By Jim Reed

Imagine a natural disaster rendering hundreds of thousands of citizens homeless and communications systems silent. Visualize food and potable water unavailable and widespread looting of homes and businesses. Picture fires breaking out, massive numbers of evacuees ordered to flee the destruction, governmental agencies apparently unable to deal effectively with the crisis, a military presence needed to restore order and sanitation systems failing. Think of erroneous statements and unsubstantiated rumors in the national and international press, aid to the stricken communities pouring in from around the world and countless private citizens performing acts of astounding heroism to save the sick and the injured. Sound familiar?

The many parallels between two of the greatest natural disasters in U.S. history will immediately strike readers of this volume. In both the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and the recent devastation of Hurricane Katrina, the initial act of nature was only the first in a series of events that led to the destruction of a major coastal city and its environs.

“The Great Earthquake and Firestorms of 1906: How San Francisco Nearly Destroyed Itself” (University of California Press, 2005) is the third volume in Philip L. Fradkin’s series on earthquakes and one of the best nontechnical books on the ‘06 disaster.

Fradkin, two of whose 10 books have been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, is an environmental historian who has made use of source materials unavailable to earlier writers to create a detailed, accurate and highly readable account of the events leading up to the earthquake, the tremors themselves and the horrific aftermath of firestorms that destroyed more than 500 city blocks and killed an estimated 3,000 people.

Along the way, Fradkin discusses the underlying seismology of the Bay Area, political corruption at high levels in San Francisco’s government, various investigations that occurred after the event and the reconstruction that enabled San Francisco proudly to host the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition and demonstrate to the world the city’s recovery from its tragedy.

Fradkin does not neglect the destruction that occurred beyond San Francisco itself. From the near total ruin of Santa Rosa to the extensive damage of the fledgling Stanford University, from the loss of homes and commercial buildings in downtown San Jose to the wreckage and more than 110 deaths at Agnews State Hospital, the author gives his reader a clear understanding of the full extent of the havoc created by the earthquake.

Fradkin’s thesis is that the destruction of San Francisco was not primarily from natural causes but from the human factor: an inept and corrupt city government, an outmoded and inadequate water supply and a weak and unenforced building code all conspired to create the catastrophe that followed the quake itself.

As we approach the centennial of the earthquake next April 18, and as we reflect upon the more recent tragedy in the Southern states, it must be hoped that Fradkin’s book will serve as an impetus for those of us living along the faultlines to prepare ourselves, our homes and our workplaces for the next, inevitable Big One.

Jim Reed is the archivist at History San Jose. He is curating an exhibition on the 1906 quake, “It’s Our Fault Too,” which will open in April 2006.