THE GREAT SAN FRANCISCO EARTHQUAKE

In the early 1900s San Francisco stood as a proud and flourishing symbol of America’s conquest of the “Wild West.”  But on April 18, 1906, the city experienced a terrifying reminder of the uncontrollable forces of nature lying dormant just beneath the splendors of its cosmopolitan surface.  Thirty times more powerful than the big quake that rocked California in 1989, this earthquake measured 8.3 on the Richter scale and resulted  in the worst catastrophe suffered by a North American city in the twentieth century. 

Written and directed by Tom Weidlinger and narrated by Academy Award winner F. Murray Abraham, the film begins with the sudden onset of a massive quake, where portions of the earth’s crust were displaced as much as twenty-one feet. The colossal firestorms that raced through the city during the next days would continue the destruction of what had been the largest metropolis in the West. 

Captured in rare, newly restored historical footage, intercut with the personal accounts of eyewitnesses, The Great San Francisco Earthquake is a breathtaking record of nature’s destructive might and of the survivors’  determination to rebuild the city and their lives.