5:13 AM

At that time this morning, all the alarms in every Fire Department in San Francisco were sounded, in honor of the 100th anniversary of the massive 7.9 earthquake that reduced the city by the Bay to rubble and killed 5,000. I've never been happier to have moved from San Francisco, by the way, than that moment, when EVERY FIRE ALARM IN THE CITY WAS RINGING.

But I love my former hometown, and I'm glad it's getting so much recognition and acknowledgement of this tragedy. I don't think it's just because of the 100th anniversary. The post-Katrina world has yielded a fascination with natural disasters, despite the admission of guilt by the Army Corps of Engineers that levee failure is what caused the flood. Katrina was a man-made disaster, but that doesn't matter. I'm currently working on a show for the History Channel that I like to call "Katrina porn"; it's a "what-if" series that muses about what would happen if other natural disasters ravaged the country, like a volcano in Yellowstone Park, or a hurricane in New York City. Nice, cheery stuff like that. But we're obsessed with it lately, because we've seen the effects of ancient acts of nature on our modern society. The San Francisco Earthquake and Fire was one of the first examples of that. Amateur photographers, a new set of hobbyists at the time, gave us a full picture of the devastation. The Victorian architecture prevalent in the city is a reminder of that time. The last time I was in San Francisco I stayed in the Palace Hotel, where Enrico Caruso was on the morning of the earthquake. Here's his eyewitness account. (By the way, my stay at the Palace was interrupted by a blackout. There's something about that hotel...)

We shouldn't forget that the fire, and particularly the dynamiting of homes to try and create firebreaks, was the source of much of the property loss. And as many as 1 in 6 of the deaths can be credited to the mayor's edict to shoot and kill anyone thought to be looting. These are not new issues.

(p.s. Sorry for no blogging yesterday, I found myself without Internet access all day)