OKLAHOMA CITY -- The earthquake hit around noon.

“The smiles vanished,” an eyewitness recalled, “and for an appreciable instant everyone stood transfixed” by “the sound of unearthly thunder.”

This thunder struck 94 years ago, when the Great Kanto Earthquake, with an approximate magnitude of 7.9, roiled eastern Japan for between four and 10 minutes on September 1, 1923. Estimates range between of 100,000 and 140,000 people killed, with 2 million more left homeless. As the quake and its subsequent aftershocks continued to roll, a series of devastating fires broke out as well, incinerating thousands. The earthquake reduced half of Tokyo to rubble. One survivor wrote, “We often use the expression ‘Take the story with a grain of salt.’ But in this case, the story should not be taken with a grain of salt. On the contrary, this story was too horrible to be exaggerated enough.”

Yet a few buildings withstood the conflagrations.

One was the Imperial Hotel, designed by the famed American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who’d first come to Japan in 1905 and spent much of the next decade-plus there, much of which was spent imagining a new hotel that would combine western amenities with the smaller scale of classical Japanese architecture. He had designed it with several decorative pools, including a large reflecting pool which some of the investors thought could be eliminated to save money (the project’s cost overruns ultimately exceeded $3 million -- more than $42 million in today’s dollars). Wright held fast, though, and the pools stayed. Incredibly, the official opening of the entire hotel -- some parts of it had been in use before -- was September 1, 1923.

When the earthquake struck, the Imperial’s unique foundation, cantilevered into the local soil, along with the water in the pools, helped save it from major damage; the water also was used throughout the city to keep the fires from spreading further and causing greater damage. One of the chief financial sponsors of the project, Baron Kihachiro Okura, sent Wright a telegram:

Hotel stands undamaged as monument to your genius Congratulations

That wasn’t entirely true. The dining room floor in the hotel buckled and had to be re-leveled, and non-structural items like fans, lights and kitchen equipment were damaged and needed to be replaced. But, compared with the rest of the city, the Imperial Hotel was basically intact. It stood until it was demolished in 1968.

Foundations must run deep into the ground to last, to be able to withstand acts of nature that man cannot forsee. There must be flexibility so that great torque does not snap the structure in half.

This is the point Oklahoma City Thunder general manager Sam Presti is making.

It wasn’t about drawing comparisons between the city of Tokyo recovering from catastrophe and the Thunder recovering from the loss of Kevin Durant to free agency. When you live and work in a city that has suffered so much real loss and gone through so much real tragedy in the last 20-plus years, as Presti does, you would never do that.

No, Presti is talking about the building. Just the building. It was a testament to Wright’s foresight and stubbornness, traits he displayed throughout his career, designing more than 500 structures around the world. (Ironically, Wright also designed the Price Tower, in the city of Bartlesville, Okla., two and a half hours north of Oklahoma City -- the only skyscraper he ever designed in his illustrious career that actually was built).

Wright’s imagination created a building strong enough to be able to survive something he couldn’t have foreseen coming and couldn’t have planned for even if he could. The Thunder’s standing in OKC and throughout the state as Oklahoma’s only major pro sports franchise requires that it goes on, even after losing its touchstone. That requires a foundation built on consistency.

Durant’s return to OKC Saturday with the Golden State Warriors surely met the overhyped, overwrought standards of our hot take age. There was real emotion for Durant, who sincerely connected with this city, and emotion from the team and its fans, who connected with him on so many levels. Golden State has become NBA royalty, a team full of stars and personalities and an affable quote machine of a coach who sees the world with a wry sense of humor and an unshakable sense of humanity.