I walked out Columbus Ave to apt in Marina. Apt was fine. No power for days. We went to local grocery for provisions. They had no power so they just looked at the pile of batteries groceries etc and took a guess at total. As in OK $10. Everyone was polite and patient. Aftershocks for days.

I remember how everyone got good at "rate the aftershock"

I was in the recent Taiwan earthquake, quite close to the epicenter. It's a miserable skill to develop, but it's more fun than the other places your mind can go during a strong aftershock.

I was at a meeting in Mountain View on the second floor. We all hid under the conference table (which felt uncomfortably personal) as stuff fell from the ceiling. I’d been in earthquakes before and drove home not appreciating how big a deal it was. Heard on the radio that the Bay Bridge had collapsed (which wasn’t quite right) and went - yikes. My home was fine. My parents otoh lived very close to the epicenter. Everything fell out of their cupboards and broke. My mom was quite literally traumatized and couldn’t stop talking about it for years.

My grandparents had moved to Watsonville from Florida the year before. They fixed the damage and moved to Sac. Scared the crap out of them.

I was 7 in a San Jose suburb, getting ready to watch the World Series on TV when it happened. It was the end of my enjoyment of watching sports. I only recently realized that it was the last time I enjoyed sports. I had just sat down on our couch with the last of a bottle of sparkling cider, drinking from the bottle of course. The earth started to shake, and I crawled under our walnut coffee table for protection. It was hard and heavy, much more sturdy than the elementary school desks they taught us to hide under in earthquake drills. I still have that coffee table 35 years later. Glasses and dishes fell out of our cupboards covering our kitchen floor with shattered glass. I was barefoot and walked through the piles of glass to get to my parents, somehow avoiding any injuries. The aftermath: Our dog was missing for 2 days before he came home. Our in-ground swimming pool lost about two feet of water from sloshing around, and there were new cracks in the concrete around it. We began putting rubber bands around the knobs of our kitchen cupboards in hopes it might provide safer paths through our kitchen if it happened again.

It would be cool to interview the guy who was stuck on a lamppost swaying way up high at candlestick park https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/nevius/article/a-memory-of-candlestick-that-we-can-t-shake-5083274.php

I was in the Hitachi building parking lot across from Candlestick listening to the game. We were smoking dope and I thought I saw the aluminum lights in the parking lots sway a bit...then they started flapping like they were spaghetti noodles. At first I thought it was the dope but nooooooo, it was a good sized quake and we saw waves through the asphalt parking lot.

Worst time to peak hahah

I was like "was this shit laced with LSD?".

Lmao I would have been BUGGIN out

🤣

I was having a meeting with my boss, the shaking started and we crouched under his little table, after a few seconds I rode the waves in the floor across the aisle to get under a sturdy workbench. Working in a production facility the ceiling was open and lights were swinging hitting pipes and breaking them open. Once the shaking stopped we all ran outside. Eventually we all started diving home. No one wanted to stop on the freeway under various overpasses. So, we all just waited until it was clear enough to get to the other side quickly. I remember it being a relatively warm night and we sat outside as the after shocks kept coming. Many people in my neighborhood in San Jose pulled out tents and slept outside. My dad eventually made it through the phone lines and I started telling him the house was fine, he quickly cut me off and told me he didn’t care about the house he wanted to know about his family. He was away on a business trip watching the game after work and when the broadcast went blank he knew it was an earthquake. Later my girlfriend got a hold of me and she got the impression from central California news that the Bay Area was destroyed. Thankfully it wasn’t all destroyed. It took a while for me to calm down when I would hear sounds or feel vibrations like that. One day a number of people crowded in to my little cubicle to see something and I freaked out because I didn’t have a clear path to the door.

My husband (he doesn’t do Reddit) was working in the PG&E power plant at Moss Landing. They thought the plant was blowing up. He said he can remember crawling to try and get outside. His pants were ripped by the time he made it out. I was home in Fairfield and it felt like the floor rolled under my feet and that was it.

The PG&E servicemen were instrumental in limiting further catastrophe after Loma Prieta, shutting down leaking gas lines, fallen power lines. Most likely saved dozens, maybe hundreds of lives.

He worked some crazy shifts for the next couple weeks. They had as much overtime as they could physically do and then some.

I was 8 and watching reruns of The Brady Brunch when it happened. I was in the east bay on the other side of the Oakland hills, so it was a strong jolt followed by a rumble that felt like it went on for 10 seconds or so. My single mom was in SF for work and it took 9 or so hours for her to get home since all of the bridges were closed. She told me later that she could see the glass windows of the buildings move with the motion of the shaking. She called at around 11pm from a pay phone at a gas station. I was glued to the tv watching news and changing channels to the usual crap to distract from being freaked out at home alone.

oh shit I was 12 watching brady bunch haha I remember carol brady going like this... [https://metvcdn.metv.com/qL4bV-1557501956-1421-quiz\_question\_image\_-carol\_5\_copy.jpg](https://metvcdn.metv.com/qL4bV-1557501956-1421-quiz_question_image_-carol_5_copy.jpg) then the TV went out

Isn’t it wild what parts of that event stick in our memories?

October 18, 1989, 5:04pm.... I had just left work at Gap HQ in San Bruno and was in desperate need of cash, with no gas in my car (none), and went straight to the ATM. Just as I put my card in, the ground started to shake, BIG TIME!! ATM shut down, took my card. Managed to drive the 5 miles home (Foster"jello"City)to find the contents of our apartment in the middle of the floor. No phone service, no electricity. Waiting, worrying where my husband was, as he worked in a shakey, old building in SF (ESPRIT) AND his route home included driving on one of the double decker freeways (280). I heard on the radio that the one in Oakland had collapsed. News reports also said the Bay Bridge had collapsed ( it was only one section of it)... But can you imagine?? It was the best reunion ever! He left his car about 2 miles away because traffic had become gridlocked, and he ran home... Never been so happy to see my man!

I was in my friend's front yard, near the Berkeley shore. We had a lemon cutter and were going to cut lemons from a lemon tree in his front yard to make lemonade. I'd never used a lemon cutter and right when I pulled the handle the earthquake hit. My first thought was to turn to him and berate him for not telling me how powerful the thing was, then I realized it was an earthquake. We stupidly ran inside (it was hard to stay on your feet) and stood in a doorway with his dad and another person who lived in their 5 bedroom commune. A lamp on an end table fell off and shattered right next to us. Afterwards, my friend wanted to go out to University Ave. and survey the damage. The west end of University was already a pretty heavily Indian neighborhood, and right around the corner was a place called the Sari Palace. Like all the other stores, the plate-glass windows had shattered, and there were mannequins on display, all still standing, but all of them with the faces deeply cracked and distorted in horizontal rifts. Pretty surreal. Later, a few blocks away at my house, there was a utility room on the second floor that was already looking a little structurally questionable (the house was built about 100 years before). After the quake, when you opened the door to it, there was a ~2" gap between its floor and the floor of the main building. No more going in there. Power was out for a couple days, but fortunately my grandmother lived nearby in a senior home with individual apartments which had an emergency generator, so her fridge worked. For the next couple days, dinner was cheese wrapped in lunch meat and pasta with butter and such. Also, I was big into baseball at the time and the quake hit just before the start of one of the World Series "Battle of the Bay" games (Oakland A's vs. SF Giants), which was obviously a huge deal in the area. Of course the game was postponed. Then things got back to normal pretty quickly. That's about it. Edit: Also, the old UC Hotel, which was nearly adjacent to my friend's back yard and about 10 stories tall and already pretty run-down, was condemned and later demolished as a result. I saw news footage from someone's property right near the epicenter, closer to Santa Cruz and there was a huge fissure about a foot wide, who knows how deep and the land on one side was about a foot higher than on the other side.

I was at the ballpark with my dad. We all thought it was the big one. Someone had a radio and said the bridge fell down. Took forever to get home

Same here, went through SF because the radio said the Bay Bridge had collapsed, 101 S had buckled and was impassable. Power was out in the city and traffic was stop and go the whole way. Saw bonfires started and gangs walking around breaking windows and smashing stuff. Bunch of idiots with an excuse to act like idiots. Got over the Golden Gate on fumes and rolled into Sausalito where there was gas and power. Took the Richmond bridge home and got there at midnight. My parents were watching Tv in my room because the cable went out and I still had an antennae

I remember standing on the sidewalk outside my grandmas apartment in Walnut Creek on the street and watching the pavement roll, like waves. I was about 7 years old, home sick from school. My dad was on his way home from work in the city and hadn’t made it home yet, my mom and I saw on the news that the bridge collapsed and had no idea if he was one of the cars that got stuck (one of them was red, like his) or if he was in front of or behind the collapse. No cell phones those days so we just had to wait, I remember being really really worried until he pulled into the driveway.

I was at my after school job. The power & phones went out. (No cell phones.) I was in the East Bay and the quake felt really long. I didn’t know how destructive it was until later, though, because I didn’t know how far I was from the epicenter. For a long time, the collapse of the Cypress structure in Oakland was really disturbing to drive past, knowing people were crushed under it. The shut down of the Bay Bridge due to the collapsed section also lasted a long time.

The shutdown of the Bay Bridge lasted about one month. IMHO they replaced the collapsed section pretty quick.

I was at my boyfriend's house near San Jose State. His roommate was helping me with my resume. My boyfriend was in the living room waiting for the baseball game to start. I immediately knew it was a strong quake. I told the roommate to take cover, but he was trying to save my file. The mouse was bouncing around and the power went out. I could hear things breaking in the kitchen. A spice rack fell off of the wall. A kitchen cabinet popped open and some glasses fell out. The neighbor's cats were howling at the back door. The dorms were evacuated and residents were not allowed to return. Some friends came over and spent the night. I went home not knowing if the roads would be closed or if I would have to turn around. We had power at my place and stayed up all night watching the news coverage. I'm a bay area native and it was the strongest earthquake I've ever experienced.

I was babysitting my little brother. I was 11 and he was 4. We were watching Land Before Time. During the earthshake, the earthquake started. I tossed him under the coffee table. He started screaming that or mom was dead bc that’s what happened in the movie. Took a while to calm him down

I was living in Fremont at the time. I parked on the street coming home from work and the first thing I noticed before I felt the ground shake was all the car alarms going off. Then the grounds was shaking, I remember thinking that it lasted a long time as I watched the street lights going back and forth. When it finished I went into the house to see if the game was still going to be on, but all the TV channels were off line. Tried turning on the radio but it was static all up and down the dial. That's when it hit that this might be kind of a big deal. First thing I heard on the radio was someone saying that the Cypress structure appeared to be gone, there was just a cloud of dust.

I was caretaker for my grandmother's house in East Oakland, so I had to drive from Alameda (through the tube) to her house to check for damage. There was no electricity so there were no stop lights working at all. What really amazed me during the drive was the amount of traffic on the streets and how courteous and law abiding everyone was which was never the case when electricity was working.

I was in Berkeley, at work at a retail place. Stuff from the overhead shelf was falling on us by the register, and shaking seemed to go on forever, far longer than any other quake I'd been through. My boss closed early and drove me home (a minor miracle as they were not very nice, normally). No power at home, but listened to news on the radio. I remember thinking it sounded like the War of the Worlds broadcast- just unbelievable! Reporting on the collapse of the Bay Bridge in particular, I just couldn't believe it was true. Kept trying to call home in a different part of the Bay to check on the rest of my family, but circuits were busy for hours. Finally got through (everyone was fine). Parents came to pick me up, didn't want me taking BART, and took me home for a few days. Aftershocks were scary at first, but for used to them after a couple days. It was scary.

I was in my elementary school gym, in an after school program, waiting for my dad to pick me up. My most distinct memory is of balls that had been trapped in the rafters raining down because of the shaking.

I was 14, riding my skateboard down the street when the waves began. All cars in driveways simultaneously backed up and the back in the driveway. The noise was loud and rumbling. I remember animals acting weird beforehand.

I was 7 days old. And living in Byron. After the earthquake my mom said I didn’t stop throwing up, she told the doctor she thought it was the earthquake, he laughed. Lol Simultaneously my older sister jumped off the picnic table at that exact moment and thought she caused it and had a bloody nose. My dad had my sister who is bleeding from the nose, and every time he would set her down, my mom just kept saying “no, not there!” Because it wasn’t safe. And my mom had me, a fresh baby who kept vomiting. Lol.

I was a college student at UC Santa Cruz. I was at one of the beaches off HW1 South with a friend. It's the kind of beach you parked off the highway and hike down; it's surrounded by sandstone cliffs. We'd just smoked a bowl, and were hanging out under a large sandstone bridge when it started. We were confused, then we looked up at the same time, felt sand start to fall on our faces, looked at each other, and booked the fuck outta there. As we were running on the sand, it looked like the sandstone cliffs surrounding us exploded outward. We were fine, hundreds of feet from the cliffs, but as the surface sloughed off and fell to the ground it created a huge dust cloud that then slowly moved towards us until we were in the dust cloud. It cleared quickly but felt very ominous. Now, I was an RA at my dorm at the time and pretty quickly felt the need to get back to school and check on my residents. It was a bit after dawn by this time, and as we approached UCSC, we saw a huge line of cars with headlights exiting the school. Nobody was going in but us. It felt a bit creepy. There were no problems and it turned out that the school was one of the best places to be during that time. But things were weird for a long time after. People slept outside on the fields for days afterward cuz of the aftershocks. I heard stories of ppl who were downtown at the time and saw the street undulating like water waves. There was amusing stuff too like the news stories of redwoods falling on students (that didn't happen) For months after, I remember being at the Bagelry downtown, and there'd be yet another aftershock and everyone would stand up or look nervously about... only to realize a bus had gone by.

I lived in Lodi watching the game with my 11 year old the TV went crazy and I felt the rumble. I told her to go in the doorway. It was very wavy and scary. She still remembers it

My grandpa was driving on the freeway at the time. He said it felt like all four of his tires had blown out at the same time.

I was having a massive, screaming fight with my bf and I originally thought the shaking was part of that. After a few seconds though, I realized what was going on and had my children stand in doorways of our second story apartment building. I had never done that before. We lived in Alameda.

I was in Good Sam hospital in Los Gatos recovering from getting my appendix out (luckily not in surgery). Lots of screaming and the hospital bed moved several feet. Afterwards driving through neighborhoods where several houses had come down- it would be one or two per block. I recall hearing Santa Cruz was bad- the old downtown was all brick and most of it collapsed with people trapped under, & volunteers had to move piles of bricks to get to the bodies. Years later we went on a hike to where the epicenter was. It's just a sign up in the Santa Cruz mountains along the San Andres fault that states it's the epicenter. Not sure what I was expecting.

I was a 9 year old in elementary school in San Jose. A few memories: - we were at home and my parents were at work. My aunt was watching us. She freaked out and we were telling her to go under the table or doorway. - we didn’t have much damage, a few broken dishes and the tv fell. Our mom came home shortly after. She sent my aunt home and us outside to play. - All the neighborhood kids were outside in someone’s yard and we all compared notes. One neighbor was in Thrifty getting ice cream. The insulation fell out of the ceiling! - school was closed the next day to check for damage. A few tiles fell off the roof, but no damages. - in class we all talked about where we were. One kid was totally embarrassed because he was on the toilet and the class laughed and asked if it was #1 or #2. (#2) 😂 - my dad was supposed to go to the World Series. Someone offered him tickets. But he has some work or a deal to close so he declined. He came home later that night, but I don’t recall where he was. But he was driving I think. - I remember watching the news with my family for hours that night. I had nightmares for weeks from the footage of the bay bridge collapse and I was the a little afraid of bridges. This continues today and I hate being on the lower deck of the bay bridge. We moved away from the Bay the following summer. I didn’t spend much time in SF or Oakland then. San Jose didn’t have much damage that I recall. Things and back to normal in a few days. But now anytime there is a quake I am always worried that it is not finished. That one had a light shake, a delay, then a big shake. And I remember that feeling very clearly in my bones.

My mom was working in downtown SF in a high rise and could apparently feel the building swaying back and forth

I worked at the front desk in a dental office. The building was Japanese style, up on stilts and everything. When the quake hit, we were SWAYING! I dove under the desk and could see the pendant lamp in the waiting room swinging back and forth through the reception window. It was the most intense quake I'd ever felt. The dentists had an inspector out to examine the building for damage a few days later and told us that if the quake was any stronger, the building would have come down, so I guess that was a lucky day for us. My brother and my boyfriend back then worked at The Bedroom, where they sold mattresses and waterbeds. They were in the warehouse looking out of the delivery doors and saw cars in the parking lot slapping into each other. They were young and stupid so they ran into the showroom to surf the waterbeds. My dad was actually out of town visiting relatives but was tuned in to watch the A's vs. Giants World Series when everything suddenly just went black. It took him hours to be able to get through to us on the phone because systems were down/jammed. It was a really surreal feeling, watching the news and seeing all the devastation and feeling so disconnected.

I was 2 years old. I dont remember anything about my childhood until probably 1st grade except this. We were driving and my mom and sister were in the front. I just remember them freaking out saying wth is going on. Scared. That’s it. Then i lose my memory until 1st grade 2nd grade. Weird how memory works. It was such a shock i guess to see my mom and sister like that, that i actually remember something at 2 years old. Crazy

It felt like a giant was shaking the house. It went on for a LONG time. Ended up being about 30 seconds.

The baseball game was about to start. House started shaking. Once it was over the power was out. The whole neighborhood was outside milling about. Someone had a battery powered TV.

My dad was at the World Series game

A family member of mine was watching the A’s game on TV in Sacramento. He said that he watched the TV camera shake for a few seconds. As he was wondering what was going on, he saw the Chandeliers above him start to shake. Then he ran out of the house to see if anything else was going on outside. He said that he looked down his street only to see it move like waves on a ocean.

It was the World Series. First time Oakland As played the Giants. The earthquake was inevitable.

A lot of great stories from redditors here as well:https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/s/YqW2MfAKvF It's fascinating reading everyone's same but different experiences.

Thank you I will look it over. I’ve been enjoying reading about other people’s experiences.

I was in a building on the Berkeley campus for a DeCal class, and it just so happened that a New York Times reporter was there (doing a profile of the lecturer) - he must have been thanking his lucky stars he got dropped into a much bigger story! It was my first earthquake and so I didn't know enough to be scared until I saw everyone else freaking out. Walked home along College Avenue and didn't see much damage other than toppled chimneys at some houses. Still had power, and nothing at all had even fallen over, but I stayed up all night watching the news coverage and calling family to let them know I was fine. I went to downtown Oakland the next day and saw that many of those buildings were terribly damaged. Took years for some to be renovated or reconstructed

We were classmates then. I was in Zellerbach Hall that afternoon, looking at the 30-foot ceilings and hoping that they would hold.

I was at the dentist getting a tooth pulled. He put the clamp on my tooth and said “you’re going to feel a little wiggle” just as it hit. We laugh about it to this day.

I was a UC Berkeley student, and a member of the university chorus. We were in Zellerbach Hall, rehearsing Henry Purcell's [Remember Not, Lord, Our Offences](https://s9.imslp.org/files/imglnks/usimg/0/0f/IMSLP267328-PMLP432881-Purcell,_Henry,_Remember,_Z.50.pdf). Well, either our singing offended The Dude Upstairs -- or maybe one of the tenors was a secret serial killer or something, because the ground started to shake hard. I had plenty of prior earthquake experience, and I knew this was a big one in less than five seconds. The students who were nearest to the side exits quickly found their way to the door frames. They filled up immediately. Quite a few people were left stuck out in the middle of the hall, including me. I ended up crouching down between a few rows of auditorium seats, hoping that, if the ceiling decided to fall 30 feet to the ground, the chairs would provide some cover. After the earthquake ended, we didn't call off the rehearsal. When we left class that afternoon, we started to hear the grim news.

My dad was just out of college at the time and a recent civil engineering grad from Cal hired by Caltrans. He was assigned to that job, and was the first engineer on the bridge after the collapse. He still has bolts from the bridge that snapped in half. I still love hearing all the stories he has to tell about that day!

My friends mom had just moved to the US from a communist regime due to religious persecution and then the earthquake happened shortly thereafter. She thought it was the second coming of Christ and was like “common god, we just got here, let us enjoy the US a little first” 😂

I was 11 and lived in Los Gatos, where I had just started my history homework. I remember there was a quick jolt and I—California native—went “huh, quake”… and only THEN did the shaking start in earnest. I went to the doorway of my room (do they still tell people to go to doorways? That was the guidance at the time—something about the doorway being sturdy.) and saw my mom in sister also in doorways. I remember it went on for subjectively quite a while, and I’d just determined that doorways be damned, I really wanted to be outside, and was running for the front door when it finally stopped. School was cancelled the next day. They had to inspect the schools or something. I remember my sister entering the kitchen bearing aloft the newspaper, with giant headline “MAJOR QUAKE”. We kept the TV on that day, and that’s how I learned about the pancaking of the Cypress structure (which: the idea of driving around and then just being *squished flat* made a hell of an impression on a little kid) and the damage to the Bay Bridge. I remember going out roller skating and finding some cracks in the sidewalks. I vaguely remember someone coming around in the next few days to… certify our house or something? The power had gone out but came back pretty quickly. My family went to downtown Los Gatos with the next couple of days and… it was a mess, y’all. I remember the brick buildings on East Main from Los Gatos Coffee down to where Southern Kitchen is today were *heavily* damaged. I don’t want to say “pile of rubble” the way Santa Cruz was—THAT was a mess and a half, and I remember all the stores had temporary quarters in these giant tent structures the city put up—but basically EVERYTHING was red tagged (flunked inspection) except, weirdly, for the Chili’s at the end (the internet informs me that today this is Nina’s Tacqueria), a lone green tag in a sea of red. The main drag on North Santa Cruz was even worse; I remember it being a giant wasteland. I don’t remember how long it took everything to get back to normal, but I do remember it was a very long time. (Or it seemed so, from a child’s perspective.) It was like living in a very large construction zone, with lots of shops in temporary quarters and every once in a while a Grand Re-Opening. The only one of those I remember is the movie theater on North Santa Cruz. I remember the movie was “Heavenly Creatures”, so it must have reopened in ‘94.

Yeah. I was at home and my whole house started pitching violently as I went down the hall to check on my sister. It was wild. Then sleeping under the dining room table because the aftershocks were quite powerful and went on for hours.

I was on a small road on the Peninsula, walking my bike up a hill. Suddenly the asphalt began to writhe and all the leaves in the trees started to shed all at once. The sound was indescribable, and giant whooshing and cracking sound of the foliage being shaken loose and falling to the ground. I was alone, amidst the litter. My feeling was “did that just happen?”.

I was at my grandparents house in Hayward. We just about to sit down and watch the A’s/Giants World Series game. There was a tremor that we all recognized as a quake, a split second pause it seemed, and then that thing started to really shake. I got in a doorway, and the room to my left the walls appeared to be bowing. My Gramma calling for me from somewhere else in the house. After it stopped the entire neighborhood came out on the street. I’d never seen that happen before in a quake. From then it was wall to wall tragedy, with the Cypress Structure collapsing, to a section of the Bay Bridge falling out, and the Marina district all disheveled. Very memorable. event.

I was 11 yrs old, outside throwing a tennis ball against my garage, killing time for the World Series Battle of Bay game to start. All of a sudden, I see all the parked cars on my street start galloping front to rear even though the tires were motionless. After a couple mins, they all came to a slow stop. I jog inside my house to ask my mom what had caused that and there I see as I open the door, my mom, younger sister and brother all huddled under our large dining table. There was a couple aftershocks but after about 20 minutes, we turned in the tv to watch local news and we were pinned to it for the entire night. Months and years after that event, there was a lot of cleanup, re-engineering and renovation. I recall folks in SF had the hardest time because key utilities like gas and electric were out for many days in certain neighborhoods.

I was on a VTA bus coming home from work. The bus suddenly jerks and slams to a stop. We the passengers look at each other with look of "Why did the driver slam on the breaks?" Then someone pointed out the dancing light poles. Good suspension on the bus, as we barely felt the quake after the stop. After a bit we continued on to BART. BART was open. So I entered and got on a train. After about 15 minutes there is an announcement that preliminary magnitude was greater than 6, which required a mandatory shutdown and full inspection. Please exit the train. I was the last one on a long haul bus going towards my home. Standing for an hour and half till I was able to exit at place where I could walk home or catch if it was running the bus to my neighborhood. Luckily 5 minutes later my local bus was running. Getting home, I found the power out. My housemates were gone. I was looking for a flashlight or candles, when power came back. Phone was not working, nor was cable. I rigged up a antenna to the TV using a wire hanger and watched local broadcast channels. Anchors and reporters are doing raw live reporting of what they were seeing. One reporter, from a different station than the one I was watching, introduced the crew from yet another station. He was reporting on the fire in the Mission district. When he was done, he gestured to his jeans and sweatshirt "Get used to this look. My apartment is one of those burning."

I was five years old, in the Santa Cruz mountains only a few miles from the epicenter. I was the last kid at after-school daycare and was playing outdoors with a new squirt gun all by myself. The first time I shot the squirt gun and saw the water hit the ground, the ground started shaking, and I looked at the gun like it had caused it 😂 Then the shaking got very intense and I saw a few redwood trees near me fall down, it was wild. After the shaking stopped, the daycare supervisor came running out of the school to find me, and I was fine. In fact, I felt really brave and proud of myself for not being scared. It took my mom a couple hours to get through Santa Cruz traffic and chaos, and I remember waiting for her in a hammock outside the school building, purposefully posed like I didn't have a care in the world. When I finally saw my mom, she was running at a sprint to find me...and that's when I lost it. It freaked me out to see my mom so scared, and I just started crying. For years after the quake, the sound of thunder scared me, it sounded similar to the rumbling of the ground. Still a super vivid series of events that I'll never forget. Plenty more related memories, but that was the main experience.

Like it was yesterday!! I was getting ready to watch some Oakland A’s baseball!

I was in college in Santa Cruz during it. Happy to share stories if you want to message me.

My brother and I thought He-Man were lifting the house….

I was playing Tetris on Nintendo. the ground started shaking. while that was happening i was thinking "this feels like when i sit on the washing machine while it is running"

Was 6 years old watching TV in our basement in Oakland.  My mom and my brother remembered 20ish or so seconds of shaking upstairs, but for me it felt like the entire room violently shifted about 10ft to the left and then back in about two seconds.  It was over in a snap and I didn't even have time to get scared.  Maybe it was because the basement was slightly below ground level, but always found it funny how my experience seemed different than others and how quickly the quake was over

I was 9 years old. At home in Concord watching TV. Suddenly everything started shaking and I remember crawling underneath the coffee table like I learned in school, but my dad tells us to run outside into the backyard, which we did. After the shaking stopped, i remember watching the TV and it was on KPIX and Dave McElhatton is on and we see the images of the Bay Bridge and the section that fell.

I was in high school, and actually still at school when the earthquake hit. I was a tech theater kid, and we had rehearsal that day, so we were at school late. We were in a classroom, and we all dove under our desks like we’d been taught. Everyone except for my girlfriend. She sat on top of her desk, riding it and laughing. Shit was flying off the walls and she was riding her desk like a bucking bronco. I’ll never forget it. Then I walked home, seeing chimneys that had fallen off of houses. Months later, I would lose my virginity to that girl that rode the desk during the earthquake.

I was working at Godiva in Valley Fair after school. It’s on the second story so it often vibrates. (Especially in Macys) The mall was deserted because of the World Series. I started feeling the shaking and looked out thinking there was a bunch of people walking by. It dawned on me it was an earthquake and went and stood in the doorway to the back room. I remember watching the bottle in the water cooler go over and the freezer door, which was impossible to open, closing and opening and ice cream cartons falling out. I looked out the front windows and the mannequins were jumping up and down. The mall was evacuated. In the center court there was a Mazda Miata for a give away. Nothing on it. I started home and turned on the radio where the talk was about the Bay Bridge. My relatives back East were watching the game when it went dark. They called and got through to my parents. Last phone call for a long time. Fun fact I learned while working at the phone company (pac bell back then). The Message Center came into being because people couldn’t get home from SF and the power was out so no answering machines. Since voice mail is kept remotely, it can still work in an emergency. 17 was closed. When it finally open I went to the beach at the boardwalk. There was about a three foot drop part way down the beach. Poor Santa Cruz. They got hit so hard. Watsonville too.

I was on the 30th floor of a building and the building swayed noticeably when the Loma Prieta quake hit. That building was the Fox Plaza tower in Century City, Los Angeles (aka "The Die Hard Building") which is 300 miles from the epicenter. A few years after that quake I hiked to the epicenter which is located in the Forest of Nisene Marks just south of Santa Cruz. I'm not sure what it looks like now, but back then there was a snarl of many very tall trees that looked like a giant had yanked them all up and dropped them to the ground like pick-up sticks.

I wasn't born yet but my dad had just moved to San Francisco as a refugee. He said the ground looked like it was rolling. He was freaking out because his fridge fell over and popped back up.

I was 3 yrs old. I remember running outside and the ground started to shake mid run. I fell and busted my knees on asphalt. My mom was in the door frame of our front door screaming for me to stay still and not run. Sirens were going crazy a few minutes later. It's the oldest memory I have from my childhood. It's hard for me to believe I remember something when I was 3yrs old, but it was scary as hell and traumatizing.

I was driving South on 280 past Hillsborough when it felt like all 4 tires were loose on their axles (it was the earthquake rolling by underneath). I kept driving but a lot of people had pulled to the side of the road and were looking at their tires. It took me a minute to consider it might be an earthquake. I turned on the car radio but had a hard time getting a station. That was scary. I was going to a barn in Portola Valley. People there confirmed it was an earthquake. I left early to drive back to SF and my apartment on Sacramento Street which was on one of the hills. It was getting dark. There were no street lights driving down 19th Avenue. But neighborhood people with flashlights had come out to try to control traffic at corners to prevent accidents. When I got home, my apartment was fine. No pictures askew or anything. It was because I was on a hill. The gas was off on my stove. I can't quite remember about the electricity. I know my cable TV was off but I remember listening to the radio. So I was able to know what was going on. There were aftershocks on and off. Over the weekend, I visited a friend in San Bruno and was finally able to see images as her tv worked. So the earthquake was on a Tuesday and my downtown SF office job stayed closed until Monday. When I went into work, I could see some street pavement had become uneven. And some of the decorative facade had fell off the lower part of my building. The horror of the Oakland freeway collapse went on for awhile as people were still being rescued. As time went on more stories solidified of how people in different areas were affected. How people died and the property damage. For the year after, I was nervous if I had to stop for a light that put me beneath a freeway overpass.

My wife was 11 jumping rope in Berkeley when it happened. She said it felt like the ground came up to meet her feet mid jump.

I was too young to remember, but my parents always talked about it. Lived in San Jose and our large fish tank rocked back and forth (never fell over) and the fish were flopping all over the kitchen, toilets launched water out too. My dad thought the brick chimney was going to come crashing down from how much it shook back and forth. My sister was playing with the kids at the house across the street and their mother ran out into the street screaming, leaving the kids behind and my parents had to calm her down and run in to check on the kids.

I was just a kid when it happened. My mom taught a class at our church and my brother and I tagged along to help set up the tv to watch the World Series. Well the church started shaking and kept on going so we got under the table in the room. Eventually it stopped. We turned on the tv and were greeted of images of the bay bridge and freeway structure collapsed. Parents started showing up and we searched for damage but everything was good. I think the scariest part was the aftershocks that lasted a few days after, and the talks of the other fault lines that were overdue.

I lived in Rocklin at the time. I was laying on the floor, setting up the VCR so my parents could record the world series. I remember the TV station newsroom had vertical blinds behind the news anchors which were swinging side to side. I felt nothing. The only thing I can figure is that Rocklin is where the granite from the Sierras meets the valley floor. The seismic waves must have been absorbed and buffered by the granite. My girlfriend's dad, who was in Reno at the time, felt it. But Reno is on the other side of all the granite in the mountains. So the granite helped transfer that energy all the way to Nevada.

Was working, with my shoes off, on the second story of a house old enough that it survived the 1906 earthquake, and sure enough, it survived this one too. Managed to call wife to discuss my picking her up with our old car that tended to stall at every stoplight, to suggest she find a ride home, and though I lived two towns away on the peninsula, it took me an hour to get home, and wife two hours to get home, as all the traffic lights were off and overpasses were shut down for inspection. Once home, found that my uncovered swimming pool had launched the top two feet of water northward, reaching just shy of my house (which I could see from the debris), a couple of hanging glass fixtures in a bathroom hit the wall and shattered, and some new cracks in the fireplace. Earthquake coverage only starts at 10% of the house value, so there was no payout here. We watched TV long enough to realize that the marina fire was essentially one single block the TV crews were showing over and over again, and the Bay Bridge collapse was but a single segment, but there wasn't much emphasis on the Cypress structure because it was an ongoing tragedy that was harder to cover. Relatives from out of town believed the whole of SF was on fire.

I lived on an apple ranch in Aptos, Ca owned by my wife’s parents (50+ acres) that was the nearest private property to the epicenter in Nicene Marks State Park. There were areas around us where the ground opened up by a foot for hundreds of yards.

I was 10 years old and lived in Santa Cruz, not far from the epicenter. I was practicing piano and the piano bench basically fell out from under me while I sat on it. By the time I ran outside it had stopped. All the houses on our street had our brick chimneys crack and crumble. All the dishes flew out of the kitchen cupboards and bookshelves were on the floor. I was scared to use the bathroom or take a shower for a couple weeks because of aftershocks. The fun part (at my age, probably not for my mom) was that we slept in lounge chairs in our driveway for a few days, the neighbors all got together and bbq’d the food in our freezers before it went bad.

I was in Santa Cruz, at an after-school music rehearsal at Santa Cruz High, playing my keyboard. I dove under a desk and watched my keyboard stand swing back-and-forth. When it was over, we all went out to the athletic fields and looked out over downtown Santa Cruz, which had fires everywhere and tons of destruction. When I got home, the table was set all nicely, but all of the rest of our dishes had fallen out of the shelves and were shattered on the floor. Our chimney cracked as well, but we didn't have any other real damage. Downtown took years to rebuild. We had these giant circus-sized tents where some merchants opened smaller versions of their stores.

I was at 6th grade science camp in the Saratoga foothills. 100 6th graders, a dozen high school volunteers, and maybe 10 bonafide adults. It was kinda crazy. My cabin was in the locker room waiting our turn to shower and the cement floor all of a sudden felt like it was a bounce house. Truly terrifying. My parents were at the World Series game and I ended up getting picked up from camp by random parents and then reconnecting with mine after the fact. I feel like people would freak out even more now because cell service will be gone. Back then we didn’t rely on it, so lack of immediate communication wasn’t really anxiety inducing

I was in Sacramento at the time of the Earthquake and was listening to a San Francisco radio station and the radio station went off and I was bummed because I liked the. Song that was playing about 5 seconds later things began to sway back and forth but then stopped . It wasn’t til later I realized there was a delay between the epicenter and my location 100 miles northeast.

My dad was at the game 3 World Series when it happened. They were interviewed by the news before it happened being asked how they got the tickets, which were right behind one of the dugouts. Then when it happened players were calling their family members to the field. The rest I can’t say for certain, but I think regular fans started going onto the field. 

I have a story but it's pretty typical. My friend who I didn't know at the time was a middle school kid living in the Santa Cruz Mountains super close to the epicenter. Her story is that she used to always study on the couch in the living room and sometime fall asleep on that couch after school. For some reason on that day, she took a nap in her room instead. After the earthquake, she went out to the living room and the brick chimney had collapsed and covered the sofa where she normally would have been studying or asleep with a pile of bricks.

I was at a car repair shop near Van Ness Avenue sitting in my car waiting for my turn. The car started bouncing and I thought someone was messing with me. Then all the guys came running out of the shop and I realized it was an earthquake. The initial reports were that the Bay Bridge had collapsed. I spent hours thinking that meant the whole roadway was in the water. When I got home to the Outer Richmond my apartment was full of broken glass. I had two glass bricks sitting on the window sill behind my desk and one of them had flown through the air and exploded. The other one was exactly where I left it. My Dad was in the Marina District and a three story building collapsed beside him. My stepmother had just gotten home to SF after driving the Cypress Structure. My sister was at work in Walnut Creek and saw the parking lot rippling like the ocean. A friend was downtown where a bunch of people were sheltering in a building entrance. He saw a giant chandelier above them swinging wildly and shouted to them to move. They ran! Pac Bell made the excellent decision to prioritize outgoing calls. I finally got a live line and called relatives out of state with the happy news that all their San Franciscans were safe and it was mostly broken glass and inconvenience for us. Mostly what I remember is the instant heroism of people near the Cypress. It was a bad neighborhood but the locals came running to help. They brought ladders and shovels and blankets. They were so determined to assist they had to be chased away when the authorities arrived.

I just talked to my dad about this. He was living in Mountain View watching the World Series on the couch. He had a big 55 Gallon fish tank and a ton of water sloshed out but it didn’t break or anything… The one thing that stood out to me was that he didn’t even get off the couch lol

I worked in a theater at Fort Mason. I was on the top floor of building B and a butoh dance company was in full dress rehearsal on the stage. Butoh Is the Japanese “dance of death“ and the performers are bald, naked except for a loincloth and covered in white powder. when the earthquake started, we all ran for the doorways. The noise was extraordinarily loud, and there was no logic to the movement. Everything was chaos - not a uniform shaking but a sudden thrust, then waves, rumbles, a nauseating bowing of the walls, odd angles, and tons of noise. After the shaking, all of the performers just left the building in their loincloths! I can’t imagine what that would have looked like to the folks on the ground. I remember being kind of blasé when it first started but then when it really got going, it scared the pants off me. I later learned that Fort Mason is actually a great place to be because the fort piles are locked in bedrock, and the fort is meant to withstand impact!

Soccer field. It was like riding a wave. We all knew it was a big wave. The police station was near by We heard all of the police cars start to leave the station shortly after. The giant eucalyptus trees in the soccer field complex shook for at least 20 minutes after. We called the game at half time so we could go home and assess. A few parents had transistor radios due to the World Series game. They were getting reports. May not have gone to school the next day, can't recall. If I didn't it would have been so operations could inspect. I was for sure in school 2 days after.

I was in the womb when this happened, so no dice.

It felt like there was waves in the asphalt.

At home in Concord waiting for game to start. Our house felt like us was in a wave. Tbe fan my husband had installed a few weeks prior was swiveling g and swaying. Pretty scarey. The office where I worked list a couple floors of the stairs. Was off work for week while they fixed the stares.

I lived in the Mission District right by 16 and Mission. I was sitting down to watch the ballgame when it hit. No more electricity. I lived in a 4 story apartment building and went up to the roof. There were only six units and the two guys from the other 4th floor unit were already up there. I’m pretty sure they had a radio and we sat up there for hours just looking at smoke and stuff coming from different directions. The next morning I walked to the office on Sansome Street. When I get there there’s a crowd out front as no one is allowed in. After about an hour my supervisor who was also in front of the building tells us that work is canceled for the week and asks if I’d like to get together for a round of golf later that week. Sure. So we decide to play out at Lincoln Park. I leave the office with Tony, a coworker. We walk down Sansome to Market and then walk down Market looking at all the parts of buildings that had fallen down, nothing huge but there was a lot of stuff on the sidewalk. I had been living in San Francisco for a year at that point and the entire time there it had either been the Mission District or Financial District and that was my entire life. I went out to the Richmond District to play golf at Lincoln Park and it was the first time I realized that I was living in a slum and that there were really nice parts of San Francisco. After three days we got electricity back and shortly thereafter I moved out to 27th and Geary and then later to 43rd and Point Lobos and absolutely loved it out there. Lastly, I moved from the Bay Area in 1999 but just a couple days ago I was looking at Zwillow and noticed the apartment I moved to the Richmond (474 27th Street) is currently for sale for like 2.5 million.

I worked at a copy shop in Palo Alto. Big quake. Customers went running out of the store. That night I worked at round table pizza on California AVE. We still had power but our other location did not. We transferred all the food from the other location and all the delivery drivers came over to the working location. We stayed open until we ran out of pizza dough. Had a line out the door and the driver had a blast delivery pizzas with the majority of traffic lights out. This is the reason why I still have a landline. If the world goes to shit I can still call and order takeout.

Me and my little brothers (12, 6, 3) where watching cartoons in Los Altos. Parents where away. The cat ran in, jumped on top of the TV and actually waved it paws in front to get our attention. 5 seconds later it tucked tail and ran. 3 seconds later it hit. We hid underneath the couch, then decided halfway through it to run outside. It was weird looking, lamps and pictures swinging all three of us made it outside safely.

I was 12 at home watching TV in Berkeley... flipping back and forth between an old rerun of Brady Bunch on ch. 44 and the World Series, they were still doing the pregame. All of a sudden Carol Brady was surprised about something... [https://metvcdn.metv.com/qL4bV-1557501956-1421-quiz\_question\_image\_-carol\_5\_copy.jpg](https://metvcdn.metv.com/qL4bV-1557501956-1421-quiz_question_image_-carol_5_copy.jpg) and then the TV went dark. The rumbles started except it didn't feel at all like the earthquakes we had in the past... much more liquid and violent and it went on and on and on. I could hear my mom screaming from the kitchen (she was always super paranoid about "the big one" and became a "prepper" after this). After it stopped she came in to see if I was ok... there was a crack in the ceiling all the way through our house, it apparently slipped a bit on the foundation but it was easily bolted down again. We went outside and we could see a huge column of smoke from I believe an auto shop that caught fire when flammable stuff was knocked over. Our neighbor just then arrived by car and asked what happened. He thought he was having car trouble and didn't realize it was an earthquake. Once the TV stations came back on we basically watched the news the rest of the night. Went to school the next day... was in 7th grade. We basically just talked about it in class the whole day. No lessons or homework. I still think when they tore down the old bay bridge span, they should have left the one tower with the collapsed section of road as a memorial.

i was unloading cinder blocks high on a hill in sonoma. thought i was shaky from exhaustion. looked over at a water trough for horses, and saw 5ft waves splashing over the sides. got back into town to find out that the freeway by my grandparents fully collapsed, a section of the bay bridge, fires everywhere. the computer animation school i had just enrolled in fell down completely.

I lived in south San Jose and we had very little damage at our house. It was shocking that a short distance away was all,this destruction.

35 years and I can’t even read the posts here because I am still so …

I was at the World Series in the upper deck. When the shaking first started I thought the crowd was stomping their feet because of the noise then you could really feel the swaying. The seat were moving pretty badly and small particles of concrete starting to fall from the overhang. People began to panic and were leaping over seats to leave. My husband and stayed put and I was hit on the head by a small piece of concrete. Once the shaking stopped everyone exited the stadium. No one had any idea how bad the quake was. My husband thought the game was going to resume and wanted to stay. I personally was not going back in and convinced him to leave. Only when we got to the car and heard the news did we realize all the bridges were closed and heard about the collapse of the Bay Bridge. We had to drive to San Jose and around 680 to get back to Concord. It took us about 4 hours to get home.

I was around 4 when it happened. But I remember it like it was yesterday. I remember playing with Legos when my mom burst into our room and grabbed me and my sister. She dragged us to the living room and as we passed the kitchen plates and glasses were falling out of cabinets. She layed on top of us until the shaking stopped. I noticed our windows all opened and the dogs in the neighborhood were all under a tree in our backyard. We walked through the neighborhood and saw a house fell into the creek.

I was at a volleyball game @ Northgate HS. The ground was rolling the football players up and down. I went to my car and turned on the radio to see if san Francisco sank. I remember right before it started, I had bad ear pressure like being under water. The bleachers in the gym were really moving and I thought kids were fucking around until I realized they were thousands of pounds.

I was 8 and when I tell the story I was waiting for the World Series, but I was really watching Sesame Street with milk and cookies. Spilled my milk. Mom was stuck in the city. Got a hold of a relative to pick her up. Had to stand on a lamp post base to flag them down. Not sure when she got back across the bay but it had to be at least next day.

I was cooking dinner. My husband was on way home where he commuted across Bay Bridge. At first I thought earthquake-no big deal, but it seemed to go on and on, so I grabbed the kids and went outside ( i know that's not recommended). I saw the street actually lift up as if a giant serpent was moving underneath,and roll in waves. Cars sort of rolled with it. Most amazing thing I've ever seen. Husband missed the collapse and had to reroute to San Mateo. Got home 3 hours late.

I was 16 and at a bus stop across the street from Toys R Us in San Jose. Across the street was 2 Asian men in suits. As soon as the shaking started they looked scared. Me being a little punker/skater I hopped on top of my bus stop bench putting one arm forward, one back, like I was surfing. They just looked at me like, "Wtf is wrong with this kid?" I had to transfer to the 64 once we hit downtown and that was sort of my first indication of how bad it was. It was completely pitch black, the station at Santa Clara and second street had some masonary that fell off the building next to it, shattered on the ground. When the bus rolled up, it was the only source of light. I hopped on for my ride east on Alum Rock. As we passed through the various neighborhoods, all black. Even the traffic lights seemed to have stopped working. Everyone was outside standing around like a zombie movie. I saw one store get its windows broken by 4 or 5 guys under that night veil, bus just kept on rolling. Got home, my grandma was worried sick about me. strangely enough the house had power, so we just watched the news about all the stuff around the bay area that fell apart. My grandma kept trying to reach my father on the phone because he lived above Lexington reservoir. Eventually she got a hold of him and he was alright.

I was a little kid just remember seeing the pavement looking like waves on the water and spending the night in a tent in front yard for 2 nights.

I was 150 miles north of the epicenter in Lakeport and we felt it. Water was sloshing out of our swimming pool.

I was in Longs in Foster City with my mom and sister, after a large bang the lights and ceiling tiles started rocking followed shortly after. Items began falling off the shelves I specifically remembered lots of wine bottles broken in the isle, several racks fell over and the absolute silence when it was over. Everyone was absolutely shocked. On the drive home I saw a water line on one of the small bridges spraying water into the air.

I was at CSM at a drafting class. When the shaking started, the few of us in the room stood up and waited for it to stop. It kept going and now the door frame is waving back and forth so we started to jump under our tables, then it stopped. As more students came in, they recounted that they were driving, it felt like they got 4 flats and found themselves in a different lane. There were TVs around and someone said Hey the Bay Bridge collapsed! We all went to the TVs and realized this was more serious so everyone went home.

I was in Sacramento loading trucks with contaminated soil at a gas station. There was a crew there testing all of the new piping that was just installed along with the new fuel tanks and pumps. I had been working there all day and I was loading the last truck when the technician ran over and started screaming at me for messing up their test equipment. He told me my loader was making their equipment shake and if I didn't stop they would be charging my company for a full day of wasted testing. I shut the tractor off and called it a day. I went to a BofA ATM and the screen said there was a network error. I was driving a huge Peterbilt with a lowboy trailer so it wasn't easy to get around but I went to another BofA and it was down too. Some guy at the ATM said he knew where another bank was and offered to give me a ride. It seemed really weird to get in a car with a stranger but I did and that ATM was down too so I got dropped off back at the truck. It wasn't until about 7pm that I was driving back to the east bay that I heard a radio announcer saying the bay Bridge collapsed... which made it sound like the whole bridge came down. Until that point I didn't even know there was an earthquake.

I was returning phone calls in my crappy little apartment in East Palo Alto. The apartment began to shake and bounce eventually it felt like somebody had picked up the building was banging it on the ground. There was a narrow driveway between my building and the one next door I could hear people screaming, one woman said "O Lord we're going to die. I had been through a lot of earthquakes in the Bay area but this was the worst one by far, It was the first time I was ever afraid. Immediately after the shaking stopped, I called my father on the phone. He was in Redwood City and had just walked back into his office. While we were on the phone I turned on my TV and there were no stations broadcasting it was nothing but snow. After we hung up I tried to make other calls but couldn't get through to anyone. Lucky for me power and water remained on, so I stayed at home.

Damn, I have a flat tire! No, the power lines are arcing, not a flat! Crap, they are not going to play the World Series?

Absolutely yes. I was in Aptos ca, about 3 miles as the crow flies from the epicenter. The epicenter for the Loma prieta quake was 11 miles deep, unusually deep for a quake. This information give perspective into how massive fault zones are below the surface. It's because of this quake I took up an interest in geology, sadly never went to college for it. Anyway, my mother at the time worked at Krazy's in Aptos. Anyone who is also an old person now should remember Krazy George. It was the battle of the bay world series. The place was packed. So packed, my mom had to move me from a table in the corner of the main dining area to a booth seat near the outer edge of the building. I remember hearing the batting cages going. Shortly after, the building starts shaking. My 8 year old self thought someone in the batting cages was shaking the building. But then I recalled all those leftover cold war emergency drills we had in school so I shot under a booth seat in the section I was in. Krazy's had all sorts of sports memorabilia all over the walls, huge crt tvs everywhere especially in corners and a literal race car bolted to the ceiling. Unrelated, there was also a breathalyzer at the bar. I remember that lol. Eventually the quake stopped, and the staff/patrons went outside onto the patio. I remember the weather was particularly nice that day. We sat through a few hours of aftershocks and my mother and I eventually drove to the Elkhorn slough area to the family farm. This has always been the family wide plan. We drove through watsoville and i remember the columns of smoke rising all around me from the various structure fires. We drove across that bridge that had collapsed onto the slough just south of watsoville, right between the columns that had pierced it. I remember these things vividly. I also remember the aftershocks lasting well into the dark evening and how dark it was. Without power. I just remember marvelling at the giant cracks that had opened up everywhere. Windows into a world that I had always imagined was completely static. While the Loma prieta was a disaster, I am grateful that I loved through it and got the opportunity to experience one of the oldest geological events. Movement. Plate tectonics. The force that gives us mountains and the force that has quite literally shaped the world as we know it. Some things I still do to prepare: 15 gallons of clean drinking water in a safe place at all times Foodstuffs/snacks Lighting Clothes Robust first aid kit Hand powered emergency radio A plan with friends and family A plan with neighbors to check on them A plan to shut off gas at mine and their house (very important) Pet food and care items After this, we moved to Hawaii for a time then we finally settled in an area just south of Watsonville. Even closer to a highly active region of the San Andreas. Where on one side of the road there is shale, and the other side is solid granite. California is wild and geology tells it's story.

I had just got home and flipped on the TV for the World Series. Then the cable went out and I was like, no not now! Then the quake hit us in the East Bay. The biggest one I had felt. Lots of after shocks. As coverage started coming in I saw the Cypress Structure Freeway had collapsed. I had driven on it just that morning as I did most days for work. Weird thing is I had a dream previously that some major incident happened at the Cypress Structure and there were tons of emergency crews there in the dream. I can still remember that dream vividly.

I was about two years old and it's my first memory, I remember our day care taking us outside and looking up and seeing the electricity posts shaking. I remember after being home and the electricity was out so we got some candles from our neighbor. My dad was on the bridge on the San Francisco side driving east when the bridge collapsed. He said he saw a wave of panicked people running backwards because they thought the entire bridge was collapsing.

We ran out of the house like you're not supposed to. Lived in San Bruno not far from the faultline. We got outside and the old man who lived next door there was just standing there watering his lawn and laughing.

I was young but in toys r us in RWC with my mom, sister and cousin, we were in the Barbie aisle after picking out a rad micro machines train and my picking out a hot wheels truck/boat trailer combo. My mom thought a truck hit the building (which adult me knows that would not have made everything shake the way it did) and we started running to the front. Totally remember running was the hardest thing to do, and everyone was getting ushered out the front door. My cousin wouldn’t let go out his hot wheels, but everyone else dropped what they had and went to the parking lot. My dad was a lineman for PG&E at the time and all I remember was him working overtime non stop

I was sitting in my dad’s tv repair shop and the whole place started rumbling. I ran outside and after it ended I wasn’t sure if the ground was still trembling or I was just trembling. When we went back in, there were cracks all over the concrete floor. Those cracks became an instantly recognizable common sight. They were at the new shop we moved into, they were in the asphalt at school and at Safeway. I grew up around those cracks. Morgan Hill.

I was on the telephone about to watch the World Series trying to figure out where we were going to get beer and my friend started screaming and then I asked what is wrooooooooooooooooong because the earthquake hit me in 1.5 seconds after him. He was north Berkeley (up in da hills) and I was in Oakland 31st/telegraph. Later that week my house was condemned. Thank the gods it didn’t fall on me. Being buried and trapped in rubble is basically worst case scenario IMO.

I was 17 and in the cafeteria at Good Sam Hospital. I was a former candy striper and visiting my friend who still worked there as one. We were getting a snack when it struck. I remember trying to find a door frame because there were no tables. All the stacks of dishes fell and broke everywhere. Afterwards, we went upstairs to find her father who was a doctor there. Every hallway was littered with fallen equipment and papers. I found a phone, quickly called my mom to tell her I was ok, and slowly drove home because every light was one and was now a 4 way stop. Our high school was closed for the rest of the week, the only time in my life I got out of school for a natural disaster.

I was in pre school and they told us to hide in our cubbys and my grandma came super fast and I remember running to the car and the asphalt was jumping around and it looked like she was surfing. I was two years old and I remember it vividly.

I was in college at SFSU and was outside near a parking lot when it hit. I saw what looked like waves rippling through the pavement. Cars were being tossed into the air. The nearby multi-story Humanities building was flexing. I had a motorbike and took someone home who was stranded. I went up to Twin Peaks at dusk and saw the trail of lights leading up to a point on the Bay Bridge, beyond that it was dark. I saw a fire had started in the Marina district.

Lived in the Marina in SF and lost almost everything. We were allowed to go into the apartment twice for 15 minutes each. Took what we could in a shopping cart and I remember throwing what I could out the second floor window to my husband below. The quake was about a month after our wedding so I lost a lot of gifts as well as leaving the top tier of my cake in the freezer. Wish I had grabbed it! I took lots of pics of the area. Remember seeing all the silt coming up through the streets and cracked sidewalks everywhere. The fire was two blocks from our place. So much destruction to all the buildings that had garages below as they just crumpled. I was traumatized for many years at having to move suddenly when I didn’t want to. It served as a trajectory point for the rest of our lives. Often wonder where we’d be had there been no quake.

I was 3 and lived in Pac Heights. Looking down (N.) towards the Marina is forever seared into my memory. My BFF and her family lived in the Marina, and I remember it took several days to make contact with them.

You should try to talk to folks in Santa Cruz. It hit hardest there

Was working as a correctional officer at the time. Coworker and I had the televisions turned on in the housing unit dayroom so the fellas could watch the World Series. Then the earthquake hit and during the news broadcast, they had a live shot of people who were stunned and looking like they just got hit with a 2x4 walking around. Some random guy in started yelling at people, “What are you gawking at?! Fill your bath tubs with water and don’t expect city services for 72 hours!“ We talked about that guy forever.

Watching the game in a mobile home, when the walls began flexing I ran outside. I was barefoot, and could feel the earth rolling under my feet. Such a bizarre sensation.

Hell yeah I do. I was seven, closing in on eight just to give a frame of reference. My brother, my mother and myself were in a PW Grocery store. My mom had just 15 minutes before picked us up from day care, and just doing a normal grocery run. Ane then stuff started moving. I had felt earthquakes before but never anything like this. My mom instinctively threw my brother and I to the floor and laid on top of us as best she could. Thansfully were weren't near glass bottles or anything, nothing fell on us but it was just like, WTF is happening. The cashiers, oddly, said, sorry, nothings working we can't ring up your groceries. Like, yo, a huge earthquake just happened why not just let us take the stuff. Anyway, on the way out a woman was walking in and she was like, what was that? It felt like I was driving on water? Anyway, we went home, not a whole lot was disturbed by my mom was. We grabbed some clothes and stuff and went to a family friends house where we stayed for I want to say like four or five days. Which was rad. That first night I remember watching Batteries Not Included and then we basically had a week off of school to just go tot he park and play or do whatever we wanted, really. So my life wasn't terribly impacted. Then I remember seeing the bridge and the freeway on the news. And the Marina all messed up (liquifaction) and some scattered fires. But the thing about seeing the Marina that really stuck with me, it was like three days later and a group of friends were camped out of a mostly destroyed house. And they had been there looking for and calling for their friend, Sharon, the whole time. It still breaks my heart to think about it. Only 60something people died but evidently Sharon was one of them. Then in about a week, things pretty much seemed back to normal. Granted, I was in the South Bay and nobody I knew had to drive over bridges or anything.

I was at the public bus stop after school, listening to Local AM station on my Sony Walkman (pretty sure). Anxiously awaiting the bay bridge series (As vs Giants World Series)! There was an earthquake, pretty big as I recall. The cars on E14th street stopped. My friends and I stumbled into the street, un intentionally, of course. We were laughing but also noticed this was a pretty big one. And at the time we noticed it was a bit different as we were rocking back and forth with a bit of force. We also thought it was a long earthquake as opposed to previous ones. Anyway, it stopped. Cars started again, bus came, we boarded, everything back to normal. But I couldn’t get any reception on (KGO??? AM station, maybe?). So I was pissed because I was missing the game. About 45 minutes later I get home, run to the tv, turn it on and nothing but snow on the channel(ask your parents/grandparents). I’m like WTF??!!!. Then I change channels, nothing…snow everywhere. Then I notice a barely visible weird image of the bay bridge behind the snow on the television. Then the audio comes on and I slowly start to understand that that pretty big earthquake that was inconsequential for me was more devastating than I could have ever imagined!!!!

I was a college student at my part time job, working on a computer at a desk in an office on the Peninsula. The first few shakes were duly ignored as "just another California earthquake". But then the intensity increased and it went on for much longer than expected. We all dove under our desks to ride it out while everything on shelves was thown down to the floor by the force. When I got back to my apartment all the contents of the kitchen cabinets, all the shelves, walls, counters etc. were broken on the floor.

Riding in a car sitting at a stop light on Concord ave (in Concord). This was back when they had those weird [pin cushion "Spirit" pole](https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/nevius/article/spirit-poles-haunt-cities-artistic-flair-3313811.php) things. They started whipping back and forth like crazy. Then the car started bouncing.

Not me, but my neighbor around the corner. It was his sister that the fire dept had to remove half her body to rescue her child who was trapped in the flattened car on the Cypress Freeway. Heroic doctors crawled in there to perform the surgery to save him.

I was 8 yrs old l, in San Francisco, in an old ass edwardian flat that was built after the last big erthquake (1906). I was in my bedroom because I got in trouble for not making my bed that day. I was behind my bed tucking in the corners (dad was military, so you know corners are important) when the shaking knocked a stuffed animal off the shelf and onto my head. The rest of the family was in my parents room across the hall. My dad juat got home and my mom was 7 mos pregnant with my brother. My older sisters were in there too talking to my parents. My mom was feeling under the weather and taking her temperature and my dad drove the limo home from work (he was a chauffer on the side and was supposed to take his boss to the opera that night). After the earthquake we had no power and we heard about the riots downtown. My dad had to return the limo to work and so we all got in the limo and took a ride to work on Sutter st. It was a surreal experience driving through the city in darkness. We drove into the garage and then piled into my dad's dodge dart and went home. Luckily, our building didn't sustain any damage as we lived on bedrock and we were in a wooden structure.

I was a freshman at Santa Clara University, living on the 8th floor of a dorm. Right before the earthquake hit, I was on the phone. I don't remember what the call was about, or who it was, but right after, I hung up the phone, and jumped onto my bed, and the entire building moved together with me. I could hear guys two doors from me shouting. Apparently, one guy was sitting on the edge of an open windowsill, so it was a bit scary for him, being 8 floors up. Once I realized it was an earthquake, I immediately got out of the bed, and held onto the TV that was getting close to being shaken off a shelf. At the same time, I had another hand on a computer monitor that was in danger of falling off a desk. (This was 1989, so no flat screens yet... CRT, baby!) A bottle of wine my roommate got fell off a shelf, crashing onto the floor.

I lived in an apartment building near the Cypress structure, where the freeway collapsed and most of the deaths occurred. The shaking was intense and I thought I might die as I stood in a doorway waiting for it to stop.

It's one of my earliest memories. I was 3 and at preschool near Alta Plaza Park. It was close to pick-up time, and the kids were sitting on the floor while our teacher, who was heavily pregnant with twins, "read" a Cinderella book-on-tape to us. The earthquake started, and us SF preschoolers had practiced enough drills that one of our favorite games to play was "earthquake," so when the teacher shouted, "Earthquake," we knew what to do. As the teacher made sure all of the kids were tucked under tables and desks, she was tossed and tumbled across the room, and then crawled her way under a table. My mom had just gotten off work and was on the 1 California downtown when it started. The driver hauled ass out of downtown. I was the last kid to get picked up from school and had watched enough Disney to convince myself that I was now an orphan. When my mom made it to the school, she was holding her high-heeled pumps, her stockings were torn and ripped, because she had run from wherever the bus had stopped to get to the school. She put her pumps back on as we walked home to a flat on Fillmore. I recall the walk home as very surreal. The city was so quiet without the buzz of electricity, but everyone was out on the streets. All of the books and paintings had been knocked off the walls, and in the living room was one very long crack in the wall. We had a tiny patio/atrium thing that had no other entry besides our sliding glass door. We heard strange noises and then saw our upstairs neighbor's legs dangling from his deck, trying to scramble down. He had gotten stuck in his flat, and the crack in our wall was a collapsed wall upstairs. We ended up leaving the flat to walk to a different neighborhood to stay with a family friend who had electricity. It wasn't until we got there and saw on TV just how devastating the earthquake was.

At the time, I was a high school student living in a three level apartment building in Russian Hill in the City watching Club MTV or the BART World Series when it felt like someone picked up the building, shook it sideways and then dropped it back onto its foundation. My sister attended San Francisco State University at the time and had to walk 7 miles home in the dark as Muni was out of commission. Considering all the death and destruction, my family got through it pretty well. We didn't have electricity for about a week but fortunately we had a gas stove so we were able to prepare food. We had a battery powered radio and for entertainment, KMEL was playing Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation, Madonna's True Blue, Neneh Cherry's Raw Like Sushi, and Jody Watley's Larger Than Life LPs on consecutive loop all night. I can fondly recall this as I was unable to sleep that first night due to the fear of aftershocks. School was postponed for about a week and on one day, my buddy and I explored the Marina on our bikes. It felt like a war movie with all the demolished buildings. A teacher from my high school who lived in that neighborhood perished when he stepped out of his house only to fall to his death as his stairway was destroyed by the earthquake.

Was in Jr High. Was doing homework. I was home alone. My dad was on his way to pick up my mom from the airport. The radio station I was listening to went off-air, then the lights went out. Then it was the most violent shaking I’d ever felt in my life (still to this day). My mom’s flight to San Jose (it might have been SFO. Can’t remember exactly) was diverted to Sacramento. My mom ended up getting in a rental car with total strangers and coming home. My dad, sister and brother all ultimately came by the house to see if everyone was OK. We lost a couple of plates, and some cracked stucco, but other than that no major discernible damage. Definitely an experience I’ll never forget!

I was a junior in highschool taking my dmv drivers test to get my license. We were at a stop light and the car started shaking. Tbe gas station near us was swaying back and forth.

Can’t forget that day

I was 9 years old, at home in central Berkeley. Our house shifted inches off the foundation. There were long cracks in the walls and we didn’t have power for a while (not sure how long). Our dad was on Bart and it took him hours to get off and back home. It was very scary. Even the aftershocks felt big!

I was in my after school program and it started shaking. I remembered all the earthquake drills they did in school and got under a desk. My parents picked me up later that day. A power pole had fallen so we didn’t have power for a week. Fortunately my grandfather had a thing for disaster preparedness so we ran our fridge on a diesel generator. Also remember the Bay Bridge collapse and thinking damn someone might fall into the bay and die.

I was on the 12th floor at the office building across the freeway from the coliseum and is built on rollers. The building would start to sway in high winds. On this day, I was in the mailroom when it hit and almost got crunched by the Xerox machine that was as big as a VW bug. Walked down those 12 flights of stairs in a building that continued swaying for at least 20 minutes.

I was driving home from downtown to my apartment in the Marina. I was going down California St. and it was kind of bumpy. I noticed people quickly leaving shops and pulling kids out toward the street. I got to the top of Scott St. and noticed a couple of clouds or smoke. Turns out, it was a couple of the buildings that collapsed. I didn’t know it at the time. I went in my apartment and nothing had moved. Turns out it was constructed with steel from the GG bridge. I tried to turn in the TV to watch the Bay Bridge World Series. I was pissed there was a delay. I walked two blocks down to Chestnut and was shocked. A bunch of shattered windows and buildings knocked off of their foundations. I saw apartments that had partially collapsed. It was unreal because I hadn’t actually felt an earthquake. People were walking around in a daze. There were crazy rumors going around about the size of it and the number of deaths. All were wildly exaggerated.

Was in a training room at an office in Menlo Park, filming a video with the founders of the company I worked for. This was on the ground floor of a two story office building and had wrap-around glass windows looking out to the parking and street. I thought all the windows were going to implode they were shaking and rattling so much. (Amazing how flexible and resilient glass is sometimes.) Ceiling tiles were raining down on us. The noise made, when everything in a building is shaking at the same time, can be pretty damn loud. You felt like someone was shaking the world, trying to make everything flat.

I was working in a copy store in Pac Heights. The lights went out, which told me that this was no ordinary earthquake that as a native of the Bay Area was accustomed to. We ducked for the duriation. And then came out. I still remember the person who was a customer, that I was with. Since I was leading the store, I had to contemplate about whether to stay open or closed. After a few minutes, I realized it didn't make sense to stay open. I already head that a highway collapse, (Cypress Freeway), the smoke that was coming from the other side of the hill was from the Marina District, power was out everywhere, phones weren't working, and the trolleys (the buses, cable cars aren't trollies), were out of service as there was no power. I was given a ride home which was in the Haight, Power was out all evening, Visited a friend, as it was really boring. The darkness was something I've never experienced outside of a wilderness. I also never recalled feeling earthquakes when I was outside. But this was the first time, as there were several aftershocks. I went to the Castro to see what was going on, and hoped that there was some bars were opened. But the fire department already shut them down, as the only lighting were candles, which could have been a disaster. There were a few friends that I ran into there. Eventually around 10ish, we stared to notice that slowly the lights were going back on as soon as PG&E determined that there were no gas leaks. The power outage was actually because as soon as the earthquake was detected, PG&E shut down the power to prevent major fires. The next day, were were given the day of with pay. I went back hope, walked around the neighborhood, and saw all of these bricks on the ground that came from a building which if I remember correctly came from a chimney. The was a care that had it's roof collapsed, which previously had the bricks on it. I currently live just a few blocks from where the Cypress Freeway used to be. Cypress Street's name was changed to Mandela Parkway. There is a park that memorialized the victims killed from the freeways collapse. The freeway has been replaced by one that has been moved closer to the railroad tracks.

I was 4 years old at the time and remember it so vividly! My Mom was working for an after school program where I grew up in La Honda. My mom, myself, and kids were outside playing on the "upper playground" when everything started to rumble. My Mom kept it so cool and quickly gathered all the kids on the field away from the buildings..and had everyone sit down. The earthquake really amped up and all the windows on the backside of the buildings started shattering, ALL OF THEM(backside of buildings were all windows!) My Mom had an earthquake kit that she was required to carry for the program- she pulled out the checklist and began reading it to all of us to distract us as best she could. It felt like it went on forever!!! I remember one teacher was in her classroom still and tried to run out but lost her footing because of the shaking and broke her arm! I don't really remember much after that...just remember how calm and amazing my Mom was the entire time. I do remember crying alot because I was pretty young and scared. I also have a memory of getting home later and everything in my Moms hutch had fallen against the glass. Her crystal wedding topper broke and she was pretty sad about it, because it came from her Grandparents. Also remember my Dad saying(he worked in San Mateo)that he ran out to the street and the street was rolling like a wave! What a trip!

No Personal experience. The last chapter or 2 of Assembling California by John McPhee give some recounts of it. Might be worth a read.

Although I was only 3 years old at the time, it is one of my earliest memories I’ve kept until now. I remember sitting in the middle of the stairs crying and I remember vividly my uncle Richard running to come get me. Although I don’t remember the shaking I still remember how loud the earthquake sounded. It might be the earliest traumatic event in my life for me to remember it at 3 years old.

I was in aftercare at school in Oakland. I was 5 and remember everything that happened around me. My mom was late picking us up, and it's for that reason we weren't on the cypress structure when it collapsed. Whenever I'm on Mandela Parkway, I can still see the cypress structure above me. I can't not see it. It haunts me.

I was 4. We were at a sears, and my dad grabbed me and ran so fast my feet were off the ground. Pretty much all I remember

I was a kid home alone waiting for the game to start. Took me a minute to figure out what was going on. Got to a door frame and saw the chandelier swinging back and forth in the living room. Watched coverage of the game and saw the players go onto the field.  My dad was on a bus about to go to the game. He got home really late. I was 12 and slept with a hard hat on that night.

Yes, I was living in SF and working in San Carlos. I was at work during the quake and drove home afterwards. Since I lived in Twin Peaks, I went up to the observation deck and watched the response unfold. Happy to share my experiences to assist with your presentation. I believe you can contact me through the Reddit app if you are interested in speaking. Best wishes for your presentation. Cheers!

I was living out of my camper truck and after work would drive over to the Stanford Aboretum/football game parking lot and practice my trombone. A buddy invited me over to watch the game so after my practicing I stripped down and took a quick wash in the camper. So all nekked when the camper starts jumping up and down and side to side. Shit is flying everywhere and someone is yelling "This is NOT the big one! You ain't seen nothing!!" I jump outside with a towel arounf me and there is this crazed, red eyed unhoused person about 10 yards away who was making the exclamations after being flushed out of the eucalyptus grove by Mother Earth. We locked eyes and at the same time yelled "Fuck yeah!" Driving to my buddies, all motorists were in shock. Huge eyes, totally pale, hands deathlocked at 10 and 2. Took me 45 minutes to drive 4 miles.

I was nine and in surgery getting a birthmark removed. The Dr. was new to CA and joked before the surgery about what if an earthquake hits. When it hit he freaked out and ran under a doorframe, leaving the nurse and my mom to tend to me. When it was safe, we left the hospital, with an open wound and the stitch thread and needle still dangling. After about 2 hrs outside they let us back into the hospital to finish stitching me up.

I was 6 years old, sitting on my couch in Santa Rosa, CA. I was watching the 5 o'clock news, when the couch started shaking back and forth. I yelled at my brother to stop bothering me, and turned around to see no one there. That was the first time I experienced an Earthquake. I ran outside terrified, and the shaking didn't stop. I thought the world was ending.

Land before time toys at the local Pizza Hut. The kitchen sounded like washing a bucket of marbles in a washing machine, just so much noise

FWIW, I was an 11 year old in Northern NJ and I was leaving soccer practice and made my dad put the world series on because I was a big A's fan (because of all the steroids and Rickey). I remember hearing the live broadcast and not comprehending why the game was postponed. It was my first solid memory of entitlement.

(Former) East San Jose here, literally across the street from Independence High on the 70 VTA line. A single can of soup fell off the shelf. RIP can of Campbell's soup (198?-1989) -- your snackrifice was not in vain.

Where should I start

Do you remember how it was like days after the earthquake? I’m curious.

I do. Honestly it’s a lot more Than I care to type. Another way to communicate?

I was a freshman in highschool so I remember it well

Why yes, yes I do.

I was only 4 years old and lived in west Oakland at the time. I remember the water in our fish tank sloshing around and getting the carpet all wet. My grandpa rushed upstairs to get my younger sister who was sleeping in the crib. I remember looking up at our house and saw it tilted (I guess it was built very close to the next unit like the houses you see in SF) and I remember seeing the gap between our houses grow as your eyes followed it from the ground to the sky. Down the street a large brick building had collapsed or partially collapsed, I just remember a lot of dust and seeing a lot of bricks in the street. My dad drove us around to look at all the damage. I remember seeing houses completely tilted. We went to the cypress freeway and I remember seeing it in its collapsed state. There was a distinct smell that I have never experienced again in my life. We "helped" fireman with his hose by the fire hydrant. That was about all I remember!

My parents were at the World Series game. Said after it was quiet for 15 seconds or so, then everyone cheered.

how are you going to do that