The day before the great San Francisco Earthquake, anti-graft crusaders were about to arrest the entire city administration in the greatest corruption probe in history, launched in President Roosevelt's office. Under the cover of the ensuing fire and chaos, corrupt officials struck back at their enemies. Incompetence and corruption only fed the disaster: the army shot dozens of innocent people as suspected looters, and used dynamite in an attempt to blast fire breaks, which started hundreds of other fires. More than 28,000 buildings burned, still the nation's largest disaster. Music by the tenor Enrico Caruso, who sang at San Francisco's opera house just hours befor the earthquake tore a 300 mile path through Northern California.