Author and Reviewer at Odds Over Book About 1906 Quake

I wish to reply to Anthony Day’s review of my book, “Disaster! The Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906” (Book Review, “‘Disaster!’ a Doubtful History of S.F.’s 1906 Quake, Fire,” June 21).

A reviewer, of course, has a right to legitimately criticize a book, but Day, in attacking my integrity with false and frivolous charges, has gone far beyond legitimate criticism.

Day accuses me, in effect, of trying to pass off as history what he claims is an essentially fictional work, conveniently ignoring the 12 pages of notes that support my research. He focuses on two or three paragraphs he thinks might be vulnerable, and deals sarcastically in a single paragraph with the rest of the book, including the true stories of people fighting to survive a horrendous nightmare.

He writes that one expert, Gladys Hansen, denied she had told me that “between 5,000 and 10,000 victims” probably died in the disaster. But Hansen has confirmed that my statement is accurate. Thurston Clarke, the highly respected author of “California Fault,” also quotes her in his book as predicting “a final total between 5,000 and 10,000.”

Moreover, Day states that Hansen told him she believed I was going to write a work of fiction because of the questions I asked when I interviewed her. Hansen tells me, however, that she simply assumed that I had a novel in mind but that I did not ask any questions suggesting this. In any case, how can Day reasonably conclude from her assumption, as he does, that I have written fiction?

In a further attempt to discredit me, Day says that a geological expert, Ross Stein, told him he believes the earthquake’s shock waves traveled from “north and south and in all directions,” whereas my book has them moving mainly south toward San Francisco from Point Arena, 100 miles northwest of the city. I am “flat wrong,” Day states, arguing that geologists think the epicenter was 45 miles north of San Francisco, where the heaviest shaking took place.

But Stein tells me that while he believes in the multidirectional theory, there is no definite answer to the question, and that it is possible that the shock waves were greatest, though not only from the north with Point Arena the epicenter. And Karl V. Steinbrugge of the Department of Agriculture writes in his study, “Earthquake Hazard in the San Francisco Bay Area,” that, contrary to what is “commonly theorized,” the damage from an earthquake may well be greatest at a point 100 miles away from the epicenter. Further, professor George Davidson of the University of California states in the official record of the earthquake that it “came from north to south.” Is Davidson “flat wrong,” too-or is there room for a difference of opinion?

Day also rips into me for stating that “tons of displaced earth had transformed” the landscape. But, according to William Bronson in his acclaimed book, “The Earth Shook, the Sky Burned,” “the forested hills, the lowlands and mud flats, the valleys of northern California, and even the oceans ... were convulsed at the same time.... Acres of splendid ... redwoods were whipped into splinters as whole mountainsides slid into sharp valleys below.” That is quite a bit of transformation.

As for Day’s attacks on the style of my presentation, he must know that a reviewer should judge a book on its own merits, not on whether it is the book he would have written.

“The historian,” Day says in a final shot at me, “must be humble before the intractable facts of his tale or he will lose the respect and assent of his readers.” The same, of course, can be said of the reviewer--who should be especially careful to refrain from anything resembling character assassination.

DAN KURZMAN

Anthony Day replies:

In my review, I did not write that Dan Kurzman had written a book of fiction. I wrote that he made some statements that were “flat wrong.” He did.

First, about the geography and geology of the earthquake. My information comes from telephone interviews with Ross Stein, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, Calif., and from two experts in the 1906 earthquake, David Wald of the U.S. Geological Survey in Pasadena and Wayne Thatcher of the USGS in Menlo Park.

They all agree that no one believes the epicenter was at Point Arena. They all agree that the epicenter was near San Francisco, probably, Wald said, somewhere out to sea off the Golden Gate. They all agree that its shock waves traveled north and south along the San Andreas Fault.

They all agree that there is no evidence that “tons of displaced earth,” as Kurzman writes in his book, “had transformed lowlands into hills, hills into lowlands.” On this point, Stein said, “Show me the photographs.” He pointed out that the results of the earthquake were well documented and that there are no photographs of such a transformation. Wald pointed out that this earthquake was a horizontal slippage along the fault, not a vertical one. Kurzman’s description is “artistic license,” he said.

Stein said that Kurzman’s description in his letter of the conversation they had after the review appeared is “not objective.” Stein said he told Kurzman that, while it is difficult to be as accurate about an event of nearly 100 years ago as it is today with more accurate measurements, no one believes the epicenter was at Point Arena. Kurzman did not include that point in his letter to The Times.

Stein and Wald said that Kurzman’s quotation from Karl V. Steinbrugge’s book is irrelevant to this discussion of the 1906 earthquake. Stein said that George Davidson’s earthquake report was issued before the definitive 1910 report by Andrew Lawson for the Carnegie Institution of Washington that defined the geology and geography of the earthquake.

Second, the number of dead. Gladys Hansen repeated to me in a telephone interview that the total, which she now estimated at about 3,000 confirmed, could climb to a confirmed 5,000, but “10,000--no.”

It turns out that the 10,000 figure may have come from her son, Richard, a former firefighter who is interested in earthquakes and with whom Kurzman spoke in his research. Richard Hansen said in a telephone interview that be believes, based on the number of transients in San Francisco and his own experience as a photographer in recent earthquakes, like that in Mexico City, that the toll may have been 10,000. He said he was outraged to hear Kurzman in a radio interview claim that the 10,000 figure was based on his own research.

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