After the ’89 earthquake, Wells Fargo provided cash
FLASHBACK | BOB TERRY
It was 7:30 in the morning on Tuesday, October 17, 1989. I had just arrived at Wells Fargo Bank on the corner of Fillmore and California Streets. I was the manager, and I always got there early. I liked the quiet and the time to get organized. At 8:30 the staff started arriving and promptly at 9 we opened the door. It was a beautiful, bright, sunny day. Everyone was excited because it was opening day of the cross-bay World Series, with the San Francisco Giants vs. the Oakland Athletics at Candlestick Park starting at 5.
At 10 o’clock that morning, everything changed. A gas main up the street exploded. All our electricity went off: no lights, no computers, no alarm. I got up from my desk, where I was reviewing loan applications, and went to the teller windows to supervise and lend assistance. I would spend the bulk of the day there. We kept the bank open.
Hallelujah! Finally, at 4 in the afternoon, electricity was restored. I was able to get back to my desk and those loan applications.
Then all of a sudden, at 5:04 p.m., the building shook like crazy. Customers in the bank started falling to the floor. I thought, “Oh no, the gas main blew up again.” But that wasn’t it. It was an earthquake! With a magnitude of 6.9, it was quite a shaker.
I got up from my desk and helped customers get up from the floor. I tried to calm both customers and employees. I looked out the window to see a car drive into a street sign. Everyone was frazzled. I checked upstairs and downstairs; everything and everybody was fine, although shaken. I then went into the safe deposit vault, where the boxes were out of the wall and on the floor. I locked the vault. Again no lights, no alarm, no computers. The ATMs were down. We stayed open until our regular closing time at 6, then I sent everyone home. I locked up and headed home. On my way I could see buildings in the Marina District burning.
I got to my house on Lake Street, one of the few houses in the area to survive the 1906 earthquake. Everything at home was fine, but there were no lights, television, telephone or radio. No one knew the full impact. I stayed up until it got dark and then went to bed.
The next morning I got dressed and returned to the bank. Fillmore Street was a ghost town. Very few people were out and about. All my employees started showing up as usual at 8:30 — what wonderful people they were. We opened our doors at 9 a.m. as usual. I put a sign in the window that read: We will cash any bank’s checks up to $100. We had no Brink’s delivery that morning so I emptied the ATM machines, which weren’t working anyway. We still had no lights, working computers or alarm. As the morning progressed, we had a line out the door and all the way up Fillmore Street.
We stayed open until our usual closing time at 6. We cashed 6,000 checks that day — no other banks were open — and not one of them bounced. People needed cash, since no merchants could accept credit cards. God bless the bank’s employees; they were heroes.
Years later, I was working in the Financial District and a woman came up and said: “I’m sure you don’t remember me, but I will never forget you. You cashed a check for me the day after the earthquake. I really needed cash to buy food for my children.” Her comment brought tears to my eyes and still does.