quake Archives - DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS

Battle over San Francisco’s historic quake shacks

Daily SF News — Sun, 07 May 2023 23:46:01 +0000

It’s not easy building things in San Francisco.

Noe Valley’s neighbors are at odds with a developer over the fate of two so-called Quake Shacks — built as the town coped with a massive homelessness crisis after the 1906 earthquake. reported the San Francisco Chronicle.

Developer John Shrader has backed out of an original plan that called for the cottages at 369 Valley Street to be demolished to make way for a large mansion on the property. Instead, he’s attempting to incorporate the two structures into the design of a more modest 2,700-square-foot home, the outlet reported. Part of the plan calls for the cabins to be moved onto the property.

“I understand that Quake Shacks is historical in nature and we’ve changed our plans half a dozen times, but there are still people who oppose this project,” he told the Chronicle. “I do not know what it is. If it feels like it – do you know San Francisco is just anti-development? Maybe that’s what’s going on here.”

Critics, meanwhile, say the quake shelters – thousands of which were hastily built to house the poor and working class made homeless by the devastating earthquake – should be left alone.

“History is what this is about,” John Blackburn, a historian at Quake Shack, told the Chronicle. “They helped the working class get their first homes back then, they represent the resilience of San Francisco, and today very few of them remain. …

“[T]Hey are really important. We must preserve them.”

Shrader, who has been trying to build a home on the property for nine years, will have his plan reviewed at a hearing before the city’s zoning administrator sometime this month, the outlet said.

Regardless of who prevails, the outcome will almost certainly be contested, with neighborhood and historical groups lining up to keep the shacks unscathed.

“In our view, the huts may not survive a move, and even if they do, they may not be recognizable as earthquake huts,” Marc Norton, who lives across the lot, told the Chronicle. “That is not acceptable.”

– Ted Shiner

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Magnitude 5.1 quake strikes in San Francisco Bay Space | Nationwide

Fri, 28 Oct 2022 05:46:16 +0000

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A magnitude 5.1 earthquake rattled the San Francisco Bay Area on Tuesday, causing delays of some commuter trains. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

The US Geological Survey said the 11:42 am quake was centered 12 miles (19 kilometers) east of San Jose at a depth of about 4 miles (6 kilometers). The area is hill country about 40 miles (64 kilometers) southeast of downtown San Francisco.

Lucy Jones, a veteran California seismologist, told KNTV-TV that the quake happened on the Calaveras fault, one of eight major faults in the Bay Area.

“The Calaveras fault is one that tends to have smaller earthquakes,” Jones said.

It was the largest earthquake in the Bay Area since a magnitude 6.0 jolt in the Napa wine country in 2014, Jones said in a social media post.

The 138-mile (220-kilometer) long Calaveras fault is a major branch of the San Andreas fault and runs from San Juan Bautista in the south to San Ramon in the north, Jones said.

Numerous moderate earthquakes have occurred along the Calaveras fault, including the 6.2 Morgan Hill earthquake in 1984, Annemarie Baltay, a seismologist with the US Geological Survey, said in a video statement posted on Twitter.

Rich Constantine, the mayor of Morgan Hill, a city next to San Jose, said he was struck in the kitchen of his home when Tuesday’s “long and steady” quake.

“We had a frame in the house fall, everything was shaking but once it stopped, there was no damage,” he said.

Constantine said Morgan Hill’s City Hall and other city offices were evacuated but that everyone returned to work soon after.

People reported feeling the quake as far south as the scenic Big Sur coast, 75 miles (120 kilometers) south of the epicenter in the region of Joseph Grant Ranch County Park, a huge natural area.

Nearly 100,000 people reported receiving a warning before the shaking started through California’s earthquake early warning system, according to the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, or Cal OES.

“Advance notice varied from two seconds for those very near the epicenter to 18 seconds for those in San Francisco,” the agency said.

MyShake, a statewide cellphone app that went live to the general public in late 2019, relies on an earthquake detection and notification system developed by the US Geological Survey and partners.

A 3.1 aftershock followed about 5 minutes later, according to the US Geological Survey.

Several commuter train companies, including Cal Train and the Bay Area Rapid Transit system, known as BART, held trains to check for damage. BART returned to normal service by early afternoon.

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San Francisco Victorian that survived 1906 quake asks $4.6M

Thu, 03 Mar 2022 14:14:38 +0000

Presidio Heights’ 331 Arguello withstood the Great Earthquake of 1906 and, in a twist of good fortune for lovers of all things Victorian, the many quakes that followed thereafter. The hundred-plus-year-old home is now for sale, asking $4,595 million.

Curbside, this beautiful Victorian is iconic, historic San Francisco. Architectural details have been preserved, painted and polished.

Victorian embellishments have been lovingly highlighted.