Earthquake's untold story

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double-decked megastructure connecting the huge slabs of concrete that might still hold The now-sandwiched structure was built on available on downtown construction projects vertical piers without horizontal supports. and at the Port of Oakland. This, according to California's chief of con- But even at height of the "rescue" effort, a struction at the time, was done without regard pathetic three or four supercranes had been 20 SOCIALIST ACTION NOVEMBER 1989 OAKLAND, Calif.—Minutes after the devastating 7.1 earthquake struck, thousands of Northern California's working people were on the streets trying to help their neighbors. In those moments, humanity's best instincts came to the fore.

Strangers ran into collapsed or burning buildings and reappeared carrying senior citizens who had been trapped. People appeared from nowhere to set up free kitchens in the streets. They brought food, clothing, and other basic necessities to people they had never met before.

The quake hit the poor the hardest-those who are compelled to live in the oldest hotels and dwellings, structures that otherwise might have been condemned. But the quake's terror was not restricted to the most unfortunate victims of social injustice. The homes of an estimated 110,000 workers were destroyed or reduced to a fraction of their value.

Even here, class distinctions played a central role in the treatment of the quake's victims. In San Francisco's largely upper-income Marina district, those who had been ordered to abandon their homes were relocated to relatively comfortable facilities that included security guards, trauma counselors, masseuses, and gourmet food from the city's finest restaurants.

In contrast, the Black residents of Oakland's Peralta housing project were moved to minimum facilities with little but cots and blankets. And what about the ordinary, pre-earthquake homeless? Less than a week after the quake, in the midst of a torrential rainstorm, San Francisco police were back on the job rousting the homeless from tents and cardboard lean-tos they had set up in Civic Center Plaza.

And while the media focused heavily on the plight of the area's businesses, little was made of the thousands of migrant workers and other rural residents of Watsonville, a short distance from the quake's epicenter. These workers had lost their jobs and more when many of the area's canneries were destroyed.

Was there a real "rescue" effort?

A most immediate problem was the mileInno collanse of Interstate 88O. a four-lane.

East and South Bay with San Francisco. Watsonville, Calif., been the hard‹ to the minimum construction requirements in force in 1957 when I-880 was completed.

Thirty-two years later, after a number of official reports found the freeway's construction seriously wanting, it took a terrible earthquake to bring to public attention the fact that the installation of the required supports stipulated in the building manuals of the 1950s would have prevented the freeway's fall.

Four days after the quake, the rescue effort was virtually stopped when authorities surmised there could be no more survivors. The newspapers and television parroted official arguments that nothing else could be done to save lives.

But on day five, when 56-year-old Sacramento longshoreman Buck Helms was found alive by a paramedic, the search had to be resumed for a day or so to stifle public concern that not enough was being done to find those who remained, perhaps still alive.

On day seven, when orders were given to remove the destroyed structure, the authorities were again shocked when they uncovered several automobiles lacking any passengers. This meant that at least some of the abandoned passengers had been able to climb out of their vehicles and find their way home without first reporting to the local authorities. The logical conclusion from this discovery was not drawn, however. The search for the possible living was not resumed.

A problem of "cost accounting?"

Why wasn't more done to save lives? From the point of view of the various agencies involved, it was a simple matter of cost accuntino Heavy cranes were needed to lift the people prisoner. These cranes were readily Thomas Van Dyke-San Jose Mercury News-Sygma by the earthquake.

brought into the area. The lack of life-saving equipment was later explained away as "poor coordination between the public and private sector.

California is the "seventh richest nation on earth," yet state officials refused to spend the money to rent heavy cranes and other related equipment.

The expense did not compute when compared with the number of human lives which might have been saved!

But there were many who did not consider matters of cost accounting. Without waiting for rescue teams, people from the nearby Black community of West Oakland used every means at hand—from forklifts borrowed from nearby warehouses to sheer courage in mounting the still-shaking structure-to try to rescue those who had been trapped.

When I arrived at the I-880 site the day after the catastrophe, thousands of residents were standing watch, looking for some way to help. Local streets were filled with pickup trucks loaded with bundles of clothes and emergency supplies. Energetic youth sought some way to become involved, whether it be clearing small pieces of concrete rubble or just trying to assist disinterested police and other public officials.

But there was nothing to be done. The massive equipment needed to reinforce the falling freeway from below and to lift the fallen portions from above was not forthcoming.

What has been done with the vast resources of the state of California? And with those of the federal government? The facilities and personnel of the U.S. armed forces, which reside in the tens of thousands in the Bay Area, were used only minimally. The machinery of the state's private construction firms also remained idle.

The real-estate developers, large merchants, and banks see the quake as a renewed source of revenue. It's not too different from the general capitalist phenomenon of war and depression-which can have the "beneficial" effect of destroying society's social surplus in order to renew the search for higher profits.

Losses to the insurance companies are expected to be minimal-with industry experts estimating less than half the $5 billion chalked up to Hurricane Hugo. With a loss reserve of some $250 billion and a policyholder surplus (the amount by which assets exceed liabilities) of $120 billion, the worstcase scenario is for relatively flat profits for this business quarter only.

Orin Kramer, an insurance-industry consultant, told The New York Times that the industry's return on equity this year would be 8 percent, down from 17 percent last year, but still a handsome return.

Capitalist confidence in this multibillion dollar industry was registered in a general rise in stockmarket prices of insurance companies immediately following the quake, with some showing increases of 5 percent or more.

This rise was attributed to two prime factors. The smaller companies among the 3000 doing business in the property and casualty area are expected to undergo, according to The New York Times, a "painful shakeout" so that "a streamlined, more efficient industry can emerge."

In plain talk, the billionaires who manipulate capital for maximum profit are counting on reduced competition on the one hand and massive rate increases on the other to further bloat their wallets at the expense of working people.

Just 20 percent to 25 percent of the area's homeowners carry any sort of earthquake insurance, with most policies carrying stiff 10 percent to 20 percent deductible clauses. Thus, the overwhelming damage caused by the quake will be borne, not by the insurance companies but by the policy holders who pay heavy premiums for coverage which will provide littie or no benefits.

Politicians compete for media time Meanwhile, virtually every politician from California's Governor George Deukmejian to local officials are looking to every variety of regressive tax hike to transfer the financial burden of the disaster from the rich to the working class and the poor. Democratic State Assemblyman Dick Floyd, for example, is proposing a special gasoline tax of 25 cents per gallon to pay for the damage to the state's roads.

The quake was seen as a prime political opportunity for these ruling-class representatives, who flocked to the area to compete for media time. For the Democratic and Republican politicians, tragedies like Hurricane Hugo and the California earthquake are opportunities to demonstrate the compassion of a society ruled by a handful of billionaires.

But the billionaires have never been known to voluntarily contribute to the advancement of the social good. They leave this to a pathetic group of professional charities who rush about, as they are now doing, distributing a band-aid pittance here and there to placate our conscience.

Nationwide public-works program!

The Pacific Coast is not the only region subject to earthquakes. Scientists have pointed out that within the next few decades a large quake will probably hit populated areas on the East Coast and the Mississippi Valley.

Interstate 880, before it collapsed, was not atypical of the dilapidated state of roadways, bridges, schools, and housing throughout the nation. Our towns and cities stand in decay for want of a public policy which places human needs before profits.

A massive public-works program across the country would serve the dual purpose of providing useful employment to those who have been driven from the job market and of rebuilding our cities to make them safe, efficient, and functional for everyone.

To accomplish this, however, requires the mobilization of millions of people, organized in their unions and other working-class organizations, against the powerful few who resist spending a dime of their wealth on anything but their own welfare.

Days after the quake, people are still talk(continued on page 9)