Redwood Coast Tsunami Work Group

Home
United States
Arcata, CA
Redwood Coast Tsunami Work Group

Call Directions Website

Redwood Coast Tsunami Work Group promotes resiliency to natural disasters in North Coast communities.

A member of California's Earthquake Country Alliance http://www.humboldt.edu/rctwg

Additional Preparedness Resources: https://linktr.ee/rctwg The Redwood Coast Tsunami Work Group (RCTWG) is an organization of local, state and federal agencies, tribes, relief and service groups, land managers, and businesses from Del Norte, Humboldt and Mendocino Counties. The group was formed in July 1996 to define the needs of local jurisdictions to mitigate the North Coast earthquake and tsunami hazard and to promote a coordinated, consistent mitigation program for all coastal areas. It is a member of California's Earthquake Country Alliance.

10/25/2026

Not my fault in today’s Times-Standard (10/25/26)
ShakeOut 2026: Kudos and areas for improvement
Lori Dengler for the Times-Standard
Posted October 24, 2026
https://www.times-standard.com/2026/10/24/lori-dengler-shakeout-2026-kudos-and-areas-for-improvement/

Image: Cal Poly’s Safety Fair on Oct. 13 promoted the Great ShakeOut and featured preparedness tables from the Humboldt County and State Offices of Emergency Services, Red Cross, Redwood Coast Tsunami Work Group, Campus Emergency Response Team (CERT), the Eureka National Weather Service forecast office and a number of other organizations.
……………………………
Last week’s Great ShakeOut is in the books, and I’ve heard back from a number of people about what happoened, and general perceptions of participation and interest. Kudos to everyone who was aware of the event and at least spent a minute or two thinking about earthquake preparedness and how to keep yourself and your family safe.

North Coast education institutions were the participation champs in 2026. Almost every K-12 school in the area were official participants. The only schools not registered were several Humboldt County Charter schools including Laurel Tree, Fuente Nueva, Trillium, and Pacific View. If your children go to these schools, ask staff about their emergency plans and safety procedures. Maybe it was just an oversight, and they forgot to register but it would raise a red flag for me as a parent. It’s a good idea for all parents to check in on school and classroom safety procedures whether the school participated in ShakeOut or not. It will remind school staff that emergency planning is important and give you peace of mind that the school is prepared.

Most charter schools do a great job for ShakeOut. I always like to put the spotlight on Redwood Coast Montessori located on the Samoa Peninsula in Manila. It’s one of only two Humboldt schools within a mapped tsunami zone – the other is Peninsula School in Samoa. Both schools have a designated spot above the tsunami zone within a five-minute walk. Redwood Coast Montessori takes their location seriously and goes beyond the usual ShakeOut DROP COVER HOLD ON drill by practicing evacuation as well.

At the beginning each school year, the Montessori students adapt their backpacks to become dual purpose book bags and emergency Go-kits. At 10:15 AM on October 15th the ShakeOut drill alarm sounded, and everyone quickly slipped beneath their desks. After a minute or two, students and staff walked out of the classroom, collected their backpacks in an orderly fashion and walked to the nearby high dune evacuation spot. I witnessed one of these drills a few years ago and it was heartwarming to see the older students assisting the younger ones. The exercise continues throughout the school year. Each month at a random time in the school day, someone will sound the same alarm, and everyone will once again drop under their desks and then march to high ground, creating a muscle memory that will hold them in good stead for the rest of their lives.

Cal Poly Humboldt used ShakeOut week for a variety of campus preparedness activities. Called Safety Week, campus hosted workshops on personal and campus preparedness, water safety education sessions, CPR and medical response training, and a Safety Fair in the campus quad. Both campus and off-campus organizations involved with safety and preparedness participated including Red Cross, Campus Emergency Response Team (CERT), County and State Office of Emergency Services (OES), and the Redwood Coast Tsunami Work Group.

I like the Safety Fair model for several reasons. It provides a broad variety of hazard and safety information, and It intercepts people who might not have thought how earthquakes, flooding, or other events might affect them. Workshops and talks attract people who are already interested and likely have a higher awareness level than the most. I hope some of the students and staff who had never thought much about preparedness walking through the quad may have been attracted by some of the tables, drifted over, and asked a few questions. Questions and talking are the key first steps in taking action.

The North Coast health community set a new high this year for ShakeOut participation with over 3600 registered participants, a 30% increase from last year. Providence and St. Joseph Hospital were well represented as were United Indian Health. But Open Door, one of our region’s largest health care providers, was notably absent from the list and almost none of the smaller medical groups had registered. I had personal experience of this lapse on ShakeOut day. I was in the waiting room of North Pacific Dermatology at 10:15 AM when the MyShake App loudly alerted me that the drill was beginning. Staff didn’t know anything about it and no one else in the waiting room reacted, looking oddly at me when I leaned over and covered my head and neck with my arms. I fear that many of the unregistered medical groups were likewise completely unaware.

I was happy to see two faith-based organizations on the registration list this year. United Congregational Christian Church in Eureka has been a steady participant since 2021 and this year, Christ Church in Eureka joined the list. I often attend Christ Church for music events and three years ago noted a card next to the hymnals proclaiming what to do in an earthquake. What a simple and effective way to reach many people. I know that many churches in our area have held preparedness events, please let us know about them by signing up as a ShakeOut participant next year. Any earthquake preparedness efforts you take qualifies you in my book.

Not much progress in the business community to report. After my column three weeks ago about business vulnerability (Not My Fault 10/3/26), I had hoped to hear from at least a few in that community. Alas no emails or phone messages. A big thank you to Joe Bartosik with Redwood News for highlighting business preparedness on air and (I hope) getting more business owners aware of how important an issue this is. There was a small uptick in business registrations – thank you Eureka G.C. Gas, and our stalwart engineering firms SHN and Pacific Watershed Associates for signing up.

I’m always pleased to see the diversity of groups that register. Congratulations to Sequoia Park Zoo not only for their recent accreditation by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, but also as a ShakeOut participant. This is the tenth year the Zoo has registered, and it reflects their recognition that managing an earthquake event requires planning and preparedness to make sure that not only are employees and visitors safe, but the animals as well. I love the Sky Walk and I’m glad that plans are in place to communicate what we should do if the ground starts shaking while we are on it.

A question always asked about ShakeOut is “how do I know it is happening?” No Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) is sent to your phones, television programs won’t be interrupted, and only a few radio stations opt to air a short ShakeOut broadcast. Most schools have an internal PA system that staff may choose to use for the drill; other schools might direct teachers to signal the drill on their own. Cal Poly Humboldt uses their emergency notification system to send out text messages to everyone who is enrolled. The MyShake App also sent a message – that’s the audible announcement I received in my dermatologist’s waiting room.

ShakeOut.org will send drill reminders beforehand but does not send out messages at the ShakeOut time. In past years, some counties including Del Norte, Humboldt, and Mendocino have used ShakeOut day as an opportunity to test their Everbridge emergency notification systems. This year, Del Norte did not, and I am still confused over what happened with Humboldt OES.

One only receives County alerts if you are enrolled in the system. I signed up when Everbridge was first adopted as Humboldt’s notification system. I received no ShakeOut message on October 15th. I know many people who are also in the system and none of them were notified. Supposedly some messages were sent at 10:45 AM on ShakeOut day but I have no idea who they were sent to, why most of us heard nothing, or why the county diverted from the agreed-upon ShakeOut time.

Confusion causes distrust. Distrust makes systems ineffective. I reached out to Humboldt County OES staff about the ShakeOut lapse and have received no clarification. A similar situation occurred last spring during tsunami week. We were told the Humboldt notification system would be used for the March tsunami drill and did our best to let everyone know to expect a message ahead of time. A small group of people did get calls, but most of us heard nothing. The explanation given afterwards was a decision to target people in the tsunami zone. But I knew many people in Manila, Samoa, and Fairhaven who were likewise in the dark.

I have worked closely with county OES on the North Coast for over 35 years. In that time window, I’ve known at least six Humboldt and four Del Norte emergency managers. It’s a difficult profession with an average tenure of under five years nationwide. Transitions are times when programs and priorities can fall through the cracks. Ryan Derby left Humboldt OES a year ago and rather than replace him, the Sheriff’s Department opted to assign another person to double administrative duties. Budgets are tight and other areas may be of higher priority right now. I urge reconsideration of that decision. We need a steady, experienced, and fully committed hand at the OES helm.

ShakeOut notification is a small piece of the preparedness picture. The next strong earthquake will arrive unannounced. How well you, your family, and your community ride it through depends on actions taken now to prepare.
-----------------------
Lori Dengler is an emeritus professor of geology at Cal Poly Humboldt, and an expert in tsunami and earthquake hazards. The opinions expressed are hers and not the Times-Standard’s. Not My Fault columns are archived online at https://rctwg.humboldt.edu/news-archive and may be reused for educational purposes. Leave a message at (707) 826-6019 or email [email protected] for questions and comments about this column or to request copies of the preparedness magazine “Living on Shaky Ground.”

10/18/2026

Tomorrow (Monday October 19) 12 - 1:30 PM Lori Dengler's semi-annual OLLI talk features last year's landslide-generated tsunami in SE Alaska. Free, no registration required, find the link here: https://www.humboldt.edu/olli/brownbag/fa2026/tsunamis
Aimed at a non-technical audience

10/18/2026

Not my fault in today’s Times-Standard (10/18/26)
Lessons from another major earthquake in Latin America
Lori Dengler for the Times-Standard
Posted October 17, 2026
https://www.times-standard.com/2026/10/17/lori-dengler-lessons-from-another-major-earthquake-in-latin-america/

Image: Map showing USGS epicenter locations of the June Venezuela earthquakes, the August Colombia earthquake, and last week’s Panama earthquake sequence (in yellow). Red lines are boundaries between the four major plates in the region: Caribbean, Cocos, Nazca, and South American. The Panama earthquake was centered in a complex transition region called the Panama microplate, shown in red.
………………………………..
A magnitude 7.7 earthquake occurred on the Azuero Peninsula of southern Panama on October 9th. It was the largest known earthquake to occur on land in Panama’s historic record, damaged several hundred buildings, caused one death and 27 injuries. It was the third major earthquake sequence in the complex tectonic region comprising northern South America, the Caribbean, and Central America in the past five months. Although larger than the Venezuela earthquakes in June and the Colombia earthquake in August, the impacts were not nearly as great. Why was the damage so much less and are these earthquakes related?

I first learned about the Panama earthquake when a text popped up on my phone from the National Tsunami Warning Center (NTWC) that a magnitude 8 earthquake had occurred in Panama and was being reviewed to determine whether it posed a tsunami risk to the U.S. West Coast and Alaska. We haven’t had any earthquakes that big in 2026, and the text caught my eye. Estimating the magnitude of big earthquakes is harder than smaller ones because they take longer to rupture and the seismic wave train is more complicated. NTWC is under pressure to get an assessment of tsunami threat out quickly and doesn’t have the time for detailed analysis. It’s not unusual for their preliminary magnitude to be a few decimal points larger or smaller than the final magnitude determination.

I let out a small sigh of relief when the USGS reviewed solution came out ten minutes later with a magnitude of 7.6 and the final assessment put it at 7.7. That’s still a big earthquake but far less likely to cause a major tsunami capable of reaching coastlines thousands of miles away. NTWC soon followed with a second bulletin officially stating no tsunami danger to our region. A tsunami threat message was in place for the Pacific coast of Panama where surges up to 9 feet were considered possible and waves of two feet or less along other coastlines of Central and South America. The threat message was canceled less than two hours later when no tsunami was observed on regional tide gauges. Panama officials did order evacuations in some areas, and several eyewitnesses reported higher-than-normal wave activity at Isla Cañas, an island 90 miles away from the fault rupture zone, but no tsunami damage was reported.

It's now just over a week after the earthquake and seismologists have had time for a more detailed analysis. The earthquake occurred at a depth of about eight miles beneath the surface on the Azuero-Sono fault, an east-southeast oriented strike slip fault that cuts across the entire Azuero Peninsula and extends offshore on both sides. The NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar satellite passed over Panama about six hours after the earthquake and detected ground displacements with the southern part of the peninsula south of the fault moving as much as 16 feet to the east relative to areas north of the fault. Field surveys are planned in the area soon, but I have yet to see any photographs or ground data.

The Azuero Peninsula is a relatively sparsely populated area of Panama. Its largest city is Chitre, population 46,000 centered only 18 miles from the fault. The USGS PAGER analysis of population exposure and likely damage estimates 200,000 people were exposed to intensity VII (very strong) or greater ground shaking. In contrast, the PAGER estimates for both Venezuela and Colombia for this category was over 7 million. Significant damage was reported in Chitre and other communities on the Peninsula where Panamanian official estimate at least 4,000 structures suffered structural impacts. The compromised buildings included homes, schools, government buildings, and hospitals. The Church of Atansio, a National Heritage site, completely collapsed. The Azuero Peninsula was not the only area affected, and some damage was reported throughout the country, but Panama City, and other major metropolitan areas were not heavily impacted. The Panama Canal zone, a major driver of the Panamanian economy, suffered no damage.

By all accounts, response to the Panama earthquake was immediate and robust. A State of Emergency was declared by President Mulino the day of the earthquake immediately making over $100 million dollars available for use in response and recovery efforts. Panama’s National Civil Protection System is a mature organization that activated its trained network of over 1,500 professionals and volunteers, evacuating coastal areas that were at possible tsunami threat, assessing damage, and establishing field hospitals. The country participates in the Caribbean Catastrophic Risk Insurance Facility, triggering a $17.5 million payout that was available to government response efforts within days.

It wasn’t all smooth sailing; response and relief efforts were hampered by severe rains that triggered mudslides, adding to the infrastructure disruption caused by the earthquake. Nearly 4,000 people have been displaced and providing food, shelter, and sanitation in the midst of the rainy season is challenging. But a well-coordinated collaboration with United Nations relief organizations is focused on filling gaps and preventing disease outbreaks.

The total losses in the Panama earthquake have yet to be tallied but could reach over a billion dollars and is estimated to be somewhere between 1 and 10% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP). That’s a significant hit but Panama’s main economic sectors were not affected, and the country’s economic health is strong, leading Central America in GDP growth. The inflation rate is stable and at 1.8%, less than half the current U.S. rate.

The Venezuela M7.2 and 7.3 earthquakes together released about two-thirds the seismic energy of the Panama M7.7 yet were far more devastating. At the top of the reasons why is location and population density. When 35 times more people experience very strong shaking, the impacts will be greater. But the losses in Venezuela far exceeded that metric.

The official death toll in the Venezuela quakes is 6,509, but with as many as 50,000 people still unaccounted for, the real toll is certainly higher. Other factors exacerbated vulnerability. Directivity of the fault rupture and the soft coastal sediments amplified shaking strength. Engineering standards and building code enforcement in Venezuela were far less stringent than in Panama where the many years of U.S. Canal Zone connections created a building standards comparable to those here. The final blow was a Venezuelan economy in tatters and no government ability to mount the response required. There is little verified information about post-earthquake conditions, but Al Jazeera has reported that the many makeshift encampments still housing survivors have suffered from lack of clean water, bad sanitary conditions, and disease outbreaks.

The situation in Colombia following the August M7.4 earthquake is intermediate to Panama and Venezuela. With an official death toll of 335 (111 missing), it was a significant blow to the Colombian department of Choco, and caused significant damage to the cities of Cali, Pereira, and others nearby. The difference in population exposure between the Colombia earthquake and Panama can explain much of the difference in impacts, but Colombia was lucky in one important way, and the damage could have been far worse. Both Panama and Venezuela were shallow earthquakes centered in the upper crust at depths of less than 10 miles. The Colombia earthquake was much deeper, in the earth’s mantle 67 miles deep. Deeper quakes are felt over a wider area, but the depth dampens the shaking strength and filters out the high frequencies that cause the most damage.

A quick glance at an epicenter map of these three earthquakes might lead one to ask are they related? The answer is yes and no. All three are caused by the complex tectonic setting of the region where four plates (Nazca, Caribbean, Cocos, South American) interact. But each of these earthquakes were on or near different plate boundaries and were unlikely to be triggered by each other. The Venezuela quakes were on the transform boundary between the Caribbean and South American plate. Columbia was centered on the subduction interface between the Nazca and South American plates, and Panama in the very murky transition zone between all four plates.

Panama is an oddity when it comes to plates. If you look at the USGS tectonic map of the country, no clear boundary line separates the Nazca and Caribbean plate. Geologists consider Panama to be sitting on a separate little plate or deformation zone all of its own, buffering the interaction between its larger neighbors. The southern edge of the Panama microplate where the October 9th earthquake was located abuts the Nazca plate, but the zone is diffuse. The Azuero-Sono fault is only one of a number of faults marking the boundary. There have been few earthquakes here in historic times which makes it hard to parse out the details of its structure.

Three take-away lessons from the Panama earthquake: larger magnitude earthquakes don’t always cause the most damage, vulnerability is related to population density and the built environment, and economic health of a country makes a huge difference in the ability to build resilient communities and respond to disasters. The bottom line – be like Panama and make preparedness a priority.

Note: More details on the Panama fault rupture and satellite analysis of slip at https://earthquakeinsights.substack.com/p/surface-rupture-of-the-m77-azuero
-----------------------
Lori Dengler is an emeritus professor of geology at Cal Poly Humboldt, and an expert in tsunami and earthquake hazards. The opinions expressed are hers and not the Times-Standard’s. Not My Fault columns are archived online at https://rctwg.humboldt.edu/news-archive and may be reused for educational purposes. Leave a message at (707) 826-6019 or email [email protected] for questions and comments about this column or to request copies of the preparedness magazine “Living on Shaky Ground.”

10/15/2026

Getting under a table or desk is not always an option when the ground starts shaking. The most important thing is to STAY IN ONE PLACE. Leaning over in your chair, or crouching on the ground is just about as good as getting under something.

10/15/2026

Today is the day! Join us for the world's largest earthquake drill! Take a moment to practice "drop, cover and hold on" as well as consider your tsunami safety steps so you build the muscle memory for responding to earthquakes and tsunamis on the North Coast. Everyday is a good day to practice what to do!
Learn more at https://www.shakeout.org/

10/14/2026

ShakeOut is a great time to practice your earthquake and tsunami drill! Plan how to be safe during the shaking and identify if you need to get out of a tsunami zone.

Register for ShakeOut https://www.shakeout.org/ & find your Tsunami Hazards Map online https://rctwg.humboldt.edu/tsunami-hazard-maps

10/12/2026

ShakeOut week is here! It's time to practice your drop, cover and hold on drill! Do you know what you would do during an earthquake? Have you practiced recently? That's the goal of this week. Join us on Thursday Oct 15th at 10:15 am in the world's largest earthquake drill!

10/11/2026

Not My Fault in today's Times-Standard (10/11/26)
A story of two Chinatowns
Lori Dengler for the Times-Standard
Posted October 10, 2026
https://www.times-standard.com/2026/10/10/lori-dengler-a-story-of-two-chinatowns/
Image: A rare photograph of San Francisco’s Chinatown shows the morning of April 18, 1906. The fire can be seen in the background and by midnight, all the buildings here would be burnt-out husks. The earthquake damage in this area was primarily non-structural; most buildings survived the shaking relatively intact. (Photo courtesy of the Chinese Historical Society of America in San Francisco)...............................
Today is the dedication of Eureka’s Chinatown Monument in Old Town. The Monument at the corner of First and E Streets remembers the forced expulsion of more than 300 people of Chinese ancestry in 1885. The expulsion was an ugly chapter in Eureka’s history and today’s dedication is a step in acknowledging what happened.

The Eureka expulsion was not an isolated incident in late 19th century America. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 suspended the immigration of Chinese workers and prohibited Chinese immigrants from becoming U.S. citizens. The only exception was the small number of babies born on American soil who gained birthright citizenship under the 14th amendment.

Some states passed far more discriminatory laws. California revised its state constitution in 1879, adding Article XIX “To Protect the State from Certain Aliens.” This article prohibited land ownership, banned the hiring of “Mongolian or Chinese workers,” and allowed cities to regulate areas of residency or expel Chinese to areas outside the city limits. Eureka was not the first California city to exploit this latter clause, but it became arguably one of the most well-known because of how thoroughly it was carried out.

We don’t know much about what happened to the Chinese after they were forced onto ships the morning of February 8, 1885, and landed in San Francisco a day later. The Bay Area had a thriving Chinese community and a robust internal governance system supported by business and trade organizations. The expelled group from Eureka were likely met by Chinese community groups and provided with emergency housing. They had been given only a day’s notice in Eureka to gather their belongings and most had few resources.

I imagine that many of the former Eurekans were assimilated into San Francisco’s Chinatown, the largest Chinese community in the western hemisphere at the time. The official U.S. census of 1900 lists just under 14,000 Chinese in San Francisco but many historians estimate at least 30,000, the number undercounted because of government mistrust and fear of deportation. Regardless of number, there is no question that the 15-block area that comprised Chinatown was the most densely populated area of the city.

The Eureka refugees who stayed in San Francisco were hit by a second catastrophe 21years later. The ground began to shake violently at 5:12 AM on April 18, 1906. Many in Chinatown were already awake as their jobs required early morning rising. The Chinese Historical Society of America Museum in San Francisco includes many eyewitness accounts, newspaper accounts, letters and other primary materials about the Chinatown experience.

I visited the museum with my daughter Clara in 2004. She had chosen the 1906 Chinatown experience as her 8th Grade History Day Project. We read too many accounts to include here but several give a sense of what the shaking was like - strong but not catastrophic. Jessie Lee Quon recalled seeing pots and pans flying off kitchen shelves and Mrs. Lee Yoke Suey described cracks opening in the ceiling. There is no detailed assessment of the shaking damage in Chinatown, but survivor descriptions and the few photographs taken before fire overtook the area show buildings still standing and suggest no major damage.

Headlines about the San Francisco earthquake give the impression of a single fire that began immediately after the shaking stopped. In reality, at least 52 separate fires sprang up throughout the City over several hours following the earthquake, triggered by severed gas lines, damaged furnaces, and overturned lanterns and stoves. Some sputtered and died out but others merged to become an inferno.

The earthquake ruptured water lines throughout San Francisco making it impossible to fight the fires. The mayor, SF Fire officials, and military officials at the Presidio decided to use explosives to create fire breaks. Beginning four hours after the earthquake, crews systematically dynamited entire city blocks from the Financial District west to Van Ness Avenue and south into the Mission District.

The untrained demolition crews used black powder instead of demolition-grade dynamite and the operation triggered more blazes than it deterred. By early evening, the fires had coalesced and reached Chinatown. Explosives were detonated along its border in a last-ditch attempt to slow the conflagration. The result was disastrous, and the entire area was soon completely in flames.

I surmise the Eureka expellees and those expelled from other towns once again found themselves fleeing with only the few items they could carry. The survivors gathered in many areas of the City, only to be repeatedly displaced by anti-Chinese sentiments. The U.S. Army established 26 official refugee camps, but the Chinese were only allowed in one segregated area near the Presidio. When nearby property owners complained about their presence, the Chinese were relocated to the military parade grounds above Fort Point. Stories about the mistreatment of Chinese refugees made their way to President Theodore Roosevelt who directed his Secretary of War to tell Presidio officials that “Government supplies must be furnished and Government protection afforded to all alike and all suffering relieved without regard to nationality.” There is little evidence that the treatment of displaced Chinese changed.

Some San Francisco politicians and business owners had looked for ways to eradicate Chinatown long before the earthquake. Aside from the racism of the time, it occupied prime real estate in the heart of downtown that many felt could be used for a better purpose. The Burnham Plan for San Francisco was commissioned in 1904 by a group of wealthy white business owners to redesign the City in the style of Paris with wide, radiating boulevards, a massive city center, and terraced hillside parks. In the plan, Chinatown would be condemned and leveled.

One might think that the earthquake would be a good starting point to implement the Burnham plan, and a number of influential San Franciscans including Mayor Eugene Schmitz and James Phelan, a prominent banker and future U.S. Senator, made moves to put it into action. Reality soon set in and issues of property ownership, pressures to rebuild quickly, and the huge expense of reconstruction, led the Board of Supervisors to officially drop the plan less than a month later.

One aspect of the Burnham plan not abandoned was eliminating Chinatown. Only days after the earthquake, Mayor Schmitz created the Committee on the Location of Chinatown, advocating permanent relocation to an area on the city outskirts near Hunters Point. To encourage relocation, the City refused to restore water, gas, or electric power to any businesses run by Chinese and denied building permits to Chinese landlords, even refusing to allow them to remove rubble.

The economic clout, ingenuity, and resilience of the Chinese community stymied the plan. Fewer than 10% of Chinatown properties were owned by birthright citizens or Chinese corporations. But the Chinese presented a united front to their white landlords, making it clear that if forced out, the owners would lose millions of dollars in rent. The final straw came from the Chinese government. A prominent corner of Chinatown was owned by the Dowager Empress of China and housed the Chinese Consulate. The Consulate and a Chinese trade consortium filed a federal lawsuit and the court ruled that San Francisco had no jurisdiction over a foreign country’s property. The plan to re-zone Chinatown fell apart and rebuilding began.

Chinese-run corporations quickly signed contracts for debris removal and began constructing a new Chinatown. Funded entirely by contributions from Chinese American merchants, international loans, a few wealthy white supporters, and the Empress herself, Chinatown was fully rebuilt in under two years, about a fifth the time it took many other parts of the City to recover. Look Tin Eli, a birthright citizen born in Mendocino, is credited for the appearance of today’s Chinatown, changing its drab, utilitarian buildings that were no different than many other parts of the city into the brightly painted exteriors, with balconies and pagodas that characterize the area today.

The rift between white San Franciscans and the Chinese community continued long after the earthquake. Federal and state laws based on race were repealed but fissures remained. In 1919, a group of earthquake survivors gathered on April 18th to commemorate the tragedy. It became an annual tradition until 2016 when the last of the group passed on. Chinatown survivors were notably absent until Bessie Shum attended in 2000. She was 96 and Mayor Willie Brown used the occasion to issue an official apology to the Chinese community for how they were treated before and after the earthquake.

Apologies are always better late than never. The City of Eureka never formally apologized about the events of 1885. But providing the land for the Eureka Chinatown Monument and fully supporting its construction and message are actions that speak louder than words. The past can’t be changed but owning up to it and pledging fairness for all is the best way to move forward.

Note: Special thanks to historians Alex Service and Jean Pfaelzer for correcting my errors. Visit the Humboldt Asian and Pacific Islanders in Solidarity web site at https://www.hapihumboldt.org/ for background of the Eureka Chinatown Monument. The Chinese Historical Society of America site https://chsa.org/earthquake/ provides personal stories of the impacts of the 1906 earthquake and Jean Pfaelzer’s book, Driven Out: The Forgotten War Against Chinese Americans provides historic perspective on the expulsion efforts of the late 19th century.
-----------------------
Lori Dengler is an emeritus professor of geology at Cal Poly Humboldt, and an expert in tsunami and earthquake hazards. The opinions expressed are hers and not the Times-Standard’s. Not My Fault columns are archived online at https://rctwg.humboldt.edu/news-archive and may be reused for educational purposes. Leave a message at (707) 826-6019 or email [email protected] for questions and comments about this column or to request copies of the preparedness magazine “Living on Shaky Ground.”

Address

Arcata, CA
95521

Telephone

+17078266019

Website

http://rctwg.humboldt.edu/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Redwood Coast Tsunami Work Group posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.