New Orleans 2005 - San Francisco 1906 - Chicago 1871

Parent Cafe
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<p>From today’s Boston Globe:</p>

<p>Of the thousands of cities flooded, burned, leveled by earthquakes, or otherwise destroyed over the last 3,000 years, all but a few have been rebuilt - sometimes stronger and safer, and sometimes not.</p>

<p>Chicago 1871 - The Great Fire destroyed 18,000 buildings and left 100,000 people - more than a third of the population - homeless. Despite the vast devastation, the city was substantially rebuilt in two years - in less flammable brick and stone.</p>

<p>San Francisco 1906 - A massive earthquake obliterated 28,000 buildings and left half the population of 400,000 without shelter. Civic leaders, insisting that the quake had actually made the region safer, rushed to rebuild. But state building codes were not substantially altered until several decades later, after a devastating quake in southern California.</p>

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<p>Addendum: it was not the 1906 earthquake per se which destroyed the city of San Francisco. It was the fire that followed, which raged out of control. The water mains had all been broken in the earthquake, which made it impossible to battle the fires, and most of the city burned to the ground.</p>

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<p>I blame Bush. I heard he cut fire fighting aid to cities. I don’t know where I heard it but I’m sure it is true.</p>

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<p>Also, New Orleans 1927 pretty creepy what happened back then</p>

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<p>For any history buffs, there’s a lot of video footage of the 1906 earthquake aftermath here:</p>

<p><a href=“Internet Archive: Digital Library of Free & Borrowable Books, Movies, Music & Wayback Machine”>Internet Archive: Digital Library of Free & Borrowable Books, Movies, Music & Wayback Machine;

<p>Quite amazing how that video was preserved and is pretty chilling to watch about 100 years later. The “before” film is great from a historical perspective too:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.archive.org/details/TripDown1905[/url]”>[Trip Down Market Street Before the Fire, A] : Miles Brothers : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive;

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<p>With a 100 or so years of hindsight from these events and advancements in technology over that time, its all the more sad, if not impossible to comprehend the present situation (and our government’s response to it).</p>