Loma Prieta 30 years later: Oakland’s resiliency lauded

OAKLAND — The memories of pulling people out of their crushed cars from Oakland’s Cypress Freeway after it collapsed in the 1989 Loma Prieta still haunt Mark Hoffman, who was a deputy fire chief at the time and one of the first firefighters at the scene.

When he sees a car accident, or sometimes an amputee, those memories flood his mind.

“I actually taste it in my mouth, the smoke of all the cars burning,” Hoffman, who retired after a 38-year career, said at a news conference Thursday marking the 30-year anniversary of that day. The news conference was held at Cypress Freeway Memorial Park, where the freeway once stood.

Forty-two people died when the upper deck of the freeway fell onto the lower deck. And as news coverage of the tragedy developed, and the death toll rose, hundreds of volunteers showed up to help out.

When Hoffman looks back on that day, the courage and compassion of those volunteers give him pride.

“The people who are the heroes in my mind aren’t the ones who have the training and practice their skills on a shift by shift basis. … They’re the people who have no training, and got way outside their comfort zone to try to help their fellow citizens, neighbors, co-workers and people they never met and will never meet again,” Hoffman said.

Mayor Libby Schaaf was living near Lake Merritt at the time and came home to find her apartment windows shattered and a giant crack in her wall, she said. Schaaf said the volunteers’ actions that day are emblematic of the city’s attitude during hard times.

“Average citizens risked their own lives to pull people from the wreckage right here,” Schaaf said. “That is how Oakland shows up in an emergency.”

The collapse also sparked strong opposition to the structure being rebuilt. Paul Cobb, the publisher of the Post News Group, said Thursday that the community never wanted the Cypress structure in the first place: It cut through several of Oakland’s oldest neighborhoods, blocking them off from the rest of the city. Cobb and others rallied the community against Caltrans’ plans to rebuild the Cypress freeway after the collapse. Thousands of people showed up to community meetings in opposition to the rebuilding of the freeway, Cobb said.

After months, Caltrans completely dropped its plans to rebuild the Cypress. In early 1991, Caltrans announced it would instead build a $695 million freeway on the western route.

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