Volume 2 - ElectricCanadian.com

292 HISTORY OF THE BANKprayed in their lives before. A few minutes later the tideturned, when people realized the scantiness of their attire andscrambled back for clothes and shoes. Soon the streets werefilled again with a laughing, reassured crowd bent on sightseeing.No person in the better portion of the city had, atthis time, any conception of the horror. Many were struckwith fear, however, by a string of frightened, panting dogs,which came running up the hills from the valleys below ata slow trot, keeping steadily on in the middle of the road,disregarding the calls and whistles of the spectators."On Sansome Street, a thoroughfare that might be said tocorrespond with Wellington Street in Toronto, I got the firstwarning of what was likely to happen. A large four-storeyinsurance building was just beginning to burn. A hose-cart,with its load unreeled, stood at the kerb. Two firemen heldthe nozzle towards the blaze, a third turned the key at thehydrant, but no water came. The earthquake had completelyknocked out the water system. Blank-faced and helpless, thefiremen waited, but the hose remained limp, the water wouldnot come. To crown the confusion of the fire-fighters, theirleader, Chief Sullivan, to whom tribute has been paid by firecommissioners from all over the world, did not appear. He,with his wife, lay dead and mangled in a pile of ruins thatmarked the down-town fire station. Meanwhile the fireleaped to the next building and the next and the next. Atthis time there was no wind and the fire spread in three directionsover the block. One of the first structures to catch wasthe handsome Mutual Life building, the ground floor of whichwas occupied by the San Francisco branch of The CanadianBank of Commerce. While the people who now crowdedSansome Street for blocks stood helplessly by, watching theunhindered sway of the flames, huge columns of smoke rosein the air at several other points in the business district. Thenthe first burst of activity commenced. Throughout the businesssection poured an army of clerks loaded down with booksand valuable papers. Prominent business men, coatless and