California's Deadliest Earthquakes: A History

by Abraham Hoffman

Overview

Home to hundreds of faults, California leads the nation in frequency of earthquakes every year. Despite enduring their share of the natural disasters, residents still speculate over the inevitable big one. More than three thousand people lost their lives during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Long Beach's 1933 earthquake caused a loss of nearly $50 million in damages. And the Northridge earthquake injured thousands and left a $550 million economic hit. Historian Abraham Hoffman explores the personal accounts and aftermath of California's most destructive tremors.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781467136020
Publisher:	Arcadia Publishing SC
Publication date:	06/26/2017
Series:	Disaster
Pages:	176
Sales rank:	1,098,256
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Abraham Hoffman earned his doctorate in history at UCLA and now teaches history at Los Angeles Valley College. He is a member of the Los Angeles City Historical Society, the Historical Society of Southern California, the Organization of American Historians, the Western History Association, the Western Writers of America and the Los Angeles Corral of Westerners.

Table of Contents

Introduction 7

1 The Pacific Rim and the Ring of Fire 9

2 Earthquakes in Early California 15

3 The 1857 Tehachapi Earthquake 21

4 The 1872 Lone Pine/Owens Valley Earthquake 27

5 The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake (and Fire) 35

6 The 1925 Santa Barbara Earthquake 61

7 The 1933 Long Beach Earthquake 69

8 The 1952 Kern County/Arvin Tehachapi Earthquake 77

9 The 1971 San Fernando/Sylmar Earthquake 83

10 The 1987 Whittier Narrows Earthquake 99

11 The 1989 Loma Prieta "World Series" Earthquake 105

12 The 1994 Northridge Earthquake 119

13 Recent Earthquake Activity 137

14 Preparing for the Big One 151

Author's Note 161

Bibliography 163

About the Author 173