YOUTUBE The Boat That Saved the Neighborhood: San Francisco's Fireboats

It was 5:04 p.m. on October 17, 1989, when a powerful magnitude 6.9 earthquake shook the soft soil of San Francisco’s Marina District, crumpling the neighborhood’s old wooden buildings like paper, and sending a cascade of splintered wood and glass into the streets. With water pipes and fire hydrants disabled by the quake, the fire department responded with a rarely-used resource: San Francisco’s lone fireboat, the Phoenix.