Bay Area residents remembered where they were 35 years ago when the Loma Prieta earthquake shook the Bay Area, leaving 63 dead and an estimated $6 billion in property damage.
On Thursday evening, the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco hosted an event to reflect on a tragic but important moment in Bay Area history.
While images of the World Series at Candlestick Park, the damaged Bay Bridge and the flattened Cypress Freeway in Oakland are vividly stored in people’s minds, so are the memories of where they were when the magnitude 6.9 earthquake struck. October 17, 1989 shook.
“I was shopping for school with my mom and my sister,” said Bay Area resident Kat Chen. “We were at the local Long’s Drugs on the Peninsula. We were standing in line to get markers. I’m six, I’m bored. Then the ground started shaking. We thought it was a truck outside. Then literally everything flew off the shelves.”
“I was in an after-school program,” said California Academy of Sciences associate Richie Lipton. “Actually, the San Francisco Jewish Community Center and I were sitting under a table in the community center.”
Lipton was only seven years old when the earthquake occurred.
“October 17 is such a loaded date in Bay Area history because of the earthquake, the Battle of the Bay, A’s and Giants in the World Series,” he said. “Epic. Probably won’t ever happen again.”
Lipton, a production specialist for Cal Academy, came up with the idea to call this week’s Thursday Nightlife event “Hella 89” to reflect on the Loma Prieta earthquake. Of all the exhibits, people got the chance to safely experience 6.9 magnitude vibrations in the Academy’s Shake House, almost what it felt like 35 years ago.
“I remember the building was swaying back and forth and everyone was screaming under a table,” Lipton said. ‘The children were crying. It’s there forever.’
Those in the Bay Area have been hearing for years that the next big one is just around the corner. But after experiencing Loma Prieta, it has changed the way some view and deal with future earthquakes.
“We’ve had some significant earthquakes since then, but I feel like we’re hardened to that now as well,” Lipton said. “The running joke with San Franciscans is that we don’t get out of bed for less than a 5.0. That doesn’t scare us anymore.”
