As the 25th anniversary of the Loma Prieta earthquake arrives, I am reminded of the time spent watching the footage of the aftermath. At that time, I had never been to California, and so I didn’t quite understand what I was seeing…but my parents knew. They had been there several times. They kept saying that a lot of people were probably dead on the Oakland Bay Bridge. As I looked at the pictures, and heard the reporter mistakenly describe the bridge, as simply collapsed, so I just didn’t get it. My parents kept saying, “That is a double road…don’t they understand that?” I guess they didn’t…and I didn’t either. They finally told me that it was a double deck bridge. Then I got it…in every sickening detail, I got it. People were trapped under tons of metal and concrete. Maybe their cars could have saved them, but it was doubtful. That was just too much weight. In the end, only one person was killed on the Oakland Bay bridge, because it was closed for retrofitting. The people on The Nimitz Expressway…also a double deck bridge, at the Cypress Street Viaduct, were not so lucky. That bridge also collapsed and when it did, it killed 42 of the total of 67 people killed in the Earthquake.
The day was October 17, 1989, the first game of the World Series was being played right there in San 
Francisco at Candlestick Park between the two local teams…The Oakland Athletics and the San Francisco Giants. The people in the area were very excited and baseball was the only thing on their minds. The game was to start at 5:30pm, but that was not to be. The earthquake rated a magnitude 7.1 struck at 5:04pm. Game day would have to wait. Today, it was all hands on deck. And the first question on everyone’s mind was, “Is my family safe?” In that moment, all thought of baseball stopped, and everyone’s mind was on finding the victims…and, hopefully finding them alive.
I can’t say that I knew anyone who lived through the earthquake, nor anyone who died in it, but rather what I felt was how it impacted my parents at that time. I also felt that same impact on me when I visited San Francisco a few years later. I don’t think you can know an area where people were killed in an earthquake, or even visit that place and not feel something…not if you knew or remember the disaster that happened in that place. San Francisco is a beautiful place, with so much to see, but it is also a sad place where, over the years, the San Andreas fault has exploded over and 
over again, leaving in its wake, the bodies of its victims…and the shattered lives of their families. I suppose there are people who can go there, and give no thought to that historical fact, but I am not one of those people. I think there are places when the memories of tragedies in the past lingers in an almost physical way. The ground becomes almost hallowed, deserving of respect for those who died there. Lives with so much promise, people with so much to live for, were wiped out in just 15 seconds…the 15 seconds that the earthquake was happening. That was all it took…just 15 seconds, and they were gone. That was 25 years ago today, and when I think of all the contributions those people could have made to the world, it makes me very sad indeed.
These are comments from my cousin, Greg Hushman and his daughter Stephanie. Stephanie was there when the earthquake hit.
Stephanie Hushman-Willard: I do remember, but being that I was so young, I didn’t really understand the heaviness or severity of it at the time. I was six and in ballet class. It’s true you hear it coming and going like a freight train or a loud rolling thunder, and I was confused by it. The ground feels like a rug being jerked out from under you, but the walls scared me the most, they swayed like curtains in the wind. I remember immediately wanting my mother and wondering if she was driving and was stuck in some gigantic hole that must have opened and swallowed her up, thankfully that didn’t happen. She was there to get me, very shortly after the quake struck. Even though we were little, we knew what happened as we had been taught what to do in school in case of an earthquake, but I can tell you, there was no time to react. There was no large table or strong structure to dive under before it was over. It came and was gone, that fast, that is scary. I remember watching with the world as rescue teams tried to save the people on the bridge, I remember it took days to get everyone off the bridge and I heard them be interviewed directly out of the hospitals and my mother shaking her head at their accounts. There were aftershocks, which were almost as terrifying as the actual earthquake, as we were all on edge, and I remember not wanting to sleep in my bed thinking the next big one could hit again, and imagining my ceiling falling in on me. It didn’t, and we and everyone we knew were safe and didn’t have much damage to their homes, maybe a crack in the walls or driveways. Sorry for the book, lol, but the quake that struck there a few months ago, had me discussing the 89′ quake with an old friend of mine who currently lives in the same area I did at the time. It’s a crazy thing, an earthquake, it certainly makes you feel small.
Greg Hushman: ALL I KNOW IS THAT IT TOOK ME SEVERAL DAYS OF WORRYING BEFORE THE PHONE LINES WERE UP SO THAT I COULD TALK TO HER AND MAKE SURE SHE WAS OKAY. TOOK 10 YRS OFF OF ME.
I Used to live there. I was in that area all the time. I worked a a bar in Oakland not far from the Bridge. Shorty had then and still does have family there. My Kids were in High school here in Newport when it hit. It was tragic but you have to remember that those people that live there are diehard Californians. The earth quakes don’t mean much to them they have them all the time. They scared the hell out of me. I was thru two of them and when I left there it was with as much joy as you can see in any person. My Mom and Dad loved it there because it was always warm and they put up with the Quakes until Larry died and then they didn’t want to be there any more. I was very sad to see so much of the places I had enjoyed there gone. But I would never go back there. Not even for a visit. I was in southern California with Terry on the Truck and I hated every bit of it.
I’m sure Shirley. I don’t think I would want to live in such an earthquake prone area.