O C H ISTO RY THE 1933 EARTHQUAKE [PART 1]
PHOTO COURTESY OF OC ARCHIVES
The view along Pacific Coast Highway in Sunset Beach, March 10, 1933.
Santa Ana High School student Bill Twist was home at 5:55 p.m., March 10, 1933, when Orange County was hit with the deadliest U.S. earthquake since the destruction of San Francisco in 1906. At first Twist thought the rumbling and shaking was a large truck. "But the noise got worse," he recalled 60 years later. "I thought, 'Boy, that is a really big truck!' About that time, I got up to look out and by that time it was really shaking. You could see the trees swaying. . . About that time, my dad was trying to get up the stairs to get to me and he got knocked back and forth, but he finally got up there." The initial shock lasted fifteen to thirty seconds and measured about 6.4 on today’s Richter scale. It was followed by many large aftershocks. Ultimately, the quake caused 120 fatalities (including at least four in Orange County), more than 2,500 injuries, and damages of at least $50 million in 1933 dollars. The scope of buildings and infrastructure damaged and destroyed throughout the region was tremendous. The quake impacted an estimated 75,000 square miles and was felt as far away as the San Joaquin Valley, the Owens Valley and northern Baja California. Although dubbed the “Long Beach Quake” its epicenter was about three miles southwest of Downtown Huntington Beach and about eight miles deep, along the Newport-Inglewood Fault. The Los Angeles Times described the scene as it played out in many local communities: "Buildings swayed and shook for minutes, falling bricks, chunks of cement and building material of all kinds rained down. Huge pieces of cement and bricks crashed through the tops of parked automobiles and in many instances injured pedestrians." Long Beach took the most casualties with fifty-two dead. Reporter Vera Kackley described how the quake felt in the 18
COUNTY CONNECTION / MAY 2017
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Co unty Co n n e c t i on
by Chris Jepsen
PHOTO COURTESY OF OC ARCHIVES
The National Guard and police (shown here at an Alpha Beta market in Santa Ana) stood watch against looting and chaos. PHOTO COURTESY OF OC ARCHIVES
The McDaniel Garage, Westminster, after the quake.
Long Beach Press-Telegram's newsroom: "All of a sudden the building jumped. It did not sway as in ordinary . . . earthquakes. It jumped and shook until the whole building rattled. It was as if the building were a rag doll in the jaws of a terrier. . . Glass crashed, lights dimmed and crashed, desks were thrown together, and a telephone booth toppled and fell . . . Ceilings and timbers crashed and fell about us. We fought our way through and over the wreckage with plaster dust so thick we could not see two feet in front of us." She was sure she would not survive, but she did. The Twist family of Santa Ana spent that night outside, riding out the alarming aftershocks and listening to radio broadcasts about the massive destruction throughout the region. ". . . There was a big aftershock around eleven o'clock that night and you could hear it coming,” said Bill Twist. “I guess part of it
