City was incorporated the same year as 1906 devastating
earthquake
The 500 residents that lived in Morgan Hill when the Bay Area’s Great Quake struck a century ago today went, amazingly, unharmed, according to local historians.
Gloria Pariseau, of the Morgan Hill Historical Society, said the city, which was incorporated in November of 1906, was mostly agricultural at that time, and she was unaware of any major damage to the city.
Resident John Ward, whose great-grandparents lived in Morgan Hill at the time, said he is not aware of any damage to the city.
“My dad talked about the fact that there was no damage to my great-grandparents’ house,” Ward said. “I don’t think they had really any damage to either of the houses on the property. I don’t think there was much at all in the way of damage in Morgan Hill.”
Morgan Hill was incorporated as a city the same year as the earthquake.
Articles in the Sun-Times, the name of the Morgan Hill Times during its first years of circulation, downplay the earthquake, saying the fire and lack of water facilities for fighting the fire did more damage to San Francisco than the quake itself, even going so far as to say that earthquakes in California “have not proven as destructive as other kinds of disturbances in the east.”
However, in 1984, the city shook as a 6.2 earthquake rocked the city, knocking homes off their foundation in Jackson Oaks, according to Mike DiMarco, a spokesman with the Santa Clara Valley Water District.
“During that quake, the highest horizontal acceleration ever recorded occurred under the Coyote dam, and there was no damage to the dam,” DiMarco said Monday. “These dams were built to withstand tremendous forces.”
In the event of a major earthquake in Morgan Hill now, DiMarco said, if the tremor was strong enough to damage the dam, “that would be the least of our worries.”
Morgan Hill police Cmdr. Joe Sampson agreed, saying that the damage to the rest of the city would be monumental in that case.
“The city damage would be so significant, with buildings down, breaking of underground pipes, those kinds of things, that a break in the dam would clean everything up, so to speak,” he said.
The city has an emergency plan, Sampson said, that addresses natural and man-made disasters.
“In March, we had a drill, a functional exercise here, with city staff, police department staff,” he said.
Approximately twenty simulators went to the police department for an earthquake-type drill. City staff were brought in for about four hours of realistic training, allowing those who would respond to a real quake to check their systems. The school district and the fire department also participated in the drill.
After the drill, Sampson said, there was an evaluation, and the data is given to Ken Foot, Office of Emergency Services coordinator for the MHPD, who uses the data to refine the plans and procedures.
Sampson said the plan for the city includes information on city wells, which are in jeopardy due to fault lines, buildings that have not been retrofitted – such as the Granada Theater downtown – and areas susceptible to liquefaction.
Marilyn Dubil covers education and law enforcement for The Times. Reach her at (408) 779-4106 ext. 202 or at
md****@mo*************.com
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