VOL.100,NO.38 (USPS 650-640)
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
ADVERTISING: 864-4358
WEDNESDAY OCT. 18,1989
NEWS:864-4810
7.0 shock wave stuns San Francisco
City starts to dig out from killer earthquake
The earthquake sent a televised jolt throughout the nation as the three major networks and CNN reported. Photo taken from CNN.
The Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO — The nation's second-deadliest earthquake ravaged Northern California yesterday, crushing 200 people to death in their cars, injuring more than 400 others, caving in highways and collapsing bridges. The magnitude of the catastrophe slowly emerged today.
> See more quake coverage pp. 8, 9
"This is just a devastating, terrible, terrible situation beyond everybody's imagination," said Marty Boyer, the Alameda County public information officer.
The quake along the notorious San Andreas Fault registered 7.0 on the Richter scale. It hit at 7:04 p.m. CDT yesterday, stranding thousands of office workers downtown as night fell over the powerless city.
About 250 people were killed in their cars when a half-mile-long section of the upper level of Interstate 880 in Oakland collapsed onto the lower level, according to the highway patrol.
Although Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy said there were 54 confirmed deaths in the collapse, the state Office of Emergency Services insisted this morning that the higher figure would prove correct.
McCarthy said the damage caused by the quake would total "the better part of a billion dollars."
Tractors, buldozers and dump
trucks were called out, and trucks and vans took bodies from the site, Bover said.
"You could see dozens, huge booms of smoke going into the air," said Greg Higgins, who was driving near Santa Cruz, close to the quake's epicenter, when it struck. "It was complete pandemonium."
The quake sent thousands of terrified office workers rushing into the streets of Oakland and San Francisco, and many remained stranded hours later.
"I've never been through anything like this in my life," said Mary Garcia, who works in Oakland's Chlorox building. "I was on the 17th floor, and the building just rocked and rocked. I was scared out of my mind coming down the 17 floors."
Reports of damage and injury grew as officials made contact with hard-hit areas, where many telephones were cut off. Up to 1 million people were left without power.
At least two bridges in the Santa
Cruz area collapsed, and highways leading out of the city were damaged, Highway Patrol Officer Kim Penrose said. Mountain passes outside of Santa Cruz were closed because of landslides and fissures in the road, the highway patrol reported.
In San Francisco, at least eight people died, and minor looting and vandalism were reported in the city's major crack dealing area.
"The main problem is there's no lights. When the power is off, opportunists come out," police Dispatcher
Chris Curran said.
Mayor Art Agnos asked the Army to help.
Several hundred California National Guard soldiers were being mobilized, including engineers, military police and medical workers. Military bases located near the Military Department said it Sacramento.
Still, Agnos said, "The city is in reasonably good shape; we've sur-
See QUAKE, p. 5
Quake punctuates KU geologist's talk
By Travis Butler
Kansan staff writer
Don Steeples got an unwelcome in-class demonstration yesterday during his seminar in California.
Lecture was in right place at right time
"We slipped out of a sliding door onto the patio. Water was flushing out of the swimming pool, and trees were shaking all over. It was hard to stand.
Steeples, deputy director of the Kansas Geological Survey, happened to be teaching a seminar on a subject related to earthquakes to a group of geophysicists in Sunnyville, Calif., at the time of yesterday's San Francisco earthquake. Sunnyville is just south of San Francisco.
"There was a group of about 15 geophysicians in an inside conference room." Steeples said. "We felt the first ground waves starting to come in. Somebody said, 'This feels like a big one,' and everybody started to go outside."
"I've been in several earthquakes before, but this is about as strong a ride as I want to take." He said that at 9:30 p.m. local stations were
reporting that six people had been killed in a building collapse. There were a good-sized number of people trapped in vehicles around the area, fires were burning out of control in San Francisco, and power was expected to be out in the city for about 72 hours.
"It's pretty much mass confusion here," Steenles said.
Damage was minimal at the Sheraton Hotel where he and Richard Miller, another KU survey geophysicist, were staying. The hotel's power did not go out.
"The building is a two-story frame structure building, very well-built to resist this type of damage." Steeples said.
He said, however, that he was not aware of conditions outside the hotel.
"We basically haven't been out of the hotel," Steeples said. "There are gas leaks here and there, some power lines are down, and the local authorities are advising we stay where we are."
He said that he could not see any fires from the hotel and that the nearest ones must have been several miles away.
Steeples' wife, Tammy, said he had been able to call her in Lawrence earlier in the evening, shortly after the quake, to tell her that he was all right.
He said that because the airport was closed, he likely would not be able to leave San Francisco for a couple of days.
Although the earthquake was strong, it was not as strong as the 1906 earthquake that leveled the city. The 1906 earthquake has been estimated about 8.2 on the Richter scale. Steeples said, while preliminary measurements on the 1989 quake suggest a strength of about 6.9 or 7.0.
"In terms of significance, a magnitude of 6.9 or 7 is the highest here since 1963," he said.
Earthquakes are caused by movement of the geologic "plates" that cover the surface of the earth. The Pacific Ocean basin is on one plate,
along with part of the California coast; the North American continent, including the rest of California, is on another. The boundary between the two forms what is called the San Andreas Fault, which runs through the San Francisco area.
Steeples said, "Basically, the Pacific Ocean basin is moving north with respect to the North American continent. The quake was one episode in that continuing process."
Ralph Knapp, an associate scientist at the Kansas Geological Survey on West Campus, said that the fault slides sideways, which sets up a lot of ground motion.
Lee Gerhard, director of the survey, said that the earthquake was not unexpected; it was only a question of when it would happen.
"The center appears to have been around the San Andreas, but it was also near a junction of several faults," he said.
Seismographs at the survey in Lawrence did detect the quake, Gerhard said. The major shaking lasted for about 15 to 25 seconds. He presented Press contributed information to this story.
KU students from coast call families
By Steve Buckner and Jennifer Metz and Lisa Moss Kansas staff writers
him at 2 a.m. yesterday, Lawrence police reported.
See LOCAL. p. 8
"We are both really frustrated, unset and scared." Clark said.
Last night he could not reach his family in Fremont, 35 miles southeast of San Francisco, he said,
Su Ho La, Fremont, Calif., graduat-
ed in 1970. Surrounded by an ac-
count at least 12 earthquake before
"I know what it is like, and this time it is more severe and it worries me," Lee said. "Most of my family commutes on the Bay Bridge."
Lawrence police investigate disappearance of KU student
A portion of the bridge caved in when the earthquake hit during the rush hour.
By Lisa Moss
Katherine Clark, sophomore, and Nicole Rees, senior, both of Atherton, Calif., could not reach their parents in their home town, a suburb south of San Francisco.
Kansan staff writer
KU students from Northern California hurried to their telephones yesterday evening as reports of the earthquake came from San Francisco.
Clark said they hoped that their fathers stayed at work late in San Francisco because their fathers traveled on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge to get home from work in the evening.
Parents of Cecil Dawes Jr., Wylma and Cecil Dawes Sr., of Lawrence, filed a missing persons report for
Police are looking for a recently disenrolled KU student whose unoccupied car was struck by a train at 3:02 a.m. Sunday.
"He told me to run and go hide," she said. "I asked him why he wanted me to hide and what was going on. He told me to do what he
The car, owned by Cecil Dawes Jr., was parked on train tracks at 235 N. Michigan St. when it was struck by a boarding of a law enforcement police report.
"Then he turned around and jumped the tracks. The car hit the tracks and jumped in the middle." Nelson said.
The car was then stopped on the tracks. She said she and Dawes got out of the car and got off the tracks.
LeeAnne Nelson, 20, Claremore, Okla., said she was in the car with Dawes when he drove it onto the train tracks.
said."
"I was there for five or six minutes," she said. "I thought I heard a car pull up."
She said Dawes seemed to be concerned for her safety, and she went and hid in bushes nearby.
He has not been seen since.
Wendy Rubin, a friend of Dawes,
said he had not returned to his
Lawrence apartment.
Nelson said she could not see where the car pulled up or see Dawes. She then called him, but he did not respond.
Wylma Dawes said Dawes had not called his employer at Lawrence Security Patrol, 1900 Crossgate Dr. She said it was, not like Dawes to
Wylma and Cecil Dawes Sr. filed the missing persons report after Dawes did not show up to work at midnight.
"He calls every day to let us know what he's been up to," she said. "I just can't figure out where he could be. I know if he could, he would call."
She said it was not like Dawes to disappear without telling anyone.
Dawes' father said Dawes had been going to classes at the Universi-
sitv.
"As far as we know he is enrolled," he said.
Rubin said Dawes was disrolled Friday from the University.
Rubin said that she had known Dawes for two years and that it was not like him to disappear.
"If he was going to take off for a couple of days he would call and tell someone," she said.
Rubin said she had not ruled out the possibility that foul play could be involved.
Abortion more a political than legal issue, Weddington says
Bv Bath Behrens
Kansan staff writer
Sarah Weddington, who successfully argued Roe vs. Wade before the Supreme Court in 1972, continues to argue for the cause she took up 20 years ago.
Weddington, professor of government and history at the University of Texas at Austin and at Texas Woman's University in Denton, spoke last night to a standing-room-only crowd at the Kansas Union Ballroom.
Weddington said she spent an average of three days a week visiting campuses to talk about the case because she knew that people under the age of 35 don't remember when abortion wasn't legal.
► See related story p. 7
She said that 20 years later the case had become more important because the Supreme Court was moving toward giving regulatory rights to the state.
"When I think of who is going to decide what happens in the future, it's going to be you more than me," the said. "In the past it was mostly lawyers stating the cases. But now, if there were a lawyer with responsibility to the states, it has turned more into a political issue."
In March 1970, "Jane Roe," a pregnant and unmarried woman living in Dallas County, Texas, began her fight to have Texas criminal abortion statutes declared unconstitui-
tional.
The statutes made it illegal for a woman to have an abortion in Texas unless the life of the mother was endangered. Because her life was not threatened by her pregnancy, Rose could not get the abortion in Texas, and she could not afford to travel to another state to secure a legal abortion under safe conditions.
In 1973, the case was decided 7-2 in favor of Roe. The decision was based on the right to privacy, which is protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.
"Three of the justices presiding over the Roe vs. Wade case are more than 80 years
Weddington expressed concern about changes in the Supreme Court and how those would affect future decisions.
old," she said. "That's why I'm currently for life-support systems for Supreme Court justices."
Weddington encouraged those interested in the pro-choice movement to become active in the political side of the issue.
"Even if we have a majority, unless that majority is active, it does not count," she said. Dave Fry, Lincoln, Neb., senior, said the Student Union Activities forum committee booked the speech during the Spring semester.
"We thought it would be a timely subject, one that students would have an interest in," Fry said.
"This is more of a chance to listen to the constitutional implications of the case." Fry
Sarah Weddington
said. "I don't see that as personal views. We want this to be more intellectual and less emotional, realizing that it is a very emotional issue."
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