Jen's Den

Not everybody remembers where they were at 5:04 p.m. on Oct. 17, 1989. I was sitting in my office on the 13th floor of the 24-story Clorox Building in downtown Oakland, working at my computer. The building started to shake, but we’d had minor quakes before, and my co-workers in offices on either side of me all said “Oh, boy, here we go again.” We thought it would be like the others, short and not too scary. We thought wrong.

After about 10 seconds, I yelled, “Hey, this one isn’t stopping” as I tried to push back from my desk. My chair wouldn’t budge. Binders, software manuals and books on the shelves behind my desk had fallen onto the floor and blocked my chair wheels from going backwards. So, I spun around in my chair instead and sort of launched myself over the pile of stuff on the floor. All I could think of was “get the hell away from these floor-to-ceiling windows with the panoramic view of San Francisco.”

As my feet hit the floor, the floor heaved upward and I was thrown about three feet, slamming my hip into the credenza on the other side of my office. I somehow managed to remain vertical, but as I took a few steps to try to get out of the office, the door — which was swinging wildly back and forth — whacked me upside the head.

The quake lasted about 15 seconds. My office was a mess, my computer was upside down on the floor, ceiling tiles had come down and insulation and wires were hanging out of the openings. Outside my office, the computer center looked like a tornado had hit. I turned to look out the window, and less than a mile away I could see a section of the 880 freeway that had collapsed — the Cypress Structure. I started to panic; my boss had left about 10 minutes earlier, and that was the way she drove home to San Francisco. (We heard from her several hours later; she had passed through that section about five minutes before the quake hit — and made it over the Bay Bridge just before part of it collapsed.)

After standing around for a few minutes, we decided that there was no point in trying to clean up that night. At this point, nobody knew the extent of the quake. There was no such thing as the World Wide Web, we didn’t know where a television was in the building, and nobody had a radio. We couldn’t use the elevators to get out of the building, so we collected our belongings and joined hundreds of other employees walking down the stairs to the street. I think I was still in shock, as later on I could not (and still can’t) remember climbing down those 13 flights of stairs. I found out later there was another reason why I couldn’t remember.

I was lucky to live just 10 minutes away, in North Oakland. I rushed to my car and rushed home to check on my cats, which I found safe and cowering under the bed. Relieved, I sat down on the bed — and instantly yelped from the intense, stabbing pain in my low back. There was no relief, no matter what position I tried. My head was throbbing, and I felt dizzy and nauseated, confused and disoriented. I took some ibuprofen and tried to rest, after trying to call my folks in Modesto. It took me five hours to get through, as all the long-distance circuits were busy.

Meanwhile, I watched the drama of the quake’s aftermath unfold on TV. I saw buildings burning in the Marina District of San Francisco and tried unsuccessfully to call friends who lived there. Several other friends had gone downtown to the area where the Cypress Structure had collapsed, to try to help with rescue efforts. They called and asked if I wanted to go; I did, but I was in too much pain.

The next day I could barely move. I called the doctor and luckily she could see me right away.

I was one of an estimated 3,700 people injured in the quake, some 400 or more quite severely, including a co-worker in the mailroom where the mail sorting shelves had fallen on her. She broke her collarbone and had numerous other injuries; last I heard, she was permanently disabled and never went back to work.

I began a round of doctor visits, physical therapy sessions, X-rays and finally chiropractic treatments — all covered by worker’s comp, thankfully — that lasted a year and a half. I had two bulging discs in my back, and I had a concussion from the impact of the office door. (That’s why I couldn’t remember climbing down the stairs; amnesia is one of the symptoms of a concussion.)

In 1991, the chiropractor and worker’s comp folks decided there was nothing more they could do for me and closed my case. Twenty years after the quake, my back still troubles me, but I consider myself to be very, very lucky.