An Integrated English Course Book 4

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An Integrated English Course Book 4

• Unit Sixteen

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Text I The Story of an Eyewitness

• How do you understand the title?
• Who is this eyewitness? What do you know about
  him or her?
• What is the story about?

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Background information

• About the article (Note 1)
• About the author (Note 2)
• About the city, San Francisco (???)
• --the fourth largest city in California and the
  14th largest in the United States the second
  most densely populated major city in the US.
• Located on the tip of the San Francisco
  Peninsula, surrounded on three sides by the
  Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay.

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(No Transcript)
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San Francisco
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About the 1906 San Francisco earthquake
Burning of San Francisco, Mission District
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Basic information

• Date April 18, 1906
• Magnitude 7.8 Mw
  (???Moment magnitude scale)
• Depth 80 Kilometers
• Epicenter location San Francisco
• Countries/regions affected United States
  (San Francisco Bay Area)
• Casualties 3,000 killed

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San Francisco earthquake of 1906

• The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 was a major
  earthquake that struck San Francisco, California
  and the coast of Northern California at 512 A.M.
  on Wednesday, April 18, 1906.
• The most widely accepted estimate for the
  magnitude of the earthquake is a moment magnitude
  (Mw) of 7.8 however, other values have been
  proposed from 7.7 to as high as 8.3.

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• The main shock epicenter occurred offshore about
  2 miles (3 km) from the city, near Mussel Rock.
  It ruptured along the San Andreas Fault both
  northward and southward for a total length of 296
  miles (477 km).
• Shaking was felt from Oregon to Los Angeles, and
  inland as far as central Nevada. The earthquake
  and resulting fire is remembered as one of the
  worst natural disasters in the history of the
  United States. The death toll from the earthquake
  and resulting fire, estimated to be above 3,000,
  represents the greatest loss of life from a
  natural disaster in California's history. The
  economic impact has been compared with the more
  recent Hurricane Katrina disaster.
• (http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1906_San_Francisco_e
  arthquake)

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Subsequent fires (1)

• As damaging as the earthquake and its
  aftershocks were, the fires that burned out of
  control afterward were much more destructive. It
  has been estimated that as much as 90 of the
  total destruction was a result from the
  subsequent fires. Due to the nearly universal
  practice of insurers to indemnify (??) San
  Francisco properties from fire but not earthquake
  damage, most damage within the city was blamed on
  the fires.

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Subsequent fires (2)

• It is probable, due to the extreme magnitude of
  the earthquake and the poor buildings standards
  of the time, that a majority of structures
  destroyed that day were initially destroyed from
  the movement of the earth before succumbing to
  fire. Fires broke out in many parts of town, some
  initially fueled by natural gas mains broken by
  the quake. Other fires were the result of
  arson(??) and campfires set by evacuees.

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• Worst of all, many were set when firefighters
  untrained in the use of dynamite attempted to
  dynamite buildings to create firebreaks(???),
  which resulted in the destruction of more than
  half of buildings that would have otherwise
  survived. The fire chief, who would have been
  responsible, had died in the initial quake. The
  dynamited buildings themselves often caught fire.
  The fires lasted for four days and nights.

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Subsequent fires (3)

• Some property owners set fire to their damaged
  buildings because most insurance policies covered
  fire losses while prohibiting payment if the
  building had only sustained earthquake damage.
  This effort was futile, as wealthier citizens of
  the city were burdened with the cost of repairing
  an estimated 80 of the city.

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Subsequent fires (4)

• Captain Leonard D. Wildman of the U.S. Army
  Signal Corps (????????) reported that he "was
  stopped by a fireman who told me that people in
  that neighborhood were firing their houses...
  They were told that they would not get their
  insurance on buildings damaged by the earthquake
  unless they were damaged by fire.