Wow. This is the cleanest video an average home viewer could ever get: full line resolution from C-Band, recording on S-VHS

Wow, this is probably the best quality copy of this I've ever seen.

I was 10, getting my haircut in Walnut Creek, and remember the glass windows bowing and flexing - it was surreal. The haircut was concluded the next day.

I'm proud to be a descendant of not one but two survivors of Loma Prieta. Long story short, my parents who were only dating at the time were at their homes at San Mateo and Hayward getting ready for date night when the earthquake struck.

0:01 Telecast starts 4:47 Earthquake occurs; video transmission gets knocked out as a result but audio remains. Bumper card is shown. 8:26 bumper card returns, then cut to Roseanne in progress 10:38 Onscreen update on the earthquake-affected game during Roseanne. 11:02 First special report cut-in, then bumper card with announcer giving another update. 16:44 second special report cut-in, yet another announcer update. 32:22 third special report, this time with an update that the game and its telecast have been postponed. The network sticks with live coverage of the aftermath for the remainder of the recording

A stunningly clean copy of this event . Incredible for 1989 .. Kudos

Never has a live news report from 1989 ever looked so crystal clear. Wow nice work

Thank you for posting! I remember watching KOVR in Sacramento (they were the abc affiliate at that time) when the quake happened; I remember they showed a bit of Roseanne and then cut to local coverage. This is the first time I’ve seen what the network did.

28:00 This is from the waning days of the network having a live booth announcer on duty.

This really is an important piece of television history. The way the network melded sports, national, and local coverage was stellar. I've seen clips of some of this and clips of ABC 7's coverage, which by itself, was excellent, but this recording shows what the country saw in its entirety. Well done for recording it then, and sharing it now.

al micheals did a wonderful job so smoothly from a sports announcer to a newscaster that quick very professional

Oof, that cut away when the earthquake happens still gives me chills. I was six, and me, my grandmother and mom were watching this live. My aunt lived in Santa Cruz at the time, and my grandmother FREAKED OUT when the feed cut. She spent the next hour trying to call out to my aunt unsuccessfully. When they started saying that the epicenter was IN Santa Cruz, they sent me to bed, but I couldn't sleep and heard my grandmother still attempting to phone my aunt for HOURS. My aunt and cousin turned out fine, but their house pretty much had it. Scary stuff, but thanks for posting this! It's a piece of history!

I will always remember October 17, 1989 not just because of the earthquake, and not just because it happened before the start of the WS, but mainly because it happened on my brother and my uncle's birthday! We live in the central valley town of Modesto, CA. We were supposed to get together at my Aunt's house that day for their birthday party. My dad was watching the WS introduction while my mother was in the restroom getting herself ready. My brother was walking around the house. My mother told me to go look for a t shirt that she was going to wear in her closet. Then all of a sudden I hear my mother shouting at the top of her lungs "EARTHQUAKE!" I didn't feel the earthquake immediately nor did I see anything move that made me think there was an earthquake because her closet was so cluttered. My parents also had a waterbed when I was young and when I turned around and looked at their waterbed, I can see it waving back and forth. And that's when I realized that there was an earthquake happening! As my mother continued to shout "earthquake," the tv and power went out. The phone lines went dead. We felt the floor shake. A cabinet they had in the kitchen was rocking back and forth but thankfully it did not tip over and spilled a lot of miniature statues that they had. Luckily there was no major damage to the house. We went straight to my Aunt's and Uncle's house. Their power was out as well. Didn't come back on til almost 2 hrs later. I assumed that's when the power came back on my parents house as well. It was something that my family and I will never forget. Thank you for posting this video!

God DAMN that's a great quality recording. Especially the audio. Thank goodness for *vhs* *hifi!*

What gets lost in everything that happened is how epic that opening was. I remember watching this live.

I was 19 at the time.. in Union City at work at an after school day care program. I just remember sitting outside in the teacher parking lot, staying away from the building and riding out the aftershocks.. The kids (8 of them) were great and very well behaved. I just remember telling them, as we were hiding under a table, that they could pretend we were on a really rocky boat. The shaking seemed to last so long and it was so violent. It was a crazy time. Something I'll never forget. It was actually a 6.9. :O

I was a 9 year old kid living in Brooklyn, NY, and just loved baseball enough to want to watch the World Series. I initially thought nothing of it when the tv signal went dead. When I realized what had happened a few minutes in, I was glued to the tv still hoping to see a game that night, but became increasingly interested in the Special Report. This was the event that as a kid got me interested in all kinds of natural disasters.

Probably as clear as the day it aired. Makes a little more sense watching this why the green “World Series” screen features so prominently in my memory of that broadcast. I had forgotten it popped up multiple times as ABC switched back and forth between news/the game and regular programming.

I heard that ABC Sports won an Emmy for their coverage of the Loma Prieta Earthquake.

In 89 I lived in the East Bay (Fremont) sitting at a red light when it hit, my truck was rolling I jump out and looked back and I could see the sidewalks and asphalt road moving like waves of water going south to north away from me very fast. I will never forget that day.

I was on the ABC crew at Candlestick Park and you're certainly entitled to compliments for the technical quality of this recording. I've seen parts of this before, but never saw the whole thing from the top... someone made a comment below about Ted Koppel's special report anchor job... an "off the top of his head, from raw sources" from Ted Koppel is always going to be better than a detailed script from almost anyone else. Someone else asked about Emmy Awards.... yes, we all did. This is tough to describe without photos, but my rental car was damaged by the crowd rushing out of Candlestick once the game postponement was announced. I told Hertz it was "earthquake damage."

I was at work at a cement making factory right on San Leandro Blvd close to the Oakland Coliseum when the quake hit..I was unloading a double flatbed truck full (18 pallets) of bagged cement ,each pallet weighed at least 2,200 pounds and I just took two pallets off with my forklift when it hit..I thought I let the load down too fast so I took my hands off the control to see and I looked back and saw the bed of the truck bounced from side to side kicking up dust from the tires…I remember like it was 5 minutes ago that I thought “THIS IS THE END”…I thought the world was trying to turn upside down..hard to explain if you didn’t fell it..for a split second ,I thought that death is near and this is how I’m going out…just insane!!

Holy cow. This is your best upload yet, keep it coming!

looks like someone was dedicated to having the best equipment to watch/record tv

RIP Tim McCarver.

I remember switching to CNN because ABC kept cutting away.

Damn, never thought I'd see this. Good quality, too.

I wasn’t born when this happened… but to see this in real time, it gives me CHILLS of the moments from the beginning of the coverage to where it became so apparent

I was 9 and living close to the epicenter in San Jose. I was a huge red Sox fan. I’d just turned the pregame off and went outside to annoy my brother on the swings in our backyard. Then, it hit. I remember the ground waving, the bugs coming up, the noise & my neighbors pool sloshing like crazy. That’s a locked in memory. What a crazy time!

The quality of this is absolutely amazing!! I was only 2 when this happened, such an unreal tragedy!

This is the first time I've actually seen any live footage of this, but the moment where the earthquake began scrambling the broadcast was kinda scary to experience.

I was 9 years old watching the World Series with the babysitter and my younger brother in Ogden, Utah when this happened. It was pretty scary for us to see everything. My parents came home after their dinner out and watched the rest of this unfold. The restaurant they were at showed the opening of the game. I stayed up all night alone watching the local Salt Lake ABC affiliate so all of this video brings back memories. Later on that night KSL local CBS affiliate did a segment about our possibilities of having a quake on the Wasatch front which was scary for me at the time. 😂

Thank you for posting this.

The likelihood is that Seattle/Tacoma will be struck by an earthquake in the next 20 years. A magnitude 7 earthquake on the Seattle Fault (the SF earthquake depicted here was 6.9) would damage approximately 80 bridges in the Seattle-Tacoma area with a 42 ft tsunami wave to occur within minutes of the quake. They estimate that the economic damage to the area would start at $4 billion dollars

I remember watching Game 3 on my B&W Montgomery Ward TV here in Dallas, then all heck broke loose on air. We went into the family room and turned on CNN to watch it all unfold. Thank you for posting this!!!

That Loma Prieta earthquake of over 30 years ago was very painful and I will never forget that

This. This is why I come back to KZfaq. Thank you for the post.

@VPR2B this is amazing. I have had a C-Band dish since 2000 so I missed the analog heyday. For you to have taped it on S-VHS my hat is off to you!

Really interesting: thanks for posting. Question for anyone who knows about broadcasting: they joined the Roseanne rerun already in progress rather than starting it from the beginning. Do networks keep an alternate show running in case of an unforeseen technical difficulty like this?

My husband and I were 20 and 22 respectively, working at the same tile warehouse in north San Jose, just south of Milpitas. My husband had a radio walkman so started listening to the local radio reports immediately. We knew about the Cypress structure collapse within minutes; there was one brief shot of it early in this coverage but no one remarked on it, and haven't yet (I'm at about 1 hour 45 minutes as I write this). It was that news that truly struck us and told us, this was a major earthquake and things would never be quite the same again. It took us over two hours to reach our home in South San Jose, taking surface streets. The most eerie drive we've ever had; the streets were packed but totally silent, and no traffic lights.

I watched this live way down in San Diego and knew exactly what happened, my mom was living in Los Altos and a curio cabinet filled with crystal was all knocked over, pantry tossed with bottles of sticky condiments and wine as well as her TV ending up in the middle of the living room. I remember watching the initial footage of the collapsed double decker highway in Oakland and realizing its complete pancaking collapse and astounded that Ted Koppel or other newscasters initially not aware as to what they were looking at, dozens died there.

I stayed up late watching this (I was 11 years old):when this happened. SCARED THE CRAP OUT OF ME!!!!

What state are you from if I may ask when you were recording this? And which ABC satellite affiliate did you get? We had cable, so our local ABC affiliate was from Portland, Oregon. I was 8 when this happened and my family were shocked and horrified when we saw the events unfold, when we thought we were gonna watch the WS. My mom made a lot of prayers that evening for a lot of families and people down there

This broadcast is historical, even to one not in the San Francisco Bay Area. I was at my grandma's house at the time, my parents ready to take me home, when coverage of the quake, perhaps this very newscast preserved here, was on the TV. Here is where I got a literal real-life crash course on the concept of... TIME ZONES! Namely the West Coast is three hours behind us on the East Coast. (I lived in Long Island, NY at the time, and am now stuck in FL, plus the only timezone I've been in is EST...)

Thanks for this very interesting to watch. Took them a long time to realize it was double decker highway that had collapsed onto itself. I know where I live in Seattle there was major concern about our own double decker. Which was eventually proven correct when it also received damage in an earthquake in 2001, though thankfully not enough to collapse. Still even though every engineer said it would never survive another earthquake they kept it open for nearly 20 more years until they finally built a replacement tunnel in 2019. Amazingly all the construction actually made my commute better, as it scarred everyone away from the waterfront for a good 2 years or so. :)

Thank You for posting this piece of television and baseball history.

Very amazed by the video quality!!!!

I was only 6 but I do remember watching this and especially the coverage of the quake itself. This is archive quality so thank you for posting this. Hopefully it sticks around.

Weirdly, the night before I had a dream where something big fell down and created a ripple that ran across the US... Right towards us...

I was 3 years old lol. I was with my mom in the Century grocery store off MacArthur in Oakland. Wine bottles falling and crashing and everything was very loud and chaotic. My dad worked for Caltrans and was pretty much gone for 2 months working in the recovery/clearing effort at the Cypress freeway collapse. I remember after the quake and before the complete demolition of the freeway you could see sections still standing but didn't connect to any other structure. For a while I had nightmares where my mom and I would be driving on the freeway and abruptly just drive off the edge.

The fun begins at 4:38 I remember watching this coverage while I was doing my homework back in 8th grade. I lived in the Eastern time zone at the time. I remember falling asleep listening to it.

8:41 ABC Airs Roseanne as an Emergency Backup Plan

No ghosting and even deinterlaced! You are awesome, pal! You can upload in 960x720@59.94, though.

omg the quality is incredible! how did you got this quality! thank you for sharing this with us!

I was 8 years old on this day, living in a suburb of Oakland, and seeing this brings back both the bad memories and the good. The baseball fan in me was so happy about the series, too. Whatever happened, my two local teams were going to be #1 and #2. We'd win either way.

I can't believe the total lack of coverage and absolute silence about the collapse of so much of the upper deck of the Cyprus Freeway that there was video footage of shot by a helicopter from nearly the beginning of the all of the immediate post-earthquake video that there was film of. It was 14 city blocks of the highway that collapsed and the scene of the greatest number of deaths of people that were in the earthquake. I remember that night as clear as yesterday but never realized until I just saw this now 34+ years later that so much of the upper deck collapsed on to the lower deck of the freeway and the the collapsed distance went on so far and was so catastrophic.

I was at work in Burlingame, near Candlestick Park. I lived in Oakland and could not get to my home for 3 days. Drive from Burlingame to downtown San Francisco and then to a friends house to stay. Aftershocks for weeks. I’ll never forget it.

October 17, 1989. 5:04pm. I remember like it was yesterday. I was living in Daly City with my mom, she worked downtown SF at the post office. Took her 7 hours to get home. I had just got home and I was getting ready to watch Dance Party USA! I went to open the window cause it was hot and stuffy in the apartment. By the time I turned around, the quake started. I was scared, but calm thinking it was a usual small California earthquake. But it kept going and got immediately stronger, Stuff started flying off the shelves and I just stood there, with my fingers in my ears. Don't know why, just what I did when I was scared. Then the power went out, then it stopped. I was a senior at Westmoor Highschool and my friend lived right across the street. I went right over and stayed until my mom got home. She knew exactly where I was too, came right over and got me, not surprised I wasn't there. I couldn't sleep for days.

I was in Walsh's Tavern in Philadelphia eating dinner while watching this.

Nice to see this in good quality, though I can see some static from the satellite reception which was common with that. I taped a few minutes of KTVU just coming back on the air then, have it uploaded here but need to redo it in the right frame rate. On the 2nd VCR I taped KRON but that tape needs to be found. They were in a dark studio putting microphones up to a radio reporting what was going on.

5:04pm... I'll never forget it.

Amazing quality of video. How did you manage to find such a good quality copy?

4:42 "We're having an earthquake" Famous last words.

I remember watching this like it was yesterday. I had a cousin living in San Francisco at the time. In the age before cell phones, it was two days before we heard from him. He packed up his stuff and moved back to Louisiana the following month. He rather deal with hurricanes than earthquakes.

I've said it before when I saw the coverage on another youtbe channel and Ill say it again, Al Michaels was the MVP that night with how smoothly he went from calling the game for ABC sports to being a temporary correspondent for ABC News.

We lost Commander Nelson of the SFPD 6 months after this happened. His leadership will not be forgotten.

Holy… shit!! For something from 1989, this makes me feel like I’m watching it live!!

Thank you! Is there a way you can add the whole transmission without the cuts to the Internet Archive or something?

I remember watching this live back in 1989 (most likely on WXEX/WRIC Richmond), and particularly when they cut to the Roseanne rerun.

How does this incident rank in the most memorable events in the history of baseball?

4:32 - Ring of Fire (1991, IMAX) brought me here.

I was 17. I remember feeling bad because i was mad they canceled the game, i had no idea how bad it was. Then i saw that freeway collapsed and thought about those cars in there. Thats when it hit me. I felt like such a loser.

i was 4 month old. i didn't know anything on that due to my family's tv habit but it is scary to see it as if i see it with my dad. im glad that everyone is safe at Candlestick Park. had it occur earlier then the death toll would be higher.

Unfortunately, a lot of people were already home getting ready to watch the game!

I was only 3 months old when the earthquake happened. My Mom and I went anywhere near it, but she remembers watching the game on TV with my Uncle.

Very strange that the network had to pop on Roseanne while it got its shit together right after the quake. Can’t imagine today a network not having the ability to go back to network news immediately to start its coverage. Ted Koppell reports that a portion of the Bay Bridge collapsed then goes back to Roseanne. Even when JFK was shot they didn’t go back to soap operas once they had the cameras turned on and ready to go. This seemed very odd.

It was only on 28th December 1989 that the city of Newcastle the second largest city in the state of New South Wales Australia was struck by an earthquake that killed 14 people if was the first deadly earthquake in Australasia's history.

I was only 6 when this happen. We lost power when the earthquake hit 8 seconds into the shake. I ran by the doorway and stood there until the shake stopped. The aftershock happened 35 mins later while I was outside. My mom was working at Candlestick Park when the earthquake happened. Luckily we have a small black and white TV and watched local TV coverage of the quake all throughout the night. It was scary stuff.

i wasn't born yet but my grandmother and grandfather were there the night before the earthquake they felt it in Sacramento. my big brother wasn't born yet.

Did remember watching this game which sadly didn't begin and this what overshadowed the whole entire series. The A's won the series but the earthquake really outdid everything.

I grew up on Presidio 71-79, and a decade later when the earthquake struck, the city was still so beautiful and clean, and somewhat safe. Now, the political elite there has turned it into a toilet. It breaks my heart to see what it’s become

I was listening on CBS Radio (Jack Buck) and he explained what happened. Then I turned on ABC a few minutes later to the shocking news....

Recording On 9 KUSA-TV In Denver Colorado October 17th 1989

I worked in Oakland, about 10 blocks from the Cypress

Imagine watching this live. No internet. No cell phones, no Twitter letting people know what’s going on….

Forgot about all the car commercials in the 80s

I remember this earthquake, my mom was watching it on TV and when it happened she turned to me and asked " what happened?" Well I ran to my room and got my keys and went out to my car and fired it up and tried the radio station that I listened to. It came out of San Francisco and I drove a 1964 Dodge Dart it was an oldys station but I'm sure that it would have told people what happened. And it was not on. The station was knocked off the air by the earthquake. I turned off my car and went back into the house and I didn't need to tell my mom what I found out because it was already on the TV. Love from Marysville California

I'm amazed how minor of an event it was initially presented as, they kept showing the Cypress Street Viaduct (Nimitz Freeway) which overhead highway collapsed on the roadway under it but never said a word about it. It had 63 dead over 3000 injured and 6 billion in damage. The worst earthquake in that area since 1906.

I wonder why they went to Peter Jennings in New York for like five minutes and then went back to Koppel and never went back to Jennings in New York.

4:27 Dave Parker was out by a mile. what was that ump smoking !?

I was standing outside when earthquake hit, and the earth felt like it was Jell-O very strange feeling I was in North Oakland on the Berkeley border

I remember that Quake I was up in Kalispell Montana when it hit

I was 15 yrs old and living in Ilion NY and was watching when the earthquake hit.my heart still goes out to the people who lost their lives during the quake.Also didn't MLB move the world series to LA

31:40 RIP Tina.

31:40 RIP Tina Turner

I wonder did the west coast air rosanne and wonder years as seen here since it was so early there.

I was two years old when this happened

How come we don’t have “co-advil” anymore?

BASED 60FPS DEINTERLACING!

9:29 Michael Bolton sings in the McDonald's Commercial