DeKalb Mayor Greg Sparrow was unexpectedly caught up in history when he attended Tuesday’s third game of the World Series at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park.

An earthquake registering 6.9 on the Richter scale, stronger than last year’s quake that leveled Soviet Armenia‘, shocked the park and northern California at 5:04 p.m. Pacific Time. Although the epicenter was near Hollister, Calif., the shock was felt 80 miles northeast at the park, but no injuries were reported there.

The last death toll before Wednesday’s press time was 272 with an official injury count at 650.

The 15-second quake was the second-deadliest in U.S. history, surpassed only by the San Francisco quake of 1906 that killed at least 2,500 people.

Sparrow was in San Fransico to speak at a meeting of the United States Telephone Association. He will attend a meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Santa Monica before returning to DeKalb Saturday.

Jennifer Sparrow, the mayor’s wife, said in a telephone conversation she had with her husband at 10 p.m. Tuesday, the experience for him was “real scary.” The mayor sat in the upper decks of the stadium, where he felt the tremors and saw the stadium’s massive cement walls moving.

He added in the conversation that “everyone (at the stadium) was pretty calm and no one was injured.”

The mayor spent the night in the lobby of the San Francisco Hilton, as a safety measure against possible aftershocks. This was the first time the mayor visited San Fransico and “hopefully his last,” said his wife.

The Red Cross has opened 30 shelters in the Bay area to help with the badly needed earthquake relief.

Money sent from across the country to those shelters provides funds for such things as reconstruction of damaged buildings, blankets, food and diapers, said Elizabeth Garman, a DeKalb County Red Cross volunteer for the past 45 years.

Clothing and nursing care is also provided, said Electa Schrout, DeKalb County’s American Red Cross chair.

The shelters, located in churches and schools in the San Francisco Bay Area, are providing housing for those who lost their homes in the earthquake. Included in this homeless group are about 30 families who lost their homes in a large fire near the San Francisco Bay as a result of the quake, Garman said.

The Red Cross yearly budget is $18 million, however, the organization has already spent $42 million in aid to last month’s victims of Hurricane Hugo, Schrout said.

Red Cross relief monies rely primarily on donor’s generosity.

Local Red Cross chapters have a required amount of money they must send to help relieve national disasters, such as the quake in California. The DeKalb County chapter will need to send about $4,000 to California, Garman said.

The DeKalb County Red Cross chapter at 409 Parkside Drive, Sycamore, is accepting checks for earthquake relief. The chapter’s phone number is 895-3266 and checks should be made out to American Disaster Relief Fund.