1989 Loma Prieta earthquake 57. Although the freeway reopened in 1997, it was not fully rebuilt until 2001. In the meantime, traffic was detoured through nearby Interstate 980, causing increased congestion. Instead of rebuilding Interstate 880 over the same ground, Caltrans rerouted the freeway farther west around the outskirts of West Oakland to provide better access to the Port of Oakland and the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, and to meet community desires to keep the freeway from cutting through residential areas. Street-level Mandela Parkway now occupies the previous roadbed of the Cypress structure. Immediately after the earthquake, San Francisco Bay Area airports were closed
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,