Flashback :: With Castro unscathed, LGBTs lent a hand in '89 quake relief

When the shaking from the magnitude 7.0 Loma Prieta earthquake stopped shortly after 5:04 p.m. Tuesday, October 17, 1989, Castro residents emerged onto the streets largely unscathed. The power was out but there was little structural damage to be found among the buildings in the city's gay neighborhood.

The quake struck as the staff of the Bay Area Reporter was finishing that week's edition. With electricity cut off at the paper's South of Market offices, the news staff pulled together a short front-page article under the headline "Castro calm in wake of killer quake."

The story reported that Castro residents with "flashlights and flares" helped direct traffic in the area the night of the quake and the Walgreens store at Castro and 18th streets gave away free batteries and "wishes of have a safe night." The bars stayed open and provided comfort and a sense of community to both residents and visitors to the neighborhood until police ordered them closed around 9 p.m.

"The neighborhood gays who had already assessed the damage to their homes as little more than shattered pottery and traumatized pets mingled with stranded East Bay commuters sharing experiences, rumors, and anxieties," stated the article. "The Castro and Mission districts suffered relatively mild damage - fallen chimneys, jammed doors and backed-up sewers."

The city as a whole was not so lucky, which quickly became clear to those gathered in the Castro as black smoke rose over the hills due to fires burning in the Marina District, where homes were flattened and gas leaks ignited into fireballs. A portion of the Bay Bridge also collapsed, as had a bi-level section of the Nimitz Freeway in Oakland, killing 42 people. In Santa Cruz the seaside city's downtown was largely destroyed.

In the days and weeks following the deadly earthquake the city's LGBT community would play a large role in the relief efforts. With their homes secure, many out city employees, safety personnel, and residents rushed to help those in the Marina who found themselves homeless.

"Everything was not normal, that was for sure. The Marina was the area that had the most damage," recalled Ron Huberman, an openly gay investigator with the district attorney's office who lent a hand with the quake response. "A lot of us stepped up and did jobs that were not your everyday jobs."

Huberman said he still remembers meeting a young gay couple that had just moved to the Marina from Atlanta and they were distraught because their beloved cockatoos were trapped in the garage of their apartment building that had collapsed.

"I found it very emotional. I saw fellow San Francisco residents who had lost everything when their buildings pancaked and fell in," said Huberman, who also remembers countless acts of kindness. "There was a little mom and pop grocery store I think on Greenwich doling out food and water and drinks to people. There was a lot of community spirit and people stepping up."

Project Open Hand pulled together its volunteers to cook thousands of hot meals for people in city shelters made homeless by the quake and for those assisting in the relief effort. The Gay Rescue Mission, an agency located on Folsom Street at the time, helped gather blankets, sleeping bags, and donated food for people displaced by the earthquake.

"Gay men I had seen for years were working alongside rescue workers helping to dig out casualties in the Marina while others spent endless hours personally counseling survivors," wrote Wayne Friday, then the B.A.R.'s political editor, who also assisted with the city's earthquake response.

Several gay-owned businesses and nonprofit agencies were impacted by the quake. Damage to a home housing people living with AIDS owned by the Shanti Project forced the agency to relocate the residents. Its volunteers contacted all 1,400 of the agency's clients and delivered groceries, medicine, and water to those too ill to be removed from their buildings in the Marina and Tenderloin.

The AIDS Health Project was forced to close two of its testing sites due to damage to the buildings in which they operated, according to a B.A.R. story. The Castro Theatre went dark for a month and SOMA bar the Lone Star Saloon, which had recently opened, suffered extensive damage and had to close while it scouted for a new location.

The publisher of Drummer magazine, which reported on the leather community, also had to relocate its offices and sales room after its building was declared a total loss, reported Marcus Hernandez, a.k.a. Mister Marcus, in his weekly column in the B.A.R., while a Leather Community Earthquake Relief fund was created.

According to a story in the October 26 issue of the B.A.R. one of the first to arrive on the scene the night of the quake was Sharon Bretz, the city's first out lesbian fire commissioner. Bretz, who died of breast cancer in 2005, was credited for her fighting to save the fire department's fireboat from the budget ax that year as the craft "was used to pump bay water to fight the Marina fires," stated the article.

Out lesbian Joyce Newstat, at the time a legislative aide to then-Supervisor Angela Alioto, showed up at City Hall the morning following the quake and went to work assisting people in the Marina whose homes were deemed uninhabitable. Her own home at the time in Noe Valley went undamaged, she recalled in a recent interview.

"It was very emotional, very tough," said Newstat, who happened to be on Grant Avenue when the quake struck and saw glass falling from buildings. "It was scary. That night there were a lot of aftershocks and there was no power anywhere. The city was dark and quiet except for the aftershocks."

A leader within the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club, Newstat was also involved with the Yes on S campaign that fall, which was trying to pass domestic partners legislation in the city. It suspended its operation and donated $30,000 to the American Red Cross toward earthquake relief efforts.

"We were gay but we were also San Franciscans. You weren't going to pretend this whole city wasn't in crisis and all of this was going on and carry on with a campaign really of any kind," said Newstat. "For me I had to get into the Marina and help people. I felt that I should do that as both a city employee and a city resident. It was not the time to fight for a DP initiative on the ballot; it was the right time to help our city in crisis."