phil@goldhill.com (10/24/89)
> From: gaf@uucs1.uucp > Subject: Amazing Quake Stories > We heard from one of the traffic monitoring people at US West who > noticed something peculiar around 5:05 PM Tuesday. He called his AT&T > counterpart in Oakland to see what was happening. The call was > answered, and the conversation went something like: > "Hey, what's happening there?" > "We've got an earthquake here, and, ..... oh ..... there's a big > crack in the wall now ..... <buzzzzz>" > I'd heard that AT&T was on the 10th floor of some building in Oakland, > so I don't know how apocryphal this is. Haven't heard of any > buildings that tall sustaining that kind of damage. I was on the 12th floor of a hotel in Emeryville at the time of the quake. The hotel was about 3/4 mile from where a section of the bridge collapsed and a 1/2 mile from the 880 collapse. It was not possible to move during the quake (I would have loved to at least get to the door frame but barring crawling I wouldn't have made it there.) As far as damage, the hotel had its exit stairwells exposed to the outside so each landing could be seen from the outside. Once outside you could see that there was a crack in the landing of every floor but more so on the lower floors. Walls in my room did crack - the interior bathroom walls in particular. Every piece of furniture was turned over (or on it's side) except for the chair that I was sitting in and the king size bed. The nightstand, sitting table, TV, and bureau were all toppled. I had never been a quake before so this was quite an experience. My best estimate was movement of a foot up and down and side to side. I've since heard that the area I was in was built on land fill (or should I say bay fill) and suffered ground movement of around a foot as opposed to a few inches in the Berkeley hills. The first question that I asked after getting out of the building was if this was a normal quake. That was perhaps the most frightening aspect of the whole thing - not knowing how to gauge the event with no reference point. Needless to say, I don't want to be on the top floor of a building the next time. I'll see what happens in two weeks when I'm back in the bay area. As far as communications goes, I was able to make calls into SF without any problem at around 7:30 west coast time. They completed as if nothing had happened. Dial tones came quick, however, completion of a call took many many tries. I was able to get to an international operator who then routed me somewhere (I don't know what she did) and was able to get to my wife in Boston around 8:00 west coast time. After that call I called my travel agent's 800 number and got through after two tries. I then had them get me a flight from Sacramento to LA the next morning (I was supposed to fly out of SF). Philip Stanhope Manager of Product Engineering Gold Hill Computers, Inc. Cambridge, MA. phil@goldhill.com