5 5 1 earthquake the disaster that rocked san francisco

What did you know about the 1906 earthquake?. Based on what you read, list things to do to prepare for an earthquake or similar disaster.. What I Know About Earthquakes What I Know Abou

by J Matteson Claus illustrated by Don Dyen

Suggested levels for Guided Reading, DRA, ™

Lexile, ® and Reading Recovery ™ are provided

in the Pearson Scott Foresman Leveling Guide.

ISBN 0-328-13562-3 ì<(sk$m)=bdfgcc< +^-Ä-U-Ä-U

Scott Foresman Reading Street 5.5.1

Earthquake!

Earthquake!

The Disaster That Rocked

San Francisco

Genre Comprehension

Skills and Strategy

Historical

fi ction

• Plot and Character

• Author’s Purpose

• Prior Knowledge

by J Matteson Claus illustrated by Don Dyen

Suggested levels for Guided Reading, DRA, ™

Lexile, ® and Reading Recovery ™ are provided

in the Pearson Scott Foresman Leveling Guide.

ISBN 0-328-13562-3 ì<(sk$m)=bdfgcc< +^-Ä-U-Ä-U

Scott Foresman Reading Street 5.5.1

Earthquake!

Earthquake!

The Disaster That Rocked

San Francisco

Genre Comprehension

Skills and Strategy

Historical

fi ction

• Plot and Character

• Author’s Purpose

• Prior Knowledge

Reader Response

1 Who are the main characters in this story? Choose two

and tell what happens to them

2 Before you read this book, what did you know about

earthquakes? What did you know about the 1906 earthquake? What new things did the story teach you about each topic? Use a chart like the one below to record your answers

3 Look up the word spectacle What is the Latin root

and what does it mean? What is a spectacle and what are spectacles? Use each word in a sentence

4 Based on what you read, list things to do to prepare

for an earthquake or similar disaster

What I Know About Earthquakes

What I Know About the 1906 Earthquake

What I Learned About Earthquakes

Editorial Offices: Glenview, Illinois • Parsippany, New Jersey • New York, New York Sales Offices: Needham, Massachusetts • Duluth, Georgia • Glenview, Illinois

Coppell, Texas • Ontario, California • Mesa, Arizona

Earthquake!

Earthquake!

The Disaster That Rocked

San Francisco

by J Matteson Claus illustrated by Don Dyen

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photographic material The publisher deeply regrets any omission and pledges to

correct errors called to its attention in subsequent editions.

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ISBN: 0-328-13562-3

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2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 V0G1 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05

3

Bob Allen’s Story

“Bob, get up! It’s an earthquake!”

I jumped out of bed at the first sound of Ethel’s voice For a second, I didn’t realize what was

happening I even checked the clock It was 5:12 in the morning

“The children!” she cried

The whole house trembled beneath my feet

The furniture was jumping up and down as if it had suddenly come to life

Ethel yanked at the doorknob

on the bedroom door “It won’t

open!” she cried

Then the trembling stopped

The only sound was Ethel pulling at

the door The wall above the door

had shifted I grabbed the knob

and pulled We had been through

small quakes before Silence always

followed the first shock Then, 10 or

20 seconds later, the quake would

hit with full force

“Sally!” I yelled as I yanked

at the knob “Don’t worry, we’re

coming!”

“Mom! Dad! Help!” Sally called

from the back of the house “We’re

stuck!”

5

The house shuddered like a

small ship being slammed by a

huge wave I reached Charlie’s

door just as Ethel reached

Sally’s The wall on the second

floor had fallen The children

and their furniture were no

longer there

“Dad! Mom! Help!” It was

Sally, calling from somewhere

behind the house We dashed

back downstairs to the kitchen

We could open the back door,

but a tall pile of fallen bricks

blocked our way “Don’t worry!

We’re coming!” Ethel yelled to

Sally

The doors jammed, so

I threw a chair through a

window and followed As I

crawled over the rubble, the

trembling stopped again

The earthquake lasted only

a minute That’s all it took to

change my life forever on that

morning of April 18, 1906

7

Sally Allen’s Story

It was eerie One of the first people I thought

of was Miss Jones, the school nurse She said most

head cuts look worse than they really are So I wasn’t

surprised when I put my hand to my head and it

came back bloody Charlie’s pajamas were ripped,

and he had cuts on his face, hands, and legs Yet all

he could do was grin “Wow!” he said “Did you see

me? I just slid out on my bed!”

9

“Are you okay?” I asked him I’m eleven years old

He’s seven Sometimes he’s a silly seven

“Sure I’m okay!” he said “Where are Mom and Dad?”

I wasn’t sure I had called, but no answer I was worried but said they were coming anyway

“I don’t see them,” he said, looking at the pile of bricks and shingles that used to be the back wall of our house There was dust everywhere It was crazy, but it made me think of Mom, and how mad she would be because she had just cleaned

I got up and made Charlie get up, too “I told you, I’m okay!” he said He was But the world around us sure wasn’t

I still couldn’t believe what had happened At the

first shock, my bed bounced and bumped me onto

the floor I ran to stand under an open doorway

Dad said it was a safe place I couldn’t stand there

because I couldn’t open the door! “Mom! Dad!

Help!” I called

The first shock stopped, and a half minute later,

the big one hit The chimney ripped away from the

wall Then the wall went and I fell backwards I

awoke to see the furniture sliding away and me too!

A tree branch slowed my fall and slammed me onto

the ground

The street was a mess Battered houses leaned

against each other like wounded soldiers Telephone

poles had been snapped in two Broken electric

power lines lay coiled in the road like snakes

Neighbors in nightclothes hollered to each other

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11

“Over here!” someone yelled A man across the street was pointing at us “Those two kids—they’re hurt!”

A big fireman ran over to us “Okay, kids,” he said “Let’s get to the hospital.”

And before I could protest, he picked up Charlie and headed for a wagon “Come on, Sally!” Charlie said He was having fun

“Your brother’s right,” the fireman said “That shock wasn’t the last You’ll see.”

“I’m not leaving without my mother and father!”

I said

“Honey,” the fireman said, “you’d better stay with your brother He needs you now.”

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The Fireman’s Story

San Francisco firemen are always ready

for a quake They say the severe ones come

only every hundred years, so I didn’t expect

to see one

But I did I’d been up all night fighting

a fire I was heading back to the station

when the first shock came The two horses

pulling my supply wagon got spooked I

was just getting them under control when

the big one hit Buildings on both side of

the road just fell apart

After the trembling stopped, I waited

for the horses to get calm Then I moved

on Lots of people were hurt I put three

men with injuries into the wagon I also

picked up two children who were all

banged up I dropped all five at the Central

Emergency Hospital

I never got back to the firehouse A fire

had broken out in a nearby laundry We

fought it for about two hours Finally, the

last flames withered and died

By this time, plumes of smoke were

rising all over the city The earthquake had

cracked gas pipes, and the leaking gas was

fueling many of the fires

At around 8:15 in the morning, the city

was jolted again This aftershock knocked

down buildings that had been weakened

three hours earlier It also touched off

more fires

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13

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We went from fire to fire all day

long and struggled without water The

shifting earth had crushed the city’s

water pipes Sometimes we got lucky

and found water storage tanks or wells

near fires But that was rare

At one point, fifty fires were

burning all over the city Fires leapt

from building to building, across

streets and intersections This went on

for three days

The U.S Navy sent ships to battle

the fires nearest the bay U.S Army

soldiers contained some fires by

taking away their fuel Fires don’t

like stopping at the firebreaks So the

fires moved with such force that they

jumped over the breaks

The U.S Army had also set up tent

camps for the homeless victims of the

earthquake I had lost my home, too

So when the fires were out, I went to a

camp to rest and get shelter

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15

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Men, women, and even children went through

the camp hunting for loved ones One man had

a big bandage around his head He kept asking,

“Has anyone seen a girl named Sally? A boy named

Charlie?”

“Well, I’ll be,” I said “Those were the names of

the kids I took to the hospital!”

He almost hugged me at the news, but I had

to tell him the bad news “The Central Emergency

Hospital burned down yesterday,” I said “All the

patients were moved away.”

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17

“Thank you,” he said wearily “I’ll go to the other hospitals They have got to be somewhere.”

After he left, soldiers came to the camp to pass out food One officer said he heard that more than 200,000 people were living in camps like ours

Dr Martin’s Story

I reached the Central Emergency Hospital later than usual because I had to walk The hospital had been badly damaged When I got there, firemen had carried most of the patients across the street to a sports arena Doctors, nurses, and Red Cross workers were setting up a makeshift hospital there

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It was an awful scene Surgeons operated on

people whose arms and legs had been crushed

Mothers carried in burned babies We ran out of

supplies Men broke into drugstores to get medicine

and bandages

Soon we were ordered to leave The fire was

getting near us We moved the patients to the

grass by Golden Gate Park Anyone who could walk

helped One little boy carried a box of medicine His

sister carried a baby whose mother had died They

were nice kids The boy found my spectacles on the

grass

When I returned to the park the next day, soldiers

were putting up tents for the patients

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19

Near midnight, I was too tired to go on without sleep My wife Dora and our daughter made a tent out of sheets in front of our house One of the saddest scenes, my wife said, was a man who was hunting for his two children “He said he had been trying to reach them when a falling brick knocked him out When he came to, he found his wife with a broken leg and his children gone.”

“Did you get his name?” I asked

“No,” Dora said, “but his children’s names were Sally and Charlie I think that’s what he said.”

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“I met those children today at the park,” I said

The little boy helped me find my spectacles.”

I headed back to the park around 6:00 A.M Dozens

of new patients waited for help at the park I forgot

about the two lost children

On the way to visit a hospital that afternoon, I

spotted a man with a bandaged head While that

was not unusual, it was unusual to stop and talk to

people passing by I asked him “Are you looking for

Sally and Charlie?”

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21

For a few seconds, the tired man just pondered the question Then he gasped “Do you really know where they are?”

“I think so Come with me.”

We went to the park, stopping at nearly every tent “Thank God,” the father said when he saw them and ran to embrace them “Thank God.”

The military helped out a lot They brought in doctors, nurses, and medical supplies They also helped provide rations such as food and water

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By dawn on April 21, the fires finally burned

themselves out They had turned five square miles of

the city into ashes More than 3,000 people had died

Some 28,000 buildings had been destroyed Maybe

250,000 people had no homes

You would think only sadness and anger would

remain after all that Yet, even among my sickest

patients, I found hope People took care of each

other, shared food, and helped to build shelters

People sent money from all over the country

We had lived through three days of horror But

the tragedy brought out the best in all of us And

that’s something I’ll never forget

22

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23

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Lessons from the Past

24

Scientists studied the 1906 earthquake for years

They learned how the ground moves and how to

make buildings stand up to earthquakes Those

lessons have made us smarter about earthquakes and

coping with them

In 1989, another big quake hit San Francisco This

time, the city was ready Many buildings of 1906 had

been replaced with stronger structures built to stand

up to major shocks and fires

The 1989 earthquake did great damage But only

62 people died, and it left only about 12,000 people

without homes In contrast, the 1906 earthquake

killed more than 3,000 people and left 250,000

people homeless

Scientists still don’t know how to accurately

predict earthquakes But they learn more about

them every time the earth shakes

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Reader Response

1 Who are the main characters in this story? Choose two

and tell what happens to them

2 Before you read this book, what did you know about

earthquakes? What did you know about the 1906 earthquake? What new things did the story teach you about each topic? Use a chart like the one below to record your answers

3 Look up the word spectacle What is the Latin root

and what does it mean? What is a spectacle and what are spectacles? Use each word in a sentence

4 Based on what you read, list things to do to prepare

for an earthquake or similar disaster

What I Know About Earthquakes

What I Know About the 1906 Earthquake

What I Learned About Earthquakes