听美国故事练听力 29

　　The western American city of San Francisco, California suffered a hugeearthquake on April eighteenth, nineteen-oh-six.
More than three thousand people are known to have died. The truenumber of dead will never be known. Two hundred fifty thousand peoplelost their homes. Just a few hours after the terrible earthquake, amagazine named Collier’s sent a telegraph message to the famousAmerican writer Jack¹ London. They asked Mister London to go to SanFrancisco and report about what he saw.
He arrived in the city only a few hours after the earthquake. Thereport he wrote is called, “THE STORY OF AN EYEWITNESS².” Here isDoug Johnson with the story.
(MUSIC)STORYTELLER: Not in history has a modern city been so completelydestroyed. San Francisco is gone. Nothing remains³ of it but memoriesand a few homes that were near the edge of the city. Its industrialarea is gone. Its business area is gone. Its social and living areasare gone. The factories, great stores and newspaper buildings, thehotels and the huge homes of the very rich, are all gone.
Within minutes of the earthquake the fires began. Within an hour ahuge tower of smoke caused by the fires could be seen a hundred milesaway. And for three days and nights this huge fire moved in the sky,reddening the sun, darkening the day and filling the land with smoke.
There was no opposing the flames. There was no organization, nocommunication. The earthquake had smashed⁴ all of the modern inventionsof a twentieth century city. The streets were broken and filled withpieces of fallen walls. The telephone and telegraph systems werebroken. And the great water pipes had burst. All inventions and safetyplans of man had been destroyed by thirty seconds of movement by theearth.
By Wednesday afternoon, only twelve hours after the earthquake, halfthe heart of the city was gone. I watched the huge fire. It was verycalm. There was no wind. Yet from every side, wind was pouring in uponthe city. East, west, north and south, strong winds were blowing uponthe dying city.
The heated air made a huge wind that pulled air into the fire, risinginto the atmosphere. Day and night the calm continued, and yet, nearthe flames, the wind was often as strong as a storm.
(MUSIC)ANNOUNCER: There was no water to fight the fire. Fire fighters decidedto use explosives to destroy buildings in its path. They hoped thiswould create a block to slow or stop the fire. Building after buildingwas destroyed. And still the great fires continued. Jack London toldhow people tried to save some of their possessions from the fire.
(MUSIC)STORYTELLER: Wednesday night the whole city crashed and roared intoruin, yet the city was quiet. There were no crowds. There was noshouting and yelling⁵. There was no disorder⁶. I passed Wednesday nightin the path of the fire and in all those terrible hours I saw not onewoman who cried, not one man who was excited, not one person whocaused trouble.
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Throughout the night, tens of thousands of homeless ones fled thefire. Some were wrapped in blankets. Others carried bedding and dearhousehold treasures.
Many of the poor left their homes with everything they could carry.
Many of their loads were extremely heavy. Throughout the night theydropped items they could no longer hold. They left on the streetclothing and treasures they had carried for miles.
Many carried large boxes called trunks. They held onto these thelongest. It was a hard night and the hills of San Francisco are steep.
And up these hills, mile after mile, were the trunks dragged. Many astrong man broke his heart that night.
Before the march of the fire were soldiers. Their job was to keep thepeople moving away from the fire. The extremely tired people wouldarise and struggle up the steep hills, pausing from weakness everyfive or ten feet. Often, after reaching the top of a heart-breakinghill, they would find the fire was moving at them from a differentdirection.
After working hour after hour through the night to save part of theirlives, thousands were forced to leave their trunks and flee.
At night I walked down through the very heart of the city. I walkedthrough mile after mile of beautiful buildings. Here was no fire. Allwas in perfect order. The police patrolled⁷ the streets. And yet it wasall doomed⁸, all of it. There was no water. The explosives were almostused up. And two huge fires were coming toward this part of the cityfrom different directions.
Four hours later I walked through this same part of the city.
Everything still stood as before. And yet there was a change. A rainof ashes was falling. The police had been withdrawn⁹. There were nofiremen, no fire engines, and no men using explosives. I stood at thecorner of Kearney and Market Streets in the very heart of SanFrancisco. Nothing could be done. Nothing could be saved. Thesurrender was complete.
(MUSIC)It was impossible to guess where the fire would move next. In theearly evening I passed through Union Square. It was packed withrefugees. Thousands of them had gone to bed on the grass. Governmenttents had been set up, food was being cooked and the refugees¹⁰ werelining up for free meals.
Late that night I passed Union Square again. Three sides of the Squarewere in flames. The Square, with mountains of trunks, was deserted¹¹.
The troops, refugees and all had retreated.
The next morning I sat in front of a home on San Francisco’s famousNob Hill. With me sat Japanese, Italians, Chinese and Negroes. Allabout were the huge homes of the very rich. To the east and south ofus were advancing two huge walls of fire.
I went inside one house and talked to the owner. He smiled and saidthe earthquake had destroyed everything he owned. All he had left washis beautiful house. He looked at me and said, “The fire will be herein fifteen minutes.”
Outside the house the troops were falling back and forcing therefugees ahead of them. From every side came the roaring of flames,the crashing of walls and the sound of explosives.
Day was trying to dawn through the heavy smoke. A sickly light wascreeping over the face of things. When the sun broke through the smokeit was blood-red and small. The smoke changed color from red to roseto purple.
I walked past the broken dome¹² of the City Hall building. This part ofthe city was already a waste of smoking ruins. Here and there throughthe smoke came a few men and women. It was like the meeting of a fewsurvivors the day after the world ended.
(MUSIC)ANNOUNCER: The huge fires continued to burn on. Nothing could stopthem. Mister London walked from place to place in the city, watchingthe huge fires destroy the city. Nothing could be done to halt thefirestorm.
In the end, the fire went out by itself because there was nothing leftto burn. Jack London finishes his story:
(MUSIC)STORYTELLER: All day Thursday and all Thursday night, all day Fridayand Friday night, the flames raged on. Friday night saw the huge firesfinally conquered, but not before the fires had swept three-quartersof a mile of docks¹³ and store houses at the waterfront.
San Francisco at the present time is like the center of a volcano.
Around this volcano are tens of thousands of refugees. All thesurrounding cities and towns are jammed with the homeless ones. Therefugees were carried free by the railroads to any place they wishedto go. It is said that more than one hundred thousand people have leftthe peninsula on which San Francisco stood.
The government has control of the situation, and thanks to theimmediate relief given by the whole United States, there is no lack offood. The bankers and businessmen have already begun making thenecessary plans to rebuild this once beautiful city of San Francisco.
(MUSIC)ANNOUNCER: You have just heard “THE STORY OF AN EYEWITNESS.” It waswritten by Jack London and adapted for Special English by PaulThompson. It was published in Collier’s Magazine, May fifth,nineteen-oh-six. Your narrator was Doug Johnson.
Join us again next week for another AMERICAN STORY, in SpecialEnglish, on the Voice of America. This is Shirley Griffith.
(MUSIC)

1 jack   

n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克

参考例句：

• I am looking for the headphone jack.我正在找寻头戴式耳机插孔。
• He lifted the car with a jack to change the flat tyre.他用千斤顶把车顶起来换下瘪轮胎。

2 eyewitness   

n.目击者，见证人

参考例句：

• The police questioned several eyewitness to the murder.警察询问了谋杀案的几位目击者。
• He was the only eyewitness of the robbery.他是那起抢劫案的唯一目击者。

3 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

4 smashed   

adj.喝醉酒的v.打碎，捣烂( smash的过去式和过去分词 )；捣毁；重击；撞毁（车辆）

参考例句：

• Several windows had been smashed. 几扇窗户劈里啪啦打碎了。
• In time-honoured tradition, a bottle of champagne was smashed on the ship. 依照由来已久的传统，对着船摔了一瓶香槟。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 yelling   

v.叫喊，号叫，叫着说( yell的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• The coach stood on the sidelines yelling instructions to the players. 教练站在场外，大声指挥运动员。
• He let off steam by yelling at a clerk. 他对一个职员大喊大叫，借以发泄怒气。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 disorder   

n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调

参考例句：

• When returning back,he discovered the room to be in disorder.回家后，他发现屋子里乱七八糟。
• It contained a vast number of letters in great disorder.里面七零八落地装着许多信件。

7 patrolled   

vt.& vi.巡逻，巡查（patrol的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• Troops patrolled the border day and night. 军队日夜在边境地区巡逻。
• Soldiers patrolled the castle ramparts. 士兵们在城堡城墙上巡逻。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 doomed   

命定的

参考例句：

• The court doomed the accused to a long term of imprisonment. 法庭判处被告长期监禁。
• A country ruled by an iron hand is doomed to suffer. 被铁腕人物统治的国家定会遭受不幸的。

9 withdrawn   

vt.收回；使退出；vi.撤退，退出

参考例句：

• Our force has been withdrawn from the danger area.我们的军队已从危险地区撤出。
• All foreign troops should be withdrawn to their own countries.一切外国军队都应撤回本国去。

10 refugees   

n.避难者，难民( refugee的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The UN has begun making airdrops of food to refugees. 联合国已开始向难民空投食物。
• They claimed they were political refugees and not economic migrants. 他们宣称自己是政治难民，不是经济移民。

11 deserted   

adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的

参考例句：

• The deserted village was filled with a deathly silence.这个荒废的村庄死一般的寂静。
• The enemy chieftain was opposed and deserted by his followers.敌人头目众叛亲离。

12 dome   

n.圆屋顶，拱顶

参考例句：

• The dome was supported by white marble columns.圆顶由白色大理石柱支撑着。
• They formed the dome with the tree's branches.他们用树枝搭成圆屋顶。

13 docks   

n.港区

参考例句：

• He was born in squalor next to London's docks. 他出生在伦敦码头附近肮脏的地区。
• The enemy raided the docks. 敌人突然袭击了码头。