Loma Prieta

I had just finished work, waiting tables at Pizzeria Uno on Lombard Street in the Marina. As I walked, I suddenly felt as if I were climbing a hill; it was the wave passing under my feet. I saw a steel pole across the street sway like a baby tree, almost touching the sidewalk on [...]

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Loma Prieta Memories

My son, Peter, and I were sitting in the stands just beyond the left field foul pole at Candlestick Park for Game Three of the World Series between the Athletics and the Giants. It was very warm that day, and I was sitting in my seat waiting for the opening ceremonies and feeling a bit [...]

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War, Football, and an Earthquake

“I’m feeling dizzy,” I told Eder my next door neighbor. I stood outside his tool shed in his backyard, mock machine gun in one hand looking down the sloping driveway. I think I was seven. It’s strange because I came from a baseball family, and I wasn’t watching the World Series. As a matter of [...]

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My experience in the earthquake

I was 15 at the time, and a student at Sequoia High School in Redwood City. I was on the swim team, and we had a meet that very day at a high school in Burlingame. We arrived at the school around 3pm. There wasn’t any parking, and the Coach was tempted to park on [...]

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Loma Prieta, It’s Time to Go

October 17, 1989, was a peaceful Tuesday at the office. I worked as a welfare caseworker in Redwood City and I was looking forward to Wednesday, my off day. Around 5 PM, I was sitting at my desk, finishing up some paperwork and listening to Great White on my Walkman. All of a sudden, the [...]

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I was living in San Leandro. I was 28 at the time, and had only lived in the East Bay for about a year, being raised in northern Marin.  I had been married about six months to my then struggling stand-up comic husband, Brian, and our first-born son, Adam was just six months old.  Brian [...]

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I was fifteen and in the tenth grade at Aptos High when the earthquake hit. My house borders Nisene Marks up Trout Gulch and I was possibly the closest person to the epicenter of the quake. At the time I was eating cake and watching TV with a childhood friend. When the quake hit we [...]

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Loma Prieta Earthquake

I remember that day like it was yesterday… It was 3 weeks before my 4th birthday and I was sitting in Pre-School waiting for someone to come pick me up. I remember looking up and seeing the lights start to sway and then it was as if all of the toys started to come to [...]

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Loma Prieta Quake Story

I was just five years old when the quake hit the Bay Area in 1989, and it is still my most vivid memory of my childhood. I lived with my parents and younger brother in the heart of South San Jose on a court that was more like a family. In those fourteen houses there [...]

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