Yep, another born and raised Californian who has been through many big quakes. I was watching the game on TV and the second it glitched I knew it was an earthquake coming and about 3 seconds later we started to feel it even though we were 100 miles away. The water in the pool sloshed out of the pool.
When they show the bridge, what you are seeing it a double deck bridge and the top level crushed the lower deck which was filling with cars leaving work for the day. Many people were pinned in their cars with no way to open a door or window or get out (some areas were only 2 feet high) and it took days to get to some of them.
I lived there. The fact that the world series was starting at "rush hour"' meant that thousands of people, who would have been driving there, were NOT on the Nimitz Freeway or the Bay Bridge when they collapsed, because everyone was watching the game. It saved countless lives.
I used to work at ESPN...some of my former colleagues are interviewed here. For me, wanting to get into broadcasting, this was, from a news standpoint, an excellent moment for the industry because we saw sportscasters and former athletes turn into news journalists and do it seamlessly, all the while scared out of their wits. They were brilliant.
Born and raised in Los Angeles, and won’t forget the stories about it. Horrible. I was lucky that I was in So. Cal. when this one happened, then a few year later, was living in Northern California when the Loma Prieta quake in Southern California happened. Missed them both. 🤞🏼
Born and raised in CA and I was never afraid of earthquakes until this one. Ever since then, when I go home to visit family, I feel twitchy the entire time
I live across the country on the New Madrid Fault near Memphis and it’s still so scary how no matter where you live in the US you are at risk for some sort of natural disaster and. Many states can see multiple types of dangerous severe weather at the same time. Mother Nature just likes to show us all who the real boss is in this world 😂
Many people seem to have conveniently forgotten about the risk of a Big One in Middle America, from the New Madrid fault in SE Missouri, near the Mississippi River. We’re supposedly way overdue for a really big one here; there was about a 6.5 in the late 1800s, and several in 1811-1812 with an estimated 7-7.5 that were so strong they caused the river to flow backwards and ring church bells in Richmond Virginia. Of course, the immediate area had very few inhabitants and almost no infrastructure at the time, but imagine the impact it would have today to cities like Memphis and St Louis.
We were watching at work in a multistory building (iykyk) in the San Fernando Valley and we felt it. An employee's elderly mom was smack dab in the hardest hit area and we had many employees in the bay area so a lot of anxiety until we knew all were safe. Scariest is realizing it might be a foreshock, as with Ridgecrest in 2019 with a 6.4 on the 4th and 7 on the 5th.
I believe the final register was 7.1. To me it sounded like four freight trains going around me. With traffic lights out on a lot of the streets it took my husband hours to get home from a meeting of his place of work.
2:24 I'm from California, born and raised. And any time the (Santa Ana) winds start, people always say "earthquake weather". Some people actually believe that weather conditions might effect tectonic plates?
Nobody, within that stadium, nor all the millions of people that had been watching on TV, knew of the amount of damage that the whole bay area had gotten. I remember watching on TV, they got a feed from a helicopter hovering over the stadium. I shouted at the tv, something about letting us watch the game from the helicopter camera. It took some time to understand the horrible damage that took place. There were no cell phones to spread any news.
Earthquakes are so common there that it wouldn’t necessarily mean immediate cancellation of the game. Most don’t cause damage. Once they learned of the destruction in the city, THEN it was a no brainer to cancel. I flew out to Southern California three times in the 90’s to visit family, and I felt earthquakes TWICE!
I grew up in the Oakland area a fan of both teams and it was awesome that they actually were playing each other in the World Series. I wasn't there that night. I was in San Diego looking forward to watching the Series on TV. It was surreal.
It was a very scary day. Thank goodness our boss let us go home 1 hour earlier before the game because my husband and I would have been on the Cypress Bridge when it collapsed. We got home 5minutes before it hit. We could hear the rumbling coming, it sounded like a freight train was coming at us, then the floor began to roll under our feet. It hit hard, dishes fell out of the cabinets, the 50 gal fish tank fell to the floor, TV hit the floor…it was bad. They always say the big one is still to come but, since earthquakes are so far and in between we Californians have become so complacent. Ask any Californian and they will say, we can feel when it’s earthquake weather. You can feel it in the air. Myself, I know when I don’t hear the birds chirping that something is coming. Thanks for listening. 🇺🇸
I live in the SF Bay area and I remember that quake well. I was in a high rise office bldg that was shaking like a baby's rattle. When I got to my car, the emergency broadcast system was on the radio and calling all first responders to report in. One of our major two deck freeways collapsed and there were people crushed in their cars. There were two children that later went to school with my sons, were in one of the cars in that collapsed freeway. Fire and rescue had to cut through their dead mother and amputate an arm from one of them to get them out. That's the only quake that's ever scared me.
I lived through that earthquake as well. I'm a huge Giants fan and I was at work, waiting to get home and watch the WS. I was young but I will never forget that day. The most surreal experience of my life.
My mother lived in Oakland. Her home shook hard enough all her dishes and glasses were thrown from her cabinets. The stucco on the house developed large cracks and ceiling tile in the back bedroom all fell. She was at work just across from the Park St. Bridge into Alameda. The restaurant had to shut down because they lost power, and the water sprinklers came on. I was living in Alabama at the time and you couldn't get through on the phones to find out if your families were ok. Sections of the Nimitz Freeway dropped down on the lower deck of the freeway trapping some people in their smashed flat vehicles. killing them with only a few living. There was no way to immediately get to them because of the height of the freeway in places.Fires broke out. San Franciso had fires and crush,and shifted buildings.
I was working second shift and the first shift head inspector came in and I asked him how the game was going and he said it was cancelled due to an earthquake. I thought he was kidding.
I lived in LA for 19 years. I've felt many earthquakes but none this bad. They are scary. You never know what will happen. Same with tropical storms in Florida. I lived there for 3 years. There's a sense of anticipation. You never know how bad it's gonna be.
The World Series was going to happen. The country wouldn't have accepted any different. Each teams fans would expect the teams to stay ready. The 50 players wouldn't have been able to do anything, physically, to help. One thing I don't believe the video did, to properly represent what happened with the freeway in Oakland. It was a stacked freeway. One direction of the freeway was on the bottom, and the other direction was directly above it. Not side-by-side. The top level collapsed onto the bottom level. All of the cars on the bottom, got smashed. At that time of day, that freeway would've normally been bumper-to-bumper. But, because of 53,000 people already at the game, it was the complete opposite. People lost their lives. But, nothing like it could've been.
Californians are just used to it I guess. 😅 The East Coast where I am has a larger fault line than the West Coast. In California, the tectonic plates crash against each other. Here when it happens they slide parallel to each other. So ours are usually just a bit of swaying when you're standing up. I agree with both teams. On one hand, the players could help with handing out supplies or noncritical areas. On the other hand, playing the game gives people something else to focus on giving them a reprieve from the chaos. Weeks after 9/11 the Mets returned to New York and played the Boston Red Socks with President Bush throwing the opening pitch. It was symbolic more than anything.
Lots of Monday morning quarterbacking from the guy on the left. Initially, people inside the ballpark had no idea what was the extent of the quake’s impact on the outside. So wanted to continue the game, from people who have experienced many quakes throughout their lives is not surprising. As for going to Arizona, I seriously doubt that any ball players were there fighting the fire. Keeping ready to resume the 4out of 7 game series is also important. After such a tragedy, sports can help serve as a healing moment. It was very clear also after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Cancelling the Game is mentally a big deal. Baseball being the National Pastime means something serious is happening when the World Series gets shut down. The anxiety of cancelling the WS could cause some panic in an already bad situation. I'm sure once the proper assessments came in they didn't hesitate to shut it down. We Californians can be a bit cocky when it comes to quakes (Note* the amount of people who weren't in the upper deck) that wanted the game to go on. Depending on your physical perspective what seemed like a little rumble might have done incredible damage a short distance away, and you can be oblivious to to the damage. Earthquakes are weird and can shake with various intensity depending on what your house is built on (Concrete Slab, Wooden Piers, Raised Foundation, etc.) or where it is in comparison the the epicenter, and many other factors. The Upper Deck, for example, compared to everywhere else in the stadium or one side of a street might shake and directly across the street nothing, or even on side of your house might shake more!
I have the opinion that this is very much a lesser documentary of the quake day. I was working at a Union Square shop. Going outside after was interesting. Glass on the street, dust in the air. I had been through many quakes in my time but this one scared me. Not sure why this one did more than others. 🤷🏼♂️ Notifying family I was okay was interesting. Calls were jammed coming in but I was able to call out here and there. Most had been watching the baseball game. One thing I really disliked was some of the news reports. Local radio we had and a reporter just told about roaming gangs of looters and thieves. Completely exaggerated and just scaring people for the sake of sensationalism. They should have been arrested. Thanks guys.
