April 18, 2013 (Thursday)
“When we get to Heaven there will be no more pain, suffering or sorrow. Meanwhile, back on earth, it’s a different story.”
In 1936 a movie entitled, “San Francisco,” starring Jeanette McDonald, Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy, was a big hit. The movie was obviously made to feature the voice of Jeanette McDonald, but the special effects scenes of the April 18, 1906 earthquake stole the show. Presented only 30 years after the fact, the movie showed how devastating were the earthquake and the fires that followed.
Earthquakes’ sudden and abrupt appearances remind me of what Jesus said about his Second Coming: everything will be going along from day to day, with nothing unusual, and suddenly, in a flash, it happens. One second, peace and calm, the next, a totally new and unexpected scenario. At 5:12 a.m. on that day, Wednesday, April 18, 1906, in San Francisco, everything changed for those who were there.
Buildings came apart and fell to the ground, gas and water lines were severed, and then came the fires that burned for three days, at the end of which someone said, “There is practically nothing left.”
As many as 28,000 buildings were destroyed, and 225,000 people out of a population of 400,000 were left homeless. Deaths numbered 700-800, but other estimates put the number at over 3000. More than $400 million in 1906 dollars (between $10 billion and $11 billion today) was lost.
Professor Samuel Fortier, Irrigation Engineer, wrote to his colleague, Dr. Elwood Mead, Washington, D.C., on April 25, 1906, just one week after the earthquake, and reported that initial efforts to rebuild the city already had begun. “San Francisco is beginning to rise again out of its ashes…the people of San Francisco seem determined to begin at once to rebuild a new San Francisco . . . ”
April 18, 1906, 107 years ago today — a day to remember.
Devotional Thought:
In the midst of desolation, the surviving people of that city were aware that they had lost all their earthly belongings. Long ago, the prophet Habakkuk set the example for all of us in how to deal with such loss: “Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior” (Habakkuk 3:17-18 NIV).