30 Years Ago Today

If you lived in Northern California in 1989, you will remember what happened 30 years ago today.  Even if you didn't live through the quake, you likely still heard about it, since it struck at 5:04 PM, just as the third game of the 1989 World Series was getting underway.

I can still remember what I was doing that day. I had graduated from high school in June 1989, and was now going to community college. I had gotten home from my classes about an hour earlier and was listening to music when I felt rumbling under my feet. It then hit me (no pun intended) that an earthquake was occurring. It lasted 15 seconds. I was very shaken (again, no pun intended) as was everyone that day.

This was one of the few times my hometown, Hollister, California (San Benito County), made the news. It's about 100 miles south of San Francisco, which sustained a great deal of the damage. But Hollister was just as hard-hit. Electricity was out for the next two days or so, and my college classes were cancelled for the rest of the week. Only one place in Hollister had electricity that night, a local grocery store that had a power generator. Half the town gathered at the store, where the employees were gathered on tables on the front sidewalk. Residents were attempting to buy emergency supplies. Here is a look back at what happened in Hollister. And just two days before the anniversary, Hollister felt an earthquake. Hollister is one of three towns in California known as "The Earthquake Capital of the World."  Here is a photo of some of the damage (from the 20th anniversary in 2009):

Nearby counties Santa Clara, Monterey and Santa Cruz were also hit very hard.




Read about the quake here.

Do you remember what you were doing that day?