Aamir Zakaria Photography

I was­n’t back from Paris very long when I had an oppor­tu­ni­ty to take some earth­quake pho­tos in Napa.

I live in a high-rise in San Fran­cis­co and I was wok­en up at 3:20 am by my build­ing shak­ing and sway­ing back and forth. Scary. Very scary. My first instinct was to go take some pho­tos. My sec­ond instinct was to go back to bed. I went back to bed.

When I got up, I head­ed to Napa, where most of the dam­age took place. There were plen­ty of media and onlook­ers present, but every­thing was pret­ty calm when I was expect­ing it to be a zoo.

Some shops just had minor indoor dam­age, such as this olive oil shop. The floor looked slip­pery, but it sure smelled good in there.

I chat­ted it up with the sher­iff for a while, then pro­ceed­ed to cross the police line. He must have thought I was press.

The old cour­t­house took a big hit, as did this car.

Per­haps some peo­ple will take the mes­sage on this awning more seri­ous­ly after today, which may include fur­ther dili­gence about earth­quake preparations.

After sur­vey­ing the down­town area, I ven­tured into the neigh­bor­hoods to check out the road dam­age. I was told that skate­board­ers had been using this spot as a ramp.

Many of the cracks in the road had already been repaired by the time I got there, or were in the process.

I was so focused on the road dam­age, that I almost tripped on the side­walk, where the dam­age was even more extensive.

Luck­i­ly, no one died, though there were over a hun­dred peo­ple injured. Let’s hope there are no major after­shocks in the hours or days ahead.