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Aerial Photographs of the 1906 Earthquake
hansoloaf writes "In 1906 San Francisco had a devastating earthquake - registering around 7.7 to 8.3 on the Richter scale. George Lawrence had devised ways to take aerial photographs and went to SF to showcase his technology. He used kites and custom built cameras that could take photos while up in the air."
It's an innovative use of technology at the time to accomplish something pretty amazing. It might not be regarded as news, but it's an interesting thing to hear about at the very least. Besides, how much of anything on /. is truly news that people care about? We have more iPod and game articles than anything else!
-- Reality is for people who lack imagination.
http://slushdot.org/mirror/earthquake/landscape.ht ml
There was a big fire that torched most of the city, and some of it was intentionally set, but most of it was caused by the quake itself (wooden buildings, fire/candles/oil-lamps as primary heat and light source, etc.) There was no conspiracy to bilk those big eastern banking interests, and since this was 1906 I would point out that _all_ current architecture was Victorian. In fact, because of the fact that the entire city was basically re-built in 1907 it probably has the largest collection of Victorian buildings left in the US.
The efforts made to stop the fire, using fire fighting technology that was "primitive" at best, were truly herculean. The cause was not helped by the fact that the earthquake had also destroyed most of the water mains and distribution infrastructure. [A couple of blocks from where I used to live there was a fireplug with a big brass plaque next to it that declared that particular plug to be the only one in the city that did not lose pressure during the firefighting effort after the quake (20th & Church next to Delores Park for locals)]
What eventually stopped the fire was a decision by the authorities to create a major firebreak by essentially blowing up a 1 block wide path down Van Ness Ave.
Only 3 weeks was awesome and they were glad to have it. Just 54-60 years before was the California Gold Rush when the travel time was a lot longer. If you went by land it was 5-6 months IF you arrived at all. Lots of people died along the trail. If you went by sea it was more like 1-3 months IF you lived. Lots of people died of disease by crossing Panama on foot or were lost sailing all the way around South America.
Nowdays, people get pissy when their four hour flight gets delayed for an hour because of bad weather. People don't really realize how much and in how short a time things have changed in this world. There are people alive who can tell you about the 1906 earthquake and fire because they were there. The last of the civil-war widows only died a year or two ago.
People talk about "Ancient History" but it really wasn't all that long ago.
Available at the Library of Congress website.
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