1

Earthquake of April 18th, 1906 as
experienced by me.

I was a Junior at Stanford
University at the time of the
big quake. I was living with a
roommate on the 3rd floor of
Roble Hall, the woman's dormitory.
I had gotten up just after
5 a.m. to write a paper due
that day for a 1 hour course in
religious history. The quake
began at 5:13. I grabbed hold of
our sturdy study table in the
middle of our room and hung
on to keep from falling. My
roommate was almost thrown
out of her bed. As I watched,
the floor was pulled away
from the outside wall of the
room about 6 inches. After
the movement stopped we
hurriedly dressed and went out
into the main hall as did the
other students on the floor. We
saw that the tall chimney on
the roof above us had fallen
down through the single rooms
under it to the basement. The
chimney at the other end of the
roof did the same thing. Fortunately
none of the girls occupying
those rooms were hurt. The
floor of the room across the hall
from us was sloping so much