I was doing a presentation on the progress of a project that I was heading. It was in Sacramento and although there was no visible signs of movement in the room I felt like I was going to pass out, the feeling subsided, I kept on with the presentation. When we were done and came out of the conference room we heard about the quake. The funny thing is that once we started talking about it it seemed that most people in the room felt exactly the same way I did.

I was in San Jose....and now I am here...it took less than than 6 months to leave the area for good. I felt the initial one and the whole house a two story house rock and rolled and then the continual after shocks were just an uneasy feeling for several more months. Sold my business and checked home prices and even went up to Santa Rosa...some of the homes were called fixer uppers...foundations were cracked right down the middle..asked why and they said the earthquake. I told the real estate lady.. probably not the best thing to tell a new prospective buyer. Then purchased a geology fault map of California...and sure enough "Auburn had no active fault" for 350 thousand years. I guess a new dam...might just change those facts if ever allowed. Bad quake and I am not going back anytime soon.........

I was on 101 having just left work in Sausalito headed home to San Anselmo. I thought the wheels were falling off my new car. Then the radio didn't work! After a few minutes the radio was working again and I knew what happened. Normally it was a 20 minute drive...took me 3 hours just to get into (half way home) Larkspur. Stopped at a friend's place for a few hours then headed home. My boss and I started commuting to work together after that because the traffic was even worse with out the bay bridge. A lot of people started commuting to SF using the Richmond bridge and then the Golden gate. The day before I had been in Oakland driving the Cypress structure that collapsed. My brother was at the game...I bought him the tickets as a gift and he's never let me forget. This past June there was an '89 Quake 20th anniversary celebration during the bay bridge series at AT&T Park...so, I bought my brother tickets for that game!

I was watching the news with Stan Atkinson. There was a curtain-like background that started moving. I think I remember him stopping during his broadcast, turning around and then saying something about thinking it was a tremor. It wasn't long before the reports started coming in. A friend of mine was getting ready to leave his business and drive to his home in the Bay Area so I called him. He made it home to his family just before the bridges were closed.

On October 17, 1989, I was working in Cupertino and lived with my wife and daughter in Milpitas. I was still at work and my wife was at home...baby sitting eight or nine two-year-olds in our townhouse because it was her turn in her Las Madres club.

At the moment the quake hit I should have been on the Cypress headed for Treasure Island for a Navy Reserve drill weekend. Thanks to the World Series our drill weekend was rescheduled.

There weren't too many people still at work because of the Series. I am a lifelong Mets fan and didn't really care if the As or the Giants won. We had these old-fashioned steel desks at work, probably military surplus. When the concrete columns in our building started to blur I dove under the desk and rode the waves going through the concrete floor under the thin carpet below me.

All the sprinklers came on even though there wasn't a fire. What a mess.

Meanwhile, my wife herded all the little kids into doorways and rode out the waves. Plates and glasses tumbled and cracks appeared in the drywall in our place. But nobody was hurt. Yeah!

That night we drank a couple of bottles of wine sitting in the driveway with our hilarious Brit neighbors. They were so happy to have made it through the quake and also very excited about living through a true American experience.

My husband and I were on a plane coming back to L.A. from our honeymoon in Boston when they announced about the quake.

I was flying back east and landed for a short layover in Salt Lake. I watched at the bar on TV, the failed freeways, the fires, and the broken bay bridge. It was a long flight to the easy coast, and I stayed up all night watching the coverage. I worried about my friends and co-workers, and wondered what I find when I returned home.

I made contact with my work, and became the sole product developer for the duration of the recovery period. After a week or so, I returned home to find a single broken German beer glass that had fallen off my fireplace mantle. While I had others, it was my favorite. Damn you, Loma Prieta!! Too bad I did not leave my wife at the time on the mantel.

I had co-workers that lost loved ones, it was very, very sad. God bless those that lost loved ones....

I was sitting in my living room in Loomis ready for the World Series when the quake occured. Since Loomis is on granite, didn't feel a thing. I said, "what's the big deal? Play ball!"

Looks like there's plenty of transplants here.

I was in Santa Clara fresh out of the army and working for a security company. It started when I was in the uniform room taking inventory when I felt the first shakes. I was just getting used to the tremors, being new to the area and joked about it like everyone else in the office. Then I noticed that everyone stopped smiling because it was longer and stronger than usual. As soon as it stopped, someone said "I wonder if they felt it at the baseball game?" and we turned on the TV, only to get static. I could see that all of the stop lights were out, as usual after a tremor and the traffic was starting to back up. Soon after the TV signal came back and the news was broadcasting from the air. The first thing that they noticed and headed for was the Bay Bridge because that collapsed section was really visable. That helicopter flew right over the collapsed highway in Oakland and didn't even notice. As they flew back after circling the bridge, they saw the highway damage and headed to it. It tool a while for everyone to realize how bad it reallly was. I spent the rest of the afternoon telling fightened security guards all over the area not to abandone their posts and to convice others to show up for their duty. They were all concerned for their families, which I thank God that I didn't have to deal with. My wife and two young children were visiting her familiy overseas, so I just had to look after myself.

College.

Remember seeing SF in flames and thought, "maybe there is a God".

"H' st. in Sacramento in my rocker/recliner waiting for the series to start. That unsettling feeling started in my stomach. Then I noticed the chandelier swinging in the dining room. I knew immediately...just not the extent.

Why did I just read Mike Gruber's comment and think of MRex21?

I was at work starting dinner.. Suddenly I started rocking and bumping into the cooktop... Then the 911 calls started...

I was sitting in the upper deck in Left field at Candlestick park with my wife, brother-law, and oldest son. I remember watching the light towers sway back and forth. There was a worker who had been replacing some burned out lights, who was hanging on for dear life, on the platform.

It's an odd feeling to be sitting in a plastic chair, bolted to solid concrete, and having the feeling like you are in the ocean as a large wave rolls underneath you.

My other brother-in-law was heading home from work. He had just crossed the Bay bridge moments before the one section of the bridge collapsed.

I was at home in the Rosemont area. I had just gotten home and I turned the TV on. There was some newscaster saying he didn't like earthquakes and then it cut to a seismograph that was pegged. A hanging plant swayed a little and I started running around getting things together.

Ted Koppel stood at the Bay Bridge and told the world he was at the Golden Gate and it had collapsed. Couldn't let the local news anchors have the scoop.

I ended up surveying the cracks in the earth from Oyster Point to Castroville. Moss Landing was 3 feet lower and Santa Cruz was decimated. At Loma Prieta there was a large crack but the place didn't look that bad.

At work getting ready to leave for home. It was a brand new earthquake resistant building. I had a big case full of gear for a job the next morning. I it was one of those ten hours straight with no break days so I just set the case down in a doorway and sat on it. One coworker was fresh from New Jersey and started to panic until I got her to climb under her desk by yelling at her. Another coworker was getting a snack out of a vending machine when it hit and was all over the place trying to keep her balance in spike heels about six feet from me. I remembered hearing on the radio of people shaking vending machines being killed because they fell on them so I ran over and ushered here to my suitcase chair. It seemed like it lasted forever but I think it was actually less than 30 seconds. I really didn't think that is was a big deal until I noticed that on the drive home every traffic signal was out and all of the radio stations would fuzz on and off so much that you could get much information. It was only 11 miles but it took ninety minutes to get home instead of the customary twenty. I had four coworkers on the Cypress structure they all came had close calls but made it home ok. By the time I got home all of the neighbors formed up a block party with everyone bringing what we could for dinner without gas or electricity. The popular neighbor had just bought a couple of twelve packs before the quake.

I was at the game. Section 18.

Lower Reserve. We rocked but not too bad.