On Sunday the 17th at 5:04 p.m., it'll be the 15th anniversary of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. We still live with reminders of the quake every day -- from the constant retrofitting of the Bay Bridge to the continuing saga of the post-Central Expressway highway construction, a sense of nervousness should the A's and the Giants ever meet again for the World Series (alas, not a problem this year), from the pronouncements of old hands whenever it gets unseasonably hot of "earthquake weather" to, most movingly, our city's strong sense of community and civic pride that we all get through things together.

The virtual museum of San Francisco has a collection of pictures and articles about the Loma Prieta quake, and the US Geological Survey has basically a photoblog, from which a number of the pictures in this post are taken.

There were 63 deaths in the area, 27 fires, and almost $3 billion worth of damage in the City alone. This SFist wasn't living in San Francisco at the time, but remembers the horrific scenes of the collapsed Bay Bridge on TV (however, this SFist also for some reason was convinced it had all happened in Southern California), and friends who were living here have shared their stories of racing to the Marina to help friends evacuate their homes, or being in one of the last cars to get across to the East Bay and looking back and seeing nothing behind them.

SFist Rain and SFist Shane were both at the 'stick for the World Series -- SFist Rain says, "I thought the stadium was going to collapse on top of me, and all I could think was if that starts to happen, I'm going to run into the arms of Kevin Mitchell, who was warming up on the field in front of me." SFist Shane said he made his way home that night on the MUNI Candlestick special, "There were no street lights or stop lights and everyone on the bus thought the driver was a super-hero."

Read the thoughts of other survivors, and the rest of SFist Shane's story is after the jump.