Sandra Eisert received the Atrium Award for Graphic Design while working at the "San Jose Mercury News". At the "San Jose Mercury News" Eisert helped cover the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. The staff won the Pulitzer Prize for General News Reporting next year, citing "detailed coverage of the October 17, 1989, Bay Area earthquake and its aftermath." In 1990, Eisert was one of three judges who selected entries in a national exhibition of Women in Photojournalism that was taken on a national tour by the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA), a professional society of still and video photojournalists. In 1991, Eisert received
1989 Loma Prieta earthquake the normally crowded freeways contained unusually light traffic. If traffic had been normal for a Tuesday rush hour, injuries and deaths would certainly have been higher. The initial media reports failed to take into account the game's effect on traffic and initially estimated the death toll at 300, a number that was corrected to 63 in the days after the earthquake. After the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake occurred, a group led by Antony C. Fraser-Smith of Stanford University reported that the event was preceded by disturbances in background magnetic field noise as measured by a sensor placed in Corralitos, California,