A Pinoy Blog About Nothing

Today, San Francisco commemorates the 100th year of Great Quake of 1906. At 5:12 of April 18, 1906 a 7.8 magnitude earthquake rock San Francisco and the surrounding areas for 40 seconds. The quake and the 3 day firestorm that followed it, might have killed 3,000 people, displaced hundreds of thousands of people and destroyed over 28,000 buildings.

The quake and the Philippine’s First President share one common bond: General Frederick Funston. Funston was assigned to the Philippines during the Philippine-American War. He led the troops which captured Emilio Aguinaldo.

Funston and his soldiers disguised themselves as prisoners to get close to Aguinaldo and his men in Palanan, Isabela in 1901. When Funston was shipped backed to the US, he found himself in San Francisco during the quake. When he realized what was happening, he ordered his men to march to the city to help the police. Martial Law was never announced in San Francisco during the disaster and his orders to march despite the Posse Comitatus Act (which prevents the use of military troops to enforce civil laws) was unprecedented. He was also responsible for creating a firebreak to save the last few houses using dynamite. History has not been kind to Funston regarding that decision.

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Of course these days, we are looking for ways to be prepared when the Next Big One. Coming from hurricane battered Florida, seeing the recent events after Katrina (of which there were plenty of parallels to the 1906 Quake – the disaster, the fires, the looting) and of course being from the Philippines, we just had to put together our own emergency kit — just in case disaster strikes. 72hours.org has a great list to help anyone put together their own disaster-preparedness kit. The rationale of the 72hours.org website of course is to help people prepare to subsist on their own for 72 hours after a disaster strikes. It doesn’t matter whether you live on a fault-line or hurricane/typhoon country, it’s best to be prepared nonetheless. (Which reminds me – I still need to get water purification tablets. Or unscented bleach.)