Fred Burke 1906 Earthquake Essay

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“I saw those policemen enveloped in a shower of falling stone. Their lives must have been blotted out in an instant.” this quote was from an article called “Horrific Wreck of the City” told by a man named Fred Hewitt. He was a eye witness in the 1906 earthquake, so was a woman named Emma Burke who was also in the disaster. The earthquake in 1906 is one of the most significant earthquakes of all time, says the USGS. Thousands of people died, the city was wrecked and fires were set aflame. The earthquake happened at 5:13 in the morning on April 20, 1906. The earthquake destroyed the city hall and many more buildings that took a long time to build. It had killed many people and started oil leaks. The leaks led to fires that blazed upon the city and killed many more. Two …show more content…

Since the earthquake was devastating, the two perspectives have differences since Emma Burke is being an upstander and Fred Hewitt is a bystander during the earthquake. Two people named Emma Burke and Fred Hewitt’s perspectives are different from each other because Emma helps other people last through the disaster while Fred thinks only of himself and his family. However, the two texts are also similar to one another because they are both witnesses in the earthquake and Emma and Fred are in a perilous time period. They are also trying to inform the reader about the earthquake and the disaster that had happened in San Francisco.

The similarity between the two texts, “Horrific Wreck of the City” and “Comprehending the Calamity” is that they both want to inform the reader about the disaster and how devastating and dreadful it was. From “Comprehending the Calamity” it says, “The shock came, and hurled my bed against an opposite wall. I sprang up, and, holding firmly to the foot-board managed to keep on my feet to the door. The

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