A city of great magnitude

San Francisco — THE first time I visited San Francisco, I spent every minute filling my nose with the burnt-wood smell of cable-car brakes. I squeezed into Chinatown shops that sold jade Buddhas, drank Irish coffee at the wood-paneled Buena Vista. I climbed to the top of Hyde Street, gasping fog-tinged air, and gazed down at the sunlight sparkling on the water around Alcatraz. And every time I saw someone I imagined to be a San Franciscan -- a woman holding the hand of a little boy in a Giants cap, a lady in a silk jacket carrying a whole fish in a pink plastic bag -- I wanted to rush over and say, "See how lucky you are? You get to live here."

In April 1906, 70 years before my own first visit, Enrico Caruso also thought he was lucky to be here. The famed Italian tenor was supposed to be in Naples, but Mt. Vesuvius had erupted two weeks before, and Caruso thought he would be safer in San Francisco , where, after all, there are no volcanoes. "God has sent me here," the singer declared before he went to bed the night of April 17. When he was shaken from that bed the following dawn, Caruso changed his opinion of the Almighty's intent. "We are all doomed to die!" he shouted at his valet.

This year, the centennial of the great earthquake and fire, it's impossible to be here without being reminded of that disaster, which still ranks among the worst in American history. Bookstore windows are crowded with new retellings, archives of earthquake photos have been dusted off and tour guides are leading history buffs across town to the surviving landmarks. Visitors who immerse themselves in 1906 history might think San Franciscans are lucky there's a still city here at all.

The earthquake that woke Caruso measured 8.3 on the Richter scale, although that magnitude was estimated later, because the seismographs in San Francisco couldn't withstand more than a 7.9 quake. The San Andreas fault shifted along 296 miles, and the ground trembled for nearly a minute, the cobblestone pavement opening and closing like a mouth. Buildings tumbled, masonry fell into the road, and a herd of cattle being driven up Mission Street ran riot, goring some of those who had escaped their toppling houses.

After the shaking stopped, what followed seems like a string of incredibly bad luck compounded by bad decisions.