 We're here at the UC Berkeley seismology station where they reported the strong earthquake at exactly 5.04 p.m. Their equipment went off the scale. This quake was so sharp epicenter 10 miles northeast of Santa Cruz We can expect some aftershocks. We've already had some aftershocks On Tuesday October 17th 1989 at 17 hours four minutes 15 seconds Pacific Daylight time a Strong motion earthquake emanated from a location 60 miles south southeast of San Francisco near Loma Prieta in the Santa Cruz Mountain Range The main shock the largest to strike the San Francisco Bay Area since 1906 ruptured a segment of the San Andreas vault and at a magnitude of 7.1 On October 26 1989 at the direction of CHP commissioner Mori Hanigan a special investigation team comprised of accident reconstruction specialists from the California Highway Patrol was formed This team was established to identify collect and document all of the factual information and available data From the earthquake induced failure and collapse of two major by-level elevated interstate freeway structures Two 50 foot long roadway segments of interstate 80 on the San Francisco, Oklahoma Bay Bridge collapsed Along with a three-quarter mile long segment of interstate 880 freeway known as the cypress street viaduct On October 17th at 5 p.m. As the third game of the 1989 world series was about to begin The wind was from the northwest at 13 knots barometric pressure was 29.97 dew point was 45 degrees Visibility was eight miles and the temperature around the bay area was 75 degrees First time in 27 years a world series game will be played in candlestick park the battle of the bay continued Second phase sold the oklonaise Taken Man freeway has come down We're attempting to get 1141 We're gonna turn the cars around and try to get them off That's what we can so that we get the entire bridge shut off and get the cars off the bridge at 5 35 p.m 31 minutes after the earthquake And 1980 mercury's effort driven by a 23 year old woman entered the westbound upper deck of the bay bridge And drove eastbound in the wrong direction for approximately two miles The vehicle was traveling at approximately 49 miles per hour When it became airborne and flew 35 and one half feet across the gap And impacted the fallen portion of the upper roadway deck bridge. It tried to fly across this 50 foot gap and didn't make it After impact the front wheels became caught and suspended the vehicle And its occupants high above the lower deck were extricated and transported to letterman army hospital by coast guard helicopter The driver of the vehicle was pronounced dead on arrival Her brother was hospitalized with major injuries The results of the california highway patrol's investigation Revealed that the driver did not appear to break and took no other apparent evasive action before driving into the gap Created by the collapse of the westbound deck An examination of the driver side restraint system indicated it was not in use at the time of impact The passenger however was wearing a seatbelt and survived Structure was still falling so we chalked it and used large jacks to keep it from falling down any further Perseverance and persistence we got him out. He was caught underneath the steering wheel when the structure fell He was off to the right side. That's the only thing that helped him survive His right leg was underneath the dash and that's what was preventing him from being extracted We cut the seat pulled the stuffing out from under the seat cut the Cut the springs out from the seat to help him drop down And the fire guys were just incredible. They're the ones that I would say did the 98% of the job One crushed car a seven-year-old boy was trapped beneath the body of his dead mother To save the boy the mother had to be removed surgeon james betz Decision was made at that time to Actually remove as much of her as we could Knowing that we couldn't totally extricate her the other surgeon And I decided that the best way to do this would be to literally divide her body And that's what we did The boy was still trapped and doctors were forced to amputate part of his leg And I literally had to lie on my stomach On the corner of the back seat of this car to reach down inside to get to his leg I think deep in my heart I felt that if it were my child or The family would be able to be there that they would agree with any decision possible to go ahead and save the life of this boy As several agencies converged on the structure It became obvious that heavy construction equipment would be the only means of accessing the trapped bodies Once the location of all of the vehicles was established Special cement cutting tractors were used to open large holes over the crushed vehicles This allowed for access to the trapped victims Some of whom had been in vehicles that were now compressed to 12-inch high slabs Others were badly disfigured or burned beyond recognition This made the quarters identification process and the california high patrols vehicle identification process very difficult It took a total of 10 days to recover all of the 41 bodies Four days after the earthquake a caltrans engineer investigating a dark unstable section of the cypress Observed movement in a crushed car An immediate rescue effort ensued 57 year old a male By the name of Buck, first name Last name, Helm, H-B-L-M-F I just Extricated and removed The location Around 28th street Because the uncollapsed portion of the 32-year-old viaduct was severely damaged a decision was made to immediately begin demolition This mancelling of 80 000 tons of concrete and steel rubble continued until early 1990 Once removed the surface roadway known as cypress street was repaired and reopened Instruction on the san francisco open bay bridge began in july of 1933 On november 12 1936 The five and a half mile long span opened for traffic The bay bridge is the world's largest span and is the only bridge to incorporate four major types of bridge construction The bridge carries 250 000 vehicles a day the third largest traffic volume in the united states At the collapse site a steel tower supports the roadways 200 feet above the san francisco bay When the earthquake struck a force of 2 million pounds sheared 41 inch thick bolts These bolts were all that secured the entire eastern portion of the bridge to the tower As the roadways began to move The upper and lower decks were pulled off their supports and collapsed The blue vehicle was nearly stopped when it rode the top deck downward The van was struck by the falling upper deck and was catapulted off the collapsed lower deck The red car slowed and barely nosed over into the open gap Construction crews worked 24 hours a day for 30 days to complete the repairs needed to reopen the bridge They removed the damaged 160 ton roadways Then realigned the 3 000 feet of bridge from the tower to oakland And finally the roadways were paved and the bridge reopened november 17th 1989 The cypress stricter viaduct was california's first double deck freeway One and a half miles long it opened in june of 1957 at a cost of nine million dollars Normally there would be approximately 200 vehicles on both levels of the three-quarter mile section that collapsed However, there were only 107 vehicles caught on the upper and lower decks of the structure when it fell At the time of the structure's collapse Most vehicles had slowed from 59 miles per hour to an average speed of approximately 38 miles per hour on the southbound upper deck And from 57 miles per hour to approximately 32 miles per hour on the northbound lower deck The majority of the 58 vehicles on the lower deck were crushed by the falling upper deck Or drove into the collapsed cement and steel support beams Of the 49 upper deck vehicles Some were slammed into the roadway surface Others were catapulted over raised sections of exposed freeway or collided with other vehicles Six vehicles were launched from the upper deck and fell to the surface streets below Those vehicles not stopped by the collapsed structure bounced rolled or slid for as many as 14 seconds before coming to a stop The california highway patrol's analysis of vehicle motion Indicates that the cypress structure began collapsing at four separate sites Four seconds after the structural motion was perceived by people driving on the viaduct The progressive failure radiated north and southward from each of these sites Approximately two seconds later the entire structure had collapsed This is only a summary of the california highway patrol's response and findings concerning the october 17 1989 seismic shaking Of the san francisco oakland bay bridge and the cypress street viaduct two of the effects of the loma prieta earthquake