Doomed to Fail - Ep 86 - Shake it like you mean it - The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake

Episode Date: February 19, 2024

Today, it is part one of the Great San Francisco disasters of 1906. We talk about the history of San Francisco, how California became a state, immigration and birthright with the United States v Wong Kim Ark, and finally, the 42 seconds of terror as a 7.9 magnitude earthquake jolted the city awake at 5:12 am on April 18, 1906.That was bad, but the fires started almost immediately - we'll cover those next week! An Oral History of "We Built This City," the Worst Song of All Time | GQChinese Immigration and the Chinese Exclusion ActsHaunted by Houses: On the California Victorian in Fiction | Los Angeles Review of Bookshttps://encyclopedia.densho.org/United_States_v._Wong_Kim_Ark/The Longest Minute - https://www.amazon.com/Longest-Minute-Great-Francisco-Earthquake-ebook/dp/B09Y465G8X Join our Founders Club on Patreon to get ad-free episodes for life! patreon.com/DoomedtoFailPodWe would love to hear from you! Please follow along! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doomedtofailpod/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doomedtofailpod  Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/@doomedtofailpod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@doomed.to.fail.pod Email: [e-mail] 

In a matter of the people of the state of California versus Orenthal James Simpson, case number B.A.019. And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. And we are off to a relatively late recording. Taylor is yawning. I'm cleaning the dark. 7 o'clock and I'm yawning.

We are mixing it up this time. But we're here. And we are. doomed to fill. Yet again, the podcast with Taylor and Fars myself, I call myself Fars on a third person, covering random topics that we find interesting. And sometimes there's a common theme and most of the time there isn't. Is that a fair enough summarization? That's perfect. Tell your friends. Tell your friends. And I think given the fact that we kind of went off script with who goes first two times ago or last time, I think it's you this

time, right, Taylor? Yes, I go first. Sweet. Do you want to, you know, I'm going to be able to guess, or are you going to do this? Oh, I haven't thought about, okay, I have a, this is going to be in two parts. Okay, I'm going to have you guess. I will have you guess. This is in two parts, because it's two disasters right after each other. Hiroshima and Nagasaki. No, but we should do that sometime. No, it's in the same place.

and one thing is because of hectonic plates shifting and the other thing is just like the aftermath. San Francisco. Yes. Thank you. I guess that was, I gave up.

That was easy. Okay. So because this is such a long story and so much happened in the, you know, with the earthquake and then the fire, I'm going to do it in two parts. So I'm going to start with the earthquake

and a little bit of the history of San Francisco and California. But you know what this reminded me of that I just think is like so freaking funny. You know that song, the song, We Built This City on Rock and Roll. So there's a GQ article called an oral history of We Built the City, the worst song of all time. And it's so funny. I will link to it. But it's like, I don't want to shut up.

I can't believe it's still on the radio. Like we're really excited because we'll be a lot of money, but like, oh, my God, we're so embarrassed. And then like one guy's like, it was the best song on that album. How can it be the worst song ever? and then like it's just everyone's mad like everyone was like fighting when they're making it the guy who does the DJ part you know where he's like the city that never sleeps the city that rocks he is so embarrassed he like he's like he did one take and then through his headphones and he was like fuck you guys like everyone was just so mad and it's a really hilarious read so I will link to that I love I love when bands like hate each other like the oasis brothers the fact that they like literally get into like fist fights every time they record is like the funniest thing to me totally um that's like, I was like, let me say, I want to just go song, I know, but that was just so funny. So, and lest anyone thinks that I think California is perfect and has no blemishes upon her history, I'm going to talk a little bit about how California became a state and how it grew, and then address

the historical precedent of the Supreme Court case, the United States versus Wong Kim Ark. And then we'll talk about what was happening right up into the earthquake in 1906. wait so is this a two-part series yeah oh okay cool all right and then we'll do the fire next week sweet when you when you said it's in two parts i thought you're i thought you meant the way i do it with like act one act two oh no okay literally two times mini series yeah that's a mini series um so have you been to san francisco uh yeah i've been a few times yeah i've never really been i went to oakland the other like a month ago but I've never I don't think I've ever like I've ever like stepped foot in San Francisco I've been to like the airport you know the only time no I've only had my car broken in twice once was in college and the other time was when we were working at our last company together and I told me I had to go to San Francisco for some conference and I parked across in like the major park I don't know what it's called but my car got broken into it was awful oh I'm sorry you drove there it's long time well it was from L.A yeah I know I know but still yeah yeah it's a it's a Yeah, because California is huge.

I don't even drive from Texas. Jesus, I'll take you like seven days. I'll be terrible. No, don't do that. So before the arrival of the Europeans, San Francisco area was home of the Olone tribe. They lived there for thousands of years. They had many different languages,

different little groups, and they were mostly hunter-gatherers, but they did have some, a little bit of, like, small gardens. They didn't have, like, huge fields, but they had, like, a little bit of agriculture. So they lived there, you know, for thousands of years until Europeans came in, and the people that came to that part of California were the Spanish, because it was part of, of the Spanish colonies on the United States. And in 1776, the Spanish explorers established a mission called, I apologize right now to my in-laws and every Hispanic person.

when I say this, it's the Presidio of San Francisco, wait, and the mission of San Francisco De Assis, known as Mission Dolores. So maybe that wasn't that too bad. The Mission Dolores is what it was called. So it was like a local mission. And it was meant to convert the Olonis into Christians. Of course, that was their goal. Yeah. Let's make everybody Christian. Why not? So Mexico gained control of California, the state, like our area, in 1821, once after it won independence from Spain, which we talked about. So Mexico becomes its own country. California is part of that country of Mexico. And what they would do... Wait, hold on. California was part of Mexico. Yeah,

it was like all, like California was part of Mexico and like that part of Texas. Then, then enter the Mexican-American War in 1846 to 1848 where the United States like took over Canada and then like later got Texas after. Canada? Not Canada. I'm so sorry. California. Okay. People, we're not historians. Did you see how pink my face is? I feel like I got sunburnt doing our cookie. You're flush and I felt like it was like you might be drinking something.

I'm not. I'm drinking tea, but I think I got a little sunburn today. Sun cookies outside of the Walmart, so I just feel a little pink. I guess it's cute. It's cute. And I have the Zoom glow on. It's like you have blush on. I think that's what we can call it.

Yeah, it is. Great job. So, okay, I made to see California. So California is now part of the United States. And they became part of the United States because of the Mexican-American War. And then there was a ceasefire agreed in January 1847. So the Mexican-American War ended with the Treaty of Guadalupe, Haldago in 1848. And the treaty had Mexico seated present-day California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and parts of Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming.

So it was a huge land after that one. Yeah, big get after that. It's like when you do like double war playing war with cards and you get like a king and an ace. And so that's happening in and they're trying to figure out what like how to do it. Like you can't just like it doesn't happen overnight. They're trying to figure out the different treaties. And in the meantime, so that treaty was signed 1848. So possibly right before it was signed. or possibly right after it was signed there was gold found in a place called Sutter's Mill in the Sierra Nevada foothills near Coloma, California that are where it is now

and when they found the gold and then people rushed, that's the gold rush, which I feel like we should talk about. I'm sure it has some like fun stories in it, but essentially that's when the population in California really started to boom because of a prospect of gold.

And the people who were digging for gold, Gold diggers? No, 49ers. That's a person digging gold. And I didn't, I was like, why is that? Like, why are they called that? And it's just because they mostly came in 1849.

Oh, well, there you go. That makes sense. Like, when did you come here, 49? You know, for the gold. So by this time, you know, so it's 1849. Tons of people are moving to California from the other parts of the U.S. For gold, for opportunity, for all the things. And then California officially became a state.

in 1850. So on September 9th, 1850, President Miller Fillmore signed resolution to get California in. It was the 31st state in the United States. So that was also a part of the 1850 compromise because there was still, this was pre-Civil War and they were trying to figure out how they can add new states and what states will allow enslaved people, which states won't. So California was admitted as a free state. But there was still a pretty terrible and strict fugitive slave law that if you ran away from being enslaved to California, they would send you back. With California would send you back? Yeah.

Like it wasn't a safe place. Like I think, I think. And who was it free for? You couldn't like start new. Oh. You know, you couldn't like have slaves there. But you also like also wasn't a safe place for them. Like, I think, like, New York might have been or, like, some of the other, like, northern places were, like, a safe place that you could essentially, like, run away to, but you couldn't run away to California. You could be set back.

So, that's where we are. We are in California, and there's, like, tension over, over that, but we are our own state. And there is going to be, like, some pretty big, like, racial tension things happening in California. in the United States then and now and always. But in California, there was specifically a ton of racism towards Chinese people. Obviously, like, this sounds really stupid when I say it out loud, but I feel like it's much easier to get to it. This is not dumb. Like, it's easy to get to the West Coast from China.

Like, it's harder to get to New York. You know, like, so people were coming from China. Right? Like, if you have a boat. I feel like that's why there's more nice people. If you have a boat, you know what? If you give a boat, you think that it's easier to get across the Pacific Ocean? Yeah, then get to New York, because you'd have to go down the Cape, the bottom.

Okay, okay, okay, fine. And in that context, it is easier to get there than it is. Yeah, okay. Yeah, I'm not saying like now, but I'm saying like then. I'm like, that's why there was like immigration from Asia and more than the West Coast. I don't know if that's true. I'm sorry. Okay, but there's a huge increase of Chinese immigration.

in the 1850s and 1860s. So there was a guy who was the mayor of San Francisco until 1902. He was also a U.S. senator named James D. Phelan. And he campaigned under the slogan, keep California white because he wanted to stop immigration. He has some real bad posters that show like a hand from the east trying to grab California. So it's not great. So there's a lot of tension kind of happening there. Meanwhile, literally, like, all technology was invented, like, right there in San Francisco.

So the Chinese immigrants were, you know, a ton of them worked on, like, the Transcontinental Railroad. They did a bunch of, you know, a lot of manual labor. They had their own, like, community in San Francisco and in other places. Like, now they're the Chinatown in, like, most big cities, you know. And a lot of that was because they were, like, isolated. They were the other. It's an easy to see other, you know, like, you can, people would, you know, you know, obviously treat them differently.

And it got real bad. In 1882 was the first Chinese Exclusion Act. So you could no longer immigrate to the United States from China. They blocked people coming from China at all. And then there was an act that there were a couple more acts that kept renewing the Exclusion Act. So that it was actually law until like the 19, into 1944, you couldn't immigrate to the United States from China without like. special circumstances or whatever um and oh my gosh did you take a citizenship law class when you were in law school no i think i mean i'm a naturalized i was naturalized so i have done the

process it's confusing as shit reading this wikipedia page about it so please wait which what's confusing about it well like there's just like a lot no no no not the test but like the law around citizenship is like very complicated um but one of the things that came up especially specifically in San Francisco during this time is the 14th Amendment. Do you know what that one is? Also, amendments are just like a sentence. So like a very long, complicated. But the 13th Amendment was to repeal slavery. And then the 14th was about citizenship. Because this is simplifying it, but like all of a sudden, you have freed a huge, huge population of people. And before they had no rights and they like,

were not even considered American. So you have to be like, they are now U.S. citizens and they had to figure out like why and how they would be able to like do that, you know? So that's what the 14th Amendment. Yeah, I never thought about that. But yeah, makes sense. So one of the things in the 14th Amendment is that if you are born on American soil, you are a U.S. citizen. So I think we've heard that like a bunch of always. So there is a man named Wong Kim Ark.

and he is born around 1873 in San Francisco. His parents are Wong-Siping and Li Wei. They immigrated from China, but they weren't U.S. citizens. But they lived in San Francisco. They had a business. And they were like, it was before the Chinese Exclusion Act. They were able to live in California and have their business and, like, you know, contribute to the community, all the things like they lived there.

But then they decided to move back to China. So his parents moved back to China. and Wong would visit them and he visited them a couple times. He actually got married to a woman in China and they had a couple of kids, but he couldn't bring them to the United States because of the Chinese Exclusion Act. So he would like visit them and was trying to figure out how to get them into the United States. So in November 1894, Wong goes to China to visit his family and he stays there for about a year and he comes back in August 1895. And he's a U.S. citizen. He has a U.S. passport. He was born here, all the things. And they were like, nah, they decided that they didn't want to let him back in. And they kept him, this is like, sounds fucking terrible, on a boat in the San Francisco port for five months, like while they were trying to figure out what to do with him.

Was that the one of the federal report, federal, right? Like, I think so. Well, it ended up, it was like a state thing first and ended up going to the Supreme Court, the U.S. Supreme Court. to figure out, like, what to do. And he ended up being allowed to stay. And it is the law of Zhu Soli, J-U-S-O-L-I, which means right of the soil, which is like the, what they ended up putting in the, I ended up clarifying in the 14th Amendment meant if you're born on U.S. soil, you are a U.S. citizen. They were asked to the question that the Supreme Court was essentially asked,

is, this is a quote, kind of long, but whether a child born in the United States of parents of Chinese descent who at time of his birth are subjects to the emperor of China would have a permanent domicile and residence in United States and are there carrying on business and are not employed in a diplomatic or official capacity under the emperor of China becomes at the time of his birth a citizen of the United States. And so they voted that that was yes. And he was allowed to say. And eventually he did get his family involved his son fought in World War II. So they ended up you know, staying in America. But that was like a big case to kind of clarify one of the points of the 14th Amendment.

You know what's interesting is when I took my American citizenship, they told me to like renounce, quote unquote, my Iranian citizenship. But I had no Iranian. Like there was no legal document of that because in Iran, it's, it's not like that concept you just articulated, which is like you're born here. Because I wasn't born in Iran because to them, like my blood is Iranian. because my parents are Iranians. They don't give a shit what

what citizenship paper I have. It's like you are blood Iranian. So like they don't, I mean, that's, that's literally why I don't go back. And while I'll never go back is because they could like, oh, this is your American passport. Go fuck yourself. Like it doesn't really matter.

Totally. And I think I was trying to understand it like very quickly, but there are like other things that are like that. Like, you know, some countries are like you are the citizenship of like your parents' blood, you know? you're not it's not because you're here yeah america's actually like weirdly lax about that compared to like other places yeah i never i never thought about it like what it means other places the only thing i ever thought about is like if you're born somewhere else you can't be president

yeah yeah that was drilled into me when i was young i was like i'm gonna be president one day i was just like a bushy-tailed little fars and yeah it's not gonna happen well when one of my kids becomes president either one i think could do it um i'm gonna give ghost tours of the white house so you're welcome to join me if you like they're going to be at night and it's going to be really fun and the secret surf is going to hate hate it they they have my vote whichever one runs thank you thank you they'll be great um so but yeah so that's so that's what's happening there's like a lot of racial tension in california um in san francisco the city is very divided on like different like class um areas but let's talk a little bit about san francisco which is where we know the earthquakes are

obviously of course everyone knows that um what i didn't know is that a lot of san francisco at least um like the mission area and like some other areas are built like on piles of trash because people would like literally get so excited to come to california for gold that they would like drive their boat into the beach and just leave it you know and then they'd go and then they were so there was like trash and like buildings and stuff and they were just kind of like piled up over you know many years and then they built a lot of the city on top of that trash pile which like they do like there's like fill land in like new york city like they where they extend the shoreline to be able to build on top of it but like a lot of san francisco like wasn't even built

on bedrock so it was definitely like not a super safe thing to do in a place with earthquakes when we were living in l.A didn't they have was there a story in san francisco about this like luxury condo high rise like multi-million dollar condos and it was like leaning and so like everybody had to like evacuate or something do you remember this i don't remember but i believe that yeah yeah it was it was something about how like it was that there was not built on bedrock because of that and yeah no exactly it was yeah so like that's not safe you should you should get a stick and put in your yard and make sure that you hit bedrock where you go to sleep tonight just so you know that you're safe yes listeners in san francisco just get out of your condo

Everybody. Everybody should do it. But San Francisco, because of the gold rush, because of all these things, it is now 1906. It is the biggest city west of St. Louis. There are 400,000 people living in San Francisco in 1906. It is April, specifically, 1906. And it has been very dry, of course. Like, that's kind of what you need to have a disaster like a fire. And a lot of the buildings are made of wood.

San Francisco really hadn't had a huge devastating fire so places like Chicago when that was in the 1870s like they've already rebuilt and rebuilt better but San Francisco didn't really have that and when they did have things like there were many earthquakes and like fires and all the things that happened

but when those things happened they would pass new laws that were like now we have to build buildings better but they never retroactively went back and changed the older buildings you know I mean because I mean that's fair it sounds like a lot of work like no one wants to do it but um it beat it you know the tinderbox that it ended up being during this time it's also and this is also another thing

that i feel as stupid that i didn't think about but like duh san francisco has a bunch of hills because of the tautonic plates like i get it now like that i don't know i never thought like the hilliness of it is because of like the earthquakes that have been in san francisco for what is it what is it the fact that there's several like converge there like what it's just the biggest one so the st andrea's fault is the one that like goes up california as we know and it is the pacific and the north american plates and the way that they are next to each other so like we learn this in the volcano series that like this is the visual portion so i have two plates if i go um down with one up with the other then i can create like a volcano and like mountain ranges like the Himalayas, you know, because then I'm going, like, making these huge cracks in the earth and, like, that, that's huge. Or I can have two tech kind of plates that rub against each other. Like, I think I saw this before, but this was the example that stuck with me in a book that I read about volcanoes is, it's like when you are parallel parking and you're, and you hit the

curb and you're like next to the curb and it kind of squeaks, you know? That's what the San Andreas fault is. So it is just those two kind of pushing against each other. So it's kind of like, it kind of like rumbles it's not going to make Himalayas anytime soon but it is going to make like Little Hills because it does all the rumbling and it kind of smushing as each other makes sense I think I'm sorry

well no the reason I bring it up is because it's like obvious like San Francisco is the scariest part of the world I think when it comes to earthquakes or the assumption of what's going to happen in San Francisco but it's like why is it so because they're everywhere but it sounds like it's because it's the biggest

one and probably one thing I heard is that the pressure there has been building up for a lot longer than anywhere else and hasn't been actually really released yet and so that's probably one of the other reasons why it's the scariest because when it does release it's going to release a shit ton of energy totally absolutely yeah that totally makes sense so but because of the hills and again like I always think about people who live on like a hill in San Francisco and I'm like that sounds terrible like I live on a hill and it's exhausting like I would have to walk to the bottom I have to walk back up I'm like, it's not even that big of a hell.

You drive up, you drive up the hill. In San Francisco? No, you? No, I know. I go for walks. Okay, okay, fine, fine. Okay. I was saying you're not walking down to the bottom of the hill for the market.

I know. That sounds terrible. Yeah. That sounds awful. Yeah. So it's also then hard to get water to those places because of the pressure and like going like up pressure going up a hill and like all of this so just like keep that in mind it's hard to get water to different places in san francisco everything's made of wood and it has been very dry

but nevertheless the fire department is really fucking great it is as good as it can be for this time in history so it is they have over 500 full-time firefighters so it's not volunteers it's like people who it's their job they have like stations all over the city they don't there's It's all horse-drawn carriages right now, but they are, you know, they're ready for everything. The fire chief, his name was Dennis T. Sullivan. He was 53 years old, and he was very proud of what he had done, which totally, it's absolutely makes sense because they work really, really hard. The fire chief from Denver, Colorado, happened to be in town on this night.

So this is the night of April 17th, 1906. And he was like, the buildings were all wood. This place is going to, like, unbelievably catch on fire. But then he met with Chief Sullivan, and he was like, no, actually, everything's going to be fine because you guys are half-notch firefighters. Like, this is the best it can possibly be. So they, the fire department had, of course, like, been at a fire the night before. They had, there's, it's the same thing that we heard in like Chicago, like, you know, a building full of paper is going to catch on fire, you know. There's just, there's so much reliance on fire.

There was actually, um, parts of San Francisco had been fitting. with electricity. So there were like some like electric street lamps and a lot of businesses had electricity, but most residential houses still had just like gas for their lighting. If they did like convert a gas power home to electricity, they would like this sound so unbelievably unsafe. But they would just like, instead of putting the wires in the walls, they would just like hang the wires along the top of the wall, you know? So like plenty of opportunity for shit to catch on fire. You know? I kind of get it. Yeah.

So, okay, it's April 17th. The night before. And this is like, when you think the night before a disaster, you just remember everything from it. You know, like you would never remember that night until the disaster happens the next day. And then you'll like never forget what happened during that night. Does that make sense? Yeah. Like, I remember like September 10th to the day before September 11th.

It rained a ton. I remember what I was wearing. I remember I went to. Yeah. I was, it was pouring rain and like I was super poor because I was in college. I didn't have any money and I was wearing these like bell bottom jeans and these like huge shoes that I got in Germany and like, but they were like soaked to my knees and I had, um, bought a bunch of bagels at our bagel store had a 25 cent bagels Monday nights. So I bought a bunch of them. I had in my backpack.

It was raining so hard. I usually walked like a mile and a half to my apartment, but I couldn't do it. It was because it was so raining so hard. So I took the train. I remember sitting on the train and like a little girl told me she like, she liked my backpack. I remember all that happening. I went to my house. I cut all the bagels in half.

I put them all in the freezer and wrote September 10th on all of them. And then I remember hanging my jeans in the back of my chair because they were wet. I went on like AIM and was mad because the boy like didn't message me like everything because the next day was September 11th. And then I remember that. You know what I mean? You're like, that's the last time that I felt. That's the last time I was before this event in my life. you know that amount of details and tense like you remember a lot of details well I have a good

memory but also like I just feel like it just it's just like that's that was like the last time I was the person who hadn't been through that you know yeah yeah makes sense so there's a lot of stories of the night before the earthquake of people being like you know I did this and it felt normal or like kids being like oh I went to my friend's house and I came home and I went to sleep And you just like remember those things. It was a big opera night in San Francisco. There were, there was a opera of Carmen and everybody loved it. And so there were a lot of people like out doing like fancy things the night before.

San Francisco also has a, I'm sure it's probably like all big cities, but there's a ton of hotels and people who would like live in like rented rooms and just kind of like, you know, stay in a place for a short amount of time and then go somewhere else. So there's a ton of that happening. And so it was a very, very nice night. Actually, a couple, I think a couple of days before this, Mount Vesuvius had erupted. And people in the Italian section of San Francisco were raising money to send back to Italy to help people. And so everything was normal except some horses started to act weird because they always know. Yeah. So people were like, especially in the middle of the night, people were like, I don't know, my horse is like kind of going crazy and I don't really know why.

And I have a bunch of anecdotal stories about the earthquake from the book that I'm reading. It's called The Longest Minute, so I'll put that in the notes as well. But the earthquake struck at 512 a.m. on April 18th, 1906. The epicenter was actually in the water. So, like, they couldn't, they didn't know where it was for a while, but, like, it happened in the water. And there's a story of a dude who was swimming. And he, like, he was like, things are weird. Like, he was, like, going for his morning swim.

And he tried to go to the beach and, like, put his shoes on. he couldn't get like falling over because he was like what's happening you know like it's just like it's confusing have you you felt earth cuts when you were here right oh yeah and it's just confusing it's very confusing your equilibrium is off in a way that you your brain cannot operate also what a fucking psychopath like can you imagine waking up in the morning if five o'clock in the morning going to an empty beach and swimming into the middle of the what a lunatic that guy is 100% we're just talking last night like my husband wants like an ice plunge and I'm like you're insane person um but yes those are fun one one I do support this so I did it consecutively for three days and then I

realized I'm like I'm not strong enough to keep doing this but I really it really did feel amazing it really felt like a new thing in her body was like unlocking and a new endorphin rush was happening so I support that that's what I think that guy was trying to do like it was nuts 5 a.m. Taylor 5 what a scary time to go to the You're going to San Francisco Bay? I know. I think maybe in general, sleeping in the San Francisco Bay, it sounds terrifying. So it's a bad idea.

But he was like, but anyway, that's what he remembered. So the earthquake lasted 42 seconds, which is really long. You know, some people were like, it felt like, you know, a day. Like, just 42 seconds. It was a 7.9 on the Richter scale, which is, I mean, it's like, another scale. On the other scale, it's just like extreme, you know, like crazy. The director still actually wasn't invented until a couple of decades later, but in retrospect, it was in 7.9. Yeah.

I just used huge. It was felt all the way down in Los Angeles, so over in Nevada, which makes sense because it's right next door. The Winchester Mystery House lost some of its floors, as we talked about before. And they were never rebuilt, which is why they have staircases that go to nowhere. Yeah. We talked about that before. So a few earthquake reminders for myself and you, in case there's ever earthquake in time. Texas. And everyone else. So these are the ones I have so far. I'll probably have more. One of them is always put shoes under your bed because the glass in your house is going to fall and break. So you need to be able to leave your home and not cut your feet. So you should have shoes under your bed to be able to do that. You also need a crowbar to get out of your room potentially and out of your house because like the whole house can shift and you can't open doors anymore. So get a crowbar. And then also as soon as the earthquake,

is done as much as you can just like fill everything like fill your bathtub with water fill every every pot with water because you just like don't know when what might happen with the water it could definitely be cut off like ASAP so those are my three things so far um you have a crowbar under your bed I don't but I should get one yeah you really really should I don't have shoes in my bed either but I know that I need to do that so earthquakes again they're super loud it's the buildings it's the earth it's like confusing and crazy i'll talk about the death toll from this from both disasters next week but um a lot of people died in their beds from their chimneys falling on them um like a lot of people died that way um because a lot most houses have like a brick chimney

and those are like the first things to fall so a lot of people died that way a lot of people died and you don't know like we'll never know what happened to them you know like there's like people heard screaming in rubble and then screaming stopped so you don't know what happened to that person you know so so many people who just like probably woke up and were like everything shaking what's going on and then they were dead or they were trapped for days and like we'll never know like it's like really like horrible things and a lot of people who were in like hotels some of them were like just in town for something and they no one knew who they were you know so they were just like a lot of unaccounted for like dead bodies and things like that that people were just like you didn't have to like

identification all of that happened too so a lot of people a ton of people died in the initial earthquake itself um one of the things that one of the stories that i heard that's just so fucking terrible so a couple people got caught in murphy beds you know those beds that like go down and god and so like some of them died and some of them were you know the front like they would be visiting someone being in the murphy bed and then be like the the friends would be like oh my god we have to go check on our guests you know and like they would get them out and they were like nearly suffocating. The one story that I heard that's absolutely the worst is a man and his wife. They're both in their 60s. And as soon as the earthquake started, the man sat up and then the

Murphy bed closed and broke his neck. And when the people who live in the house went to go see them, they found them. The wife was alive and like almost suffocated. That's horrific. That's like being raked into a wall. Just like so, so terrible. So a lot of people died that way. And then also, this actually kind of reminded me of the Kansas City Hyatt that you talked about because some of the hotels, like all of a sudden the fourth floor would be like on the first floor. You know what I mean? Like it just like pancake the floors below it. And so people were drowning in the rubble that happened there, you know, because like the water mains were breaking. And so people, some people drowned, you know, some people were.

crushed. You don't really know some people like, you know, burned right away, but you'd hear screaming or, you know, there's, you know, someone would yell like, there's three people here trapped. And then they were just like, you just never heard from them again. You know, they, you know, died there together somehow. So it is still really early in the morning. And one thing that happens right away. So the fire chief, Chief Sullivan, he had been in a big fire the night before. And when he came home, he didn't want to wake up his wife. So he slept on the couch, like in another room. So when the earthquake happened, he got out of, got off the couch and went to go into the bedroom to see if his wife was okay. And when he opened the door, he didn't

realize that the, um, there was no floor in the bedroom because the building next door had collapsed into the bedroom. So he did one step and he fell several stories down. And he, And he was caught. And when they found him, he was still alive. But he was, like, getting, like, pummeled with, like, hot water from, like, a pipe. So he was, like, getting those burns from the water. And they got him out. And then they were, like, he was like, you have to have my wife.

I have to find my wife. And they found her. And she was okay. Her bed had fallen two stories. And she was just, like, wrapped in her bed. And actually ends up being fine, which is crazy. So now people are like, what do we? what are like people are trying to like figure out what to do everyone's standing outside and now it's

quiet you know people are just like confused a lot of people are like in different states of undress because they were sleeping you know so some people like they only have like a nightgown and some people like only have like one or two things and you know they're trying to find their children so people are crying and trying and looking around and they you know people are like sitting in the park together but they're all like just everybody's is confused um there's like rubble everywhere. And then almost immediately, that's when the fires start because of all sorts of different reasons. So we will talk about the fire that actually destroyed most of San Francisco next time. So can I tell you that I, so do you remember you had a friend who had a friend

who had an apartment that he was subleasing and Los Feliz and we had never met before, but we knew we were going to start work at the same time together. And so you, I was like, I don't know where to live. You were going to Airbnb be a place, but you introduced me to this guy, and I ended up subleasing his apartment, and that was the first time I experienced an earthquake where I don't remember what time it was, but it was early. I think it was like 2, 3 o'clock in the morning or someone along those lines. And I just remember, like, the bed shaking and kind of moving, quivering towards the center

of the room, and you wake up and you're like, you're playing can't even process what's happening? Yeah. You remember that earthquake? That would have been in 2013. Do you remember that one? You were in an Airbnb. It happened.

I was not going to be for the first month. It was during that month. I think it was probably during that month, like February, March. I don't remember. I remember one in L.A. We were like, one and our watching TV and, like, we just, like, look to each other. We were like, what's happening? Because it's just, like, loud and confusing.

I felt a couple, like, little ones here out in, out in Joshua. tree. But yeah, but it's confusing. And a lot of people in San Francisco, like, some people went back to bed, you know, because they like kind of woke them up or whatever and they were confused. And if their house wasn't literally falling on them, you know, they just like. Yeah. Like that's thing. Like earthquakes have like a weirdly scary effect to me because, okay, like I lived in Florida, lived in Texas. Like I've been through hurricane season and through tornadoes. But earthquakes like so. Super surreal. real like in the so another like memory that someone had from San Francisco is like you know you're watching the road roll like a wave you know like that's

you're like that's not that's not supposed to happen you know it's the fact that it can happen anytime there's like no warnings ever no matter how advanced science gets there's never going to be warnings for it it's just okay so like hurricane season in Miami I was like you knew a hurricane was coming

and you could like decide for yourself like how big big deal is this am I in the backyard am I not tornadoes they're not really that horrible anyways and if they are you just go into the bathroom and whatever like an earthquake can like bring down the entire building on your head and I don't know it's just so scary like one of the when I left when I left California I actually had a tangible thought like I at least I don't have to think about that anymore because they always told us in LA they always told us remember this like the big one's coming the big ones coming in oh yeah there are those signs so i have like a like a first aid kit that like has a bunch of stuff in it and like we're supposed to have

a lot of extra water and like things like that shoes and pro bars remember yeah because also gonna cut you off from like everything and so like in san francisco immediately after it happened all communication was cut off because all of the like lines broke so that's gonna be a problem coming up in the fire because they can't tell everybody you should have like all your identification like photocopy in like the cars and everything else and like had jugs of water everywhere and i don't know like it's scary i mean you're less at risk in josh tree than than in san francisco obviously but still yeah and i feel like but yeah like if you the idea of a building falling down is so scary you know if you're like in those things and like that also okay so

it also because some of the buildings that have been destroyed in san francisco during this earthquake are ones that were earthquake proof, you know? And you're like, that's not a fucking thing, dude. You know? So like one of the the nicest hotel in town was the Palace Hotel at this time. And there were people, it did not

collapse. And so there were a lot of rich people in the lobby like eating rolls and drinking coffee and being like, what do we do? And I kind of figure it out. But I remember when I worked at a hedge fund in New York, I was on the 37th floor of a building and we would have, I'm sure I took this before, but we would have like a fire drill, like once a quarter with the fire people and they'd be like okay if there's a fire you go to the 34th floor

because that one's fireproof and I was like you go fuck yourself I'm going outside like what are you talking about going to the 34th floor because it's like allegedly fireproof no I'm going outside walking away fireproof unthinkable like these are words that you hear you're like yeah have my own personal fire extinguisher and run out of this building I'm like that's so yeah um wild crazy yeah so things are confusing things are scary and about the catcher on fire i also predicted this whenever you're doing the chicago fire i was like it's got to be the san francisco fire well yeah of course i was going to have to do it eventually yeah of course you're going to do it um the daily the new york times podcast did an episode recently and you like kind of reminded me of it

because you talk about china and san francisco because they talked about how like the government in china is like making it so unpalatable for people that there's a guy who like got into an argument with the government there because they destroyed his business whatever a bunch of stuff happened and he had to he couldn't come to the united states directly he had nowhere to go but he was like the united states the only place he'd go so like he but you can't go directly there so what he had to do was to fly to ecuador with his daughter and then walk from ecuador through texas like which i don't even know how far that is but like he knew he was going to get arrested like those yeah yeah he was doing he knew what was happening anyways it was um it's right and it's right and it's right and it's right and it

Long story, short, they shipped him to San Francisco while he's pending court trials and all that stuff. But anyways, it's reminding me of that. Yeah. Put him aside. Yeah. So, yeah, that's it for now. I'm looking forward to hearing the rest of this. Do we have anything we need to read out?

I do. I do. I have something fun. So my friend Morgan, who I told you, I mentioned that she had just started listening. I'm just really excited. and I think she's listening to all of them. She's like, I just let's finish episode one. Like, she's a champ.

She's listened to, like, us constantly. Thanks, Morgan. But she used to work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. I forgot that she had done that. Hey, you got engaged there. I got engaged in the MoMA, but. Close not. So she, thank you for remembering.

So some fun things that happened while she worked at the Met. This is like in reference to the Mona Lisa and art heists. Yeah. She said that the Thomas Crown Affair, the interior in the Thomas Crown Affair, where they tell you that they're at the Met Museum, they're actually in the New York Public Library because of the museum director thought that it would give Thieves ideas on how to steal things out of the museum. And I was like, do that's true. And she was like, no, no one was watching Thomas Crown and being like, I'm going to do that. You know, like. I wouldn't put it past.

Very few people are following through on their art heist, you know. And she also said that one time someone had emailed in. in to an inbox that she was monitoring and they have been questions because they're writing a heist book and she wasn't allowed to answer them. It just like they're worried about it. And then she said actually most of the frames

at the Met are actually just like pieces of art themselves. Like the picture of them talked about how like some people had like been just gotten in trouble for like stealing the frame of a painting. But that was cool. And then she also had one more art history thing that was fun is that ancient Egyptians used egg based paints as well. so we talked about that that's what leo used on the um the last supper and there's a problem because

birds can still smell the egg and they're pecking way at the walls wait the walls of what like these like buildings in the egypt room where they had used the egg paint oh and the outside's okay i thought you meant like the paintings i was like why are they why are their birds in the art gal um so i think just like outside but that's fun um and i i was so jealous that she worked at the met so that's super cool that was a really cool job that was a really really cool job i've been there i've been there once i've never done new york right and i know i should i should at some point yeah i also when i was i'll take you there my uh i was little i loved the book of the mixed up files of mrs basilie frankweller

i have it here it's like about um his brother and sister who go on a field ship to the met and they stay there they like hide and they sleep in like the nice like the big grand bedrooms at night and They find, like, a missing statue. And, like, it's just, like, really fun and adventurous. And I always loved that book so much. So I was so excited when I finally got to go. We did that when we're kids. Like, I guess, yeah, we're in elementary schools in Dallas.

We have a Dallas Science Museum. That's where the Omni thing is, like, it's really cool. I really love it. They have, like, dinosaur stuff there. And they have, they'll have kids spend the night, like, once a year. I did that in Chicago. It was so fun. That was, like, probably my best child.

in memory. I did it in the Natural History Museum or the Museum of Natural History in Chicago and... That'd be incredible. I can't imagine how. They turned off the lights and leave us flashlights and let us just go play. And then we would like,

we'd turn a corner and they'd be like a mummy and we would like all scream. And they had like something where they were like pretending there was a ghost and just like all this stuff and I'm like, I can't believe I've got to do that. That was so fun. God, it's so cool. Wow. Man. To go back to elementary school.

So, okay, so next we're going to cover the actual fire itself, but so far we're through the, through the conception of California, through its acquisition and now an earthquake. Yeah, and it's, so it's about, let's say it's about 5.5.20. So it's been a.m. on April 18th, 1906. You're outside. The earthquake just happened. You've been sitting outside for like five minutes. You're super confused. and then you start to see smoke. You're in your nightgown wearing your... You're in your nighty. You're in your nighty wearing like that Nana hat that's like they can become like in the old days. You're holding like the one thing that you thought to bring. Like the guy who was actually the main singer in the opera Carmen at that night,

he had a signed picture of Teddy Roosevelt in his hotel room and that's what he saved. Which is fair. I say that too. So everyone's outside holding their one thing and like super confused. well join us next week while we when we cover the actual fire of san francisco well looking forward to it um sweet teller well go ahead and cut us off and i'll see you in 20 minutes last three days