The Earth Shook, the Sky Burned

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On Saturday night -- three days after the April 18, 1906, earthquake and fire had wrecked San Francisco -- a hard rain fell in the city.

Steam rose from the ruins. The city lay in absolute darkness. No lights were permitted, no fires.

What was left was "thousands of acres of quiet desolation,'' William Bronson wrote in his classic "The Earth Shook, the Sky Burned."

"Only scattered marks of a great city remained. The City Hall and its records, the libraries, the courts, and jails, the theaters and restaurants, had vanished," Bronson said. "The heart and guts of one of the world's best loved cities were gone."

To be specific, 522 city blocks, four square miles of the city, 2,593 acres, 28,188 buildings -- all destroyed. For 99 years, until Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, the San Francisco earthquake and fire stood as the largest natural disaster in U.S. history.