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Index to Earthquake Reports

Municipal Reports

THE SAN FRANCISCO EARTHQUAKE
AND FIRE OF APRIL 1906

Department of Electricity

Report of W. R. Hewitt
Chief, Department of Electricity (edited)

Concerning the operations during and immediately following the earthquake and fire, I beg to report that, on April 18th I arrived at the fire alarm office on Brenham Place (near old Hall of Justice on Kearny street) at 5:40 a.m. and found it completely wrecked, the batteries having been thrown to the floor, which was littered with a great deal of glass and covered with water, with the chimney and fireplace caved in, causing a small blaze, fortunately extinguished before any serious damage was done.

With the two operators, Kelly and Daley, and the lineman, Fogus, on duty, I proceeded to re-establish the office, an almost impossible task under the circumstances. Lineman and other employees were soon arriving, and several of them dispatched for horses and wagons with which to haul material from the supply houses for restoring the signal system.

This work proceeded until about 9 a. m., when after a survey of the progress of the fire, I realized the possibility of the central office being burned out with the remainder of the district. Leaving orders to carry on the work, however, I went to the city hall.

I found the switchboard in the city hall office entirely unharmed, but with the fire raging apparently unchecked immediately south  of Market street.

On returning to Brenham Place at 10:30 a. m. Wednesday, the 18th, I found the fire had made such progress that it was evident our efforts to restore the office and lines in that portion of the city would be useless, and with the wagon and four or five men, I returned to the city hall at 11 a. m. to remove the Departmental records and such instruments and material as might be necessary in a new location entirely removed from the fire.

Unfortunately, we were prevented from entering the building by a guard of Federal troops, who refused to listen to any argument or supplication whatever for permission to remove such records and instruments as we might be able to save telling us their orders were without exception to permit nobody to enter the city hall building.

We returned to Brenham Place and found the conflagration raging. Our office was finally burned out on Thursday, April 19th.

Later I drove from the Knickerbocker Hotel, at California and Van Ness avenue, down Sutter street to Mason, to O'Farrell and back by way of Van Ness avenue, in the vain hope that there might be some cessation of the awful conditions, but there was nothing save the terrifying roar of a vast, tremendous furnace.

The buildings in the neighborhood of Powell street at Sutter, Post and Geary were burning so fiercely, with the flames leading hundreds of feet in the air, as to create such a back draft that threatened, in spite of all precautions, to draw one into the awful holocaust.

Chief Hewitt's account is the most colorful in the otherwise "official" municipal report.

Losses of the department