SF Throwbacks
These Wild Photos of the Loma Prieta Earthquake Will Leave You Shook
October 17 marks the 31-year anniversary of the worst Bay Area quake in recent memory
This article is part of SF Throwbacks, a feature series that tells the stories behind historic photos of San Francisco in order to learn more about our city’s past.
Everyone in the Bay Area remembers where they were on October 17, 1989, just after 5 p.m, when the 6.9 magnitude Loma Prieta earthquake struck.
Not me, though—alas, I wasn’t born yet—so I called up my mom and asked her what she remembers about that day 31 years ago. After riding out the quake under her desk at her San Rafael office, she headed home to Sausalito, where she and my dad watched the fire engulfing the Marina District.
“It was massive,” she told me. “We walked down to the water and looked across to San Francisco, and we could see the flames from there.”
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Below is one such fire in the Marina, possibly the same one my mom was watching from across the Golden Gate. Notice the building that’s collapsed and lopsided in the background.
