Santa Barbara Earthquake
Survivor Stories
Historian Betsy J. Green’s Lecture Series
Focuses on Firsthand Accounts of June 29, 1925
By Betsy J. Green | June 12, 2025
Read more of our Earthquake Centennial Cover Story.
Santa Barbara history buff Betsy J. Green is the author of Way Back When: Santa Barbara in 1925, which showcases a number of firsthand reports from earthquake survivors. As slides of the resulting destruction play in the background, Green will be sharing many of those memories during talks on Thursday, June 18, at the S.B. Historical Museum; Saturday, June 21, at the S.B. Genealogy Society; and Thursday, June 26, at the Architectural Foundation of S.B.
Here is an excerpt of one such story, told by the city manager Herbert Nunn, who lived on the Mesa right above Leadbetter Beach at 1101 Luneta Plaza. This comes from the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, volume 15, 1925.
At the moment of the shock, I was sitting on the edge of the bed, facing northeast, and was thrown upon my back. Preceding the shock there was a heavy rumbling sound similar to that of thunder, which apparently came from directly underneath. There was a barely perceptible interval between the rumbling sound and the shock … The [first] violent shock was followed instantaneously by a rapid vertical vibration, which I vividly remember.
I immediately ran from my bedroom to the front lawn … As I stepped from the front porch to a slightly sloping grass plot, I was thrown violently … My wife and the gardener, who were on the opposite side of the house at the time, came through [the house]. In stepping from a tiled porch to the grass … both were thrown violently down … The roof was vibrating with sufficient force to break the tiles.
One of my first thoughts was that the shock would produce a tidal wave, and I naturally kept an eye out to seaward, but failed to note any disturbance whatever in the water. The sea was glassy, and two fishermen in row boats seemed to be unaware of what was going on ashore, although one of them with whom I talked afterword, stated that they felt a light bump, and noted the earth falling in masses from the face of the cliffs along the shore …
The first shock (estimated to have lasted 18 seconds) was followed by four others of from six to eight seconds duration over a period of 20 minutes. I recall looking at my watch, which I had recovered by this time along with some wearing apparel, and it was exactly 7:00 when we felt the last tremor. I then waited about 20 minutes before starting for the city and did not feel any further movement of the earth during that period. I do not believe that during the interval of 18 minutes between 6:42 and 7:00, that the movements entirely ceased, there being short, sharp jerks and tremors between the better-defined movements.
At 7:20 I started for the city, and attempting to drive up State Street, the principal business street of the city, I found the entire street blocked with debris. I found the two parallel streets on either side comparatively free of debris and open to traffic, and I therefore drove entirely around the business district in order to make a rapid survey to determine what should be done in the way of rescue work. This survey convinced me that there were only two buildings in the business district which required heavy equipment to expedite the rescue work. These buildings were the San Marcos, a reinforced concrete structure four stories in height, one section of which had totally collapsed, and the Arlington Hotel. I was informed that there were several people buried in each …
There was almost a complete absence of panic. The people were cool and anxious to serve. Volunteers, organized into working crews or into the police force, continued at their tasks, night and day almost without rest or food for the first 48 hours. This is most unusual in my experience, and this good order and splendid morale continued throughout the reconstruction period.
Talks to Hear
Betsy J. Green’s “Stories of Survival” lectures are on June 18, 5:30 p.m., at the S.B. Historical Museum and on June 26, 6 p.m., at the Architectural Foundation of S.B. Gallery.
The other EQ25 talks include:
Author Cheri Rae on Pearl Chase’s legacy, June 12, 6 p.m., Architectural Foundation of S.B. Gallery
Structural engineers Sage Shingle and Jasper Jacobs on “Why Buildings Fell,” June 19, 6 p.m. Architectural Foundation of S.B. Gallery
Cheri Rae on the architectural impact of Bernhard and Irene Hoffmann, June 27, 5:30 p.m., Alhecama Theatre
Robert Hoover and Tina Foss on prior earthquake, June 27, 6 p.m., S.B. Mission Archive Library
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