S.F.'s rebirth after '06 quake offers hope for New Orleans 99 years apart, disasters that devastated both cities share strange similarities
SF Gate has two separate articles comparing the 1906 SF Quake with last week’s disaster in New Orleans.
In one piece, Carl Nolte remarks, “Both cities loved life, both were destroyed by a force of nature, and the destruction was nearly total. After a huge earthquake and three days of uncontrolled fires in 1906, San Francisco was a wreck — “a blackened, ruined thing, the pity of the world,” said Sydney Tyler, a journalist. In New York, they wrote San Francisco’s obituary, a newspaper series called “The City That Was.”
And in John King’s Urban Design column, “…if history, including San Francisco’s experience in 1906, is any indication, the response will be a determined return to life — with an emphasis on getting things done quickly, rather than getting them done right.”
King’s observation is a curious one. There will obviously be a rush to normalcy, but what an amazing opportunity to work with the historical treasures that remain and work to correct things that might not have meshed with modern life…. Or to take flaws (such as the pump an levee system) and make sure that they are built to withstand anything Mother Nature can send its way?
Nolte’s piece focuses on the pre-’06 San Francisco and the post-’06 San Francisco as two distinctly different places. And not always for the right reasons. Hopefully there will be a way to make positive changes to New Orleans where they may be needed as the rebuilding process gets underway.
