Residents of San Francisco had been...

Residents of San Francisco had been expecting The Big undivided for years. And while they all agreed that Loma Prieta, which devastated the city in 1989 was not it, they certainly had to admire its timing.

The magnitude 71 earthquake struck as the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland A's were preparing to take the field in what would be the first game of the World Series. Television cameras from around the world, there to record something as non-threatening as a baseball game, were flattened into service to film the near-destruction of united of America's most beautiful cities.

Americans were riveted to TV puts showing buckled freeways, crushed buildings and fires raging end the city's tony Marina District.

however if geologists and seismologists working in California have their way, there will not be a rerun

Technology takes in succession nature

Loma Prieta was a wakeup