The Big Shrug

A champion of all the North American continent's geophysical growing pains, and still one of the earth's most active, is the San Andreas Fault, which begins in northern California, slashes south along the coastal mountains, and curves eastward down toward Mexico. The west side of San Andreas arcs steadily northward nearly 2 in. a year, grinding the two faces of the great crack in the earth's surface layers until something has to give and let the faces slip into realignment. The crumbling rock where the slip starts is the epicenter of an earthquake of the kind that often jiggles San Francisco, and once (in 1906) touched off a fire that nearly destroyed all of it except Hotaling's Liquor Warehouse on Jackson St.* and a few other buildings.

Last week the San Andreas Fault system shrugged again. A soundless, polite waver wiggled skyscrapers, floors and desks, then awesomely heaved harder, and adopted a unique up-and-down motion. The bells in St. Patrick's steeple on Mission Street rang all by themselves; at the Top of the Mark, some 15 early customers for cocktails noticed more sway than usual, ordered another drink. A painter high on the Golden Gate Bridge clung tight while the main deck seemed to leap, and the 36 1/2-in. cable "snapped back and forth like a clothesline." Two motorists on Highway I south of town scrambled out of their cars, in time to get away from the 400-yd. stretch of roadway that, already loose, was jogged down toward the ocean.

It was San Francisco's worst quake since 1906, but seismologists reported that it hit only 5.5 on the Richter scale, just one-thousandth as strong as the big 1906 disaster. Property damage--broken windows, cracked walls, crumbled brickwork --reached into the millions of dollars. But there were no deaths, and no really serious injuries (a woman dropped a coffeepot on her toe; a man broke his foot running downstairs at City Hall). There was some hysteria as the city went through a whole series of shocks (including the minor aftershocks), but San Franciscans--who cherish their earthquakes as they do their cable cars--generally took the day in stride. Perhaps the most characteristic act was that of the gift-shop owner who stood quietly with the customers during the worst shock, and then poured a drink of bourbon all around in cups of jade.

*Moralists who preached that the Lord's wrath had wiped out the sinful city were answered by a popular ditty: If, as they say, God spanked the town For being over-frisky, Why did he burn all the churches down And spare Hotaling's whiskey?

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