Remembering Loma Prieta: 20 years later, staff still shaken up

November 2, 2009

The varsity girls volleyball team was playing Newark Memorial and was down 3-2 in the first game. PE teacher Janet Chrisman, their coach, was not happy.
Then it hit.
“It felt like someone was kicking the bleachers but no one was sitting behind us,” Chrisman said. “[The players] didn’t notice it at first. They thought they were moving their feet really fast.”
A handful of the Moreau faculty, including Chrisman, was here 20 years ago when the Loma Prieta Earthquake occurred on October 17, 1989.
The 7.1 magnitude earthquake occurred at 5:04 p.m. when most students and staff were off campus, but athletic events were happening.
Chrisman remembers hearing spectators scream and run off the bleachers on the other side of the gym. Everyone evacuated to the parking lot and the game was postponed.
The surprise didn’t end for Chrisman and Krisman when they experienced two more aftershocks in the girls’ locker room.
“Mrs. Krisman and I had to get our stuff. All the lockers were banging and shaking. We forgot about everything and we left the building.”
US history teacher Phil Wilder and Assistant Principal of Instruction Mike Aquino ’91 were at cross country practice at Garin Park during the quake.
“These horses were going nuts. I thought we spooked them,” Wilder said. “I’ll never forget there was this dog digging furiously at the ground.”
“We were running and it sounded like a wind and trees were moving,” Aquino said. “We had done a complete practice. We had no idea. Back on Mission, the lights were out and we turned on the radio.”
Back at school, everyone was afraid.
“It was so scary,” Chrisman said. “I didn’t want to go home alone. You heard about the earthquake. Then the Cypress Structure. Then the Bay Bridge. Big things were crashing down and you think your little house is going to crash down.”
The World Series game between the Oakland A’s and the San Francisco Giants made the roads clearer.
“We were thankful for the game. No one was on the road. The Bay Area was at a TV set.”
Since the incident, Chrisman keeps extra food and clothes at Moreau.
The school couldn’t wait to decide what to do next.
“Administrators talked that evening and decided there’d be no school the next day,” Site Services Director Ray Breves said. “Some [students] didn’t hear and came to school but were sent home.”
A structural engineer did an inspection on the building. After it was cleared, they asked their insurance company if they should open the school.
“A lot of schools closed for many days,” Breves said. “We were only closed that one day. Everything was normal.”
As a student, Aquino was relieved to hear school was canceled the next day. But with relief, also came fear for his father, an Oakland police officer.
“I didn’t see my dad for a week,” Aquino said.
He remembers everyone telling stories for a couple weeks.
“Everyone had a take on it. Some were freaked out because they felt it.”
After the initial trauma, people realized the importance of having an action plan.
“Safety plans were initiated and it gets complicated,” Breves said, as he remembered how perspectives shifted. “No one had seen a freeway collapse, buildings pancake. People thought a whole different way. It renewed thoughts about safety.”
Laws changed regarding “seismic upgrades,” according to Breves, and Moreau had to adapt. In Garin Gym, extra support had to be added to hold gym walls and roof better. In most classrooms, most added walls are camouflaged since they were inserted right next to normal walls. One visible wall creates the alcove in C07.
While buildings could be fixed and rebuilt, Chrisman can still remember the emotional trauma from 20 years ago.
“I really thought I was going to die that day.”

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