6 minute read
OC History
THE 1933 EARTHQUAKE [PART 1] by Chris Jepsen
PHOTO COURTESY OF OC ARCHIVES PHOTO COURTESY OF OC ARCHIVES
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The view along Pacific Coast Highway in Sunset Beach, March 10, 1933. The National Guard and police (shown here at an Alpha Beta market in Santa Ana) stood watch against looting and chaos.
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
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
was the chimney and the bricks falling off the roof. There was clinking and then it got louder and louder. We could see the tennis court was just rippling, and I thought, 'My gosh, that's going to be nothing but sand in the morning.'” Much of the plaster in their home had cracked and fallen and soot from the destroyed chimneys covered everything.
Like the Twists, thousands of Southern Californians stayed out of buildings that night, walking or driving until morning, huddling around street bonfires, dragging their beds into their yards, or sleeping in cars parked in vacant lots. Many temporarily fled cities and went out into the country.
Luckily, the quake hit around dinnertime, and most were at home, either eating or preparing a meal when the quake struck. Wood frame houses generally fared much better than Southern California's many unreinforced brick commercial and government buildings, but many were also pushed off their foundations and/or had their chimneys destroyed. At least 120 schools were damaged and seventy were destroyed. Thousands would have been killed if the quake had struck while class was in session.
Santa Ana High School, “was damaged, but not totally destroyed," remembered Twist, "particularly on the second floor of classes, you could sit and look right out through the walls through the big cracks." In the weeks that followed, he and other students would stamp their feet in unison to make the floor shake, scaring their teachers half to death. "We took great delight in that which really was unkind and thoughtless, but that's what kids will do."
Many roads were closed by the quake, with poles or walls collapsed into the street, bridges damaged, and pavement cracked. In some areas, phone lines were down as well. Power was knocked out in many areas. Some natural springs and wells suddenly went dry, while other long-dry wells suddenly flowed again.
Different communities took varying amounts of damage, depending on not only proximity to the epicenter, but also on the local geology and the methods used to construct their buildings. Immediate attempts to assess the damage were impeded by a heavy fog.
Buena Park took a beating with many homes damaged, water and gas pipes broken, and live electrical lines draped dangerously across roadways. Inglewood, Compton, Huntington Park and Artesia were also hit hard. Costa Mesa Grammar School and almost every building in Costa Mesa’s commercial district were seriously damaged.
In Laguna Beach, large boulders rolled down onto roads, blocking traffic. In San Clemente, landslides brought down some of the most expensive homes in town, including the home of Mayor Tom Murphine. In Cypress, the school was destroyed, forcing classes to meet in tents for several years. Anaheim’s business district experienced damage as well.
Orange, Tustin, La Habra, and San Juan Capistrano reported minor damage (like broken windows) and no casualties. In marshier areas like Fountain Valley and Stanton, a slurry of wet mud and sand shot up through fissures in the earth in some
The building with arches, on the left, along Highway 101 (now El Camino Real), was San Clemente’s first City Hall, seen here in the 1930s.
areas. In other areas, solid land turned to quicksand.
The spot where the shock was felt the strongest was near the beach in what’s now Southeast Huntington Beach. Luckily, that area was very sparsely populated in the 1930s. Still, that stretch of Pacific Coast Highway split and stair-stepped in the middle, and oil derricks were, as historian Leo Friis put it, “squashed several inches out of the ground.” Downtown brick building facades came crashing down and foundations were damaged. Local girl Billie Kennedy watched Central Grammar School collapse and was horrified to think of the children and teachers who would have been killed had he quake struck earlier. The school would soon be rebuilt as Ethel Dwyer Intermediate School.
In Newport Beach, 800 chimneys toppled and several buildings were destroyed. Reports of an expected but nonexistent tsunami sent many scurrying inland. Ultimately, the quake was surprisingly less violent in Newport than in many other surrounding communities that were farther from the epicenter. Newport had one quake casualty who was generally not included in the overall tally: Santa Ana pioneer merchant George A. Edgar died of a heart attack triggered by the quake while visiting at his Balboa summer home.
Our next edition will discuss the grim effects of the quake in Santa Ana, Garden Grove and Seal Beach, as well as lessons learned in the aftermath which permanently changed Orange County for the better.
