Today marks the 119th anniversary of the 1906 Great Earthquake and fire that destroyed much of San Francisco's built environment at the time, and killed over 3,000 people. And this was new Mayor Daniel Lurie's first 4 am wake-up call for a 5 am appearance at Lotta's Fountain, which he'll now be doing every year that he holds office.

Former Mayor London Breed was likely happy to sleep in today, but former Mayor Willie Brown was up in the pre-dawn hours to join Mayor Daniel Lurie at Lotta's Fountain for the traditional 5:12 am ceremony commemorating the moment SF's worst-ever disaster began.

"We've gone through some tough times recently," Lurie said at the early morning event, as seen in the NBC Bay Area coverage below. "But just like what happened in the aftermath of the 1906 earthquake, this city is coming together right now. It is a new day in San Francisco... We know that when we are at our best, we are the greatest city in the world."

Following the Market Street ceremony, there was the second traditional event at 20th and Church streets, with the ceremonial repainting of the golden fire hydrant that was credited with saving much of the Mission District from flames.

Today was also the last time that Donna Ewald Huggins, who has dressed up as historic figure Lillie Hitchcock Coit for the event since 1974, will be donning the costume. Coit was SF's local patron saint of firefighters, who left money in her will for both Coit Tower — which is in the shape of a fire hose nozzle — and a monument to firefighters in Washington Square Park.

As Huggins told the Chronicle this week, she's loved portraying Coit, firehat, speaking trumpet, and all for 50 years, but "It’s time to pass on the speaking trumpet."

Unfortunately, the city honored Huggins with a floral wreath hung on the fountain. As she told the Chronicle earlier, regarding what was being planned to honor her retirement, "Not a wreath, I hope. A wreath means you are going away. This is Lille’s farewell, but she’ll always be here."

The event at Lotta's Fountain on Market Street, apart from the cosplay and mayoral speeches, was originally a celebration of the earthquake's living survivors, who would dutifully attend each year and go to the annual survivors' luncheon. But 2016 saw the death of the last living survivor, Bill Del Monte, who lived to the age of 109 and who had no actual memory of the '06 quake because he was just a four-month-old infant when it happened.

Huggins says she was especially fond of the Downey Brothers, Jack, Art and Jim, all long since passed, who used to come to the morning event wearing derby hats and neckties.

And, she tells the Chronicle's Carl Nolte, another of her favorites in the survivor crew was Herb Hamrol, who was born in 1903 and died in 2009. "I really loved him," she said, recalling how he worked as a grocery clerk until he died at 106.

All of those last children of the disaster, all centenarians, passed on in the last decade, including Ruth Newman, who died in September 2015; Winnie Hook, who made it to age 107 and died in 2013; Rose Cliver, who lived to see 109 and passed away in 2012; George Quilici, who died in 2012 at age 107; and Jeanette Scola Trapani, who died in 2010 at age 107.

Top image: Thousands of people observe a moment of silence at 5:12AM, the exact time of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, during the 100th anniversary celebration of the quake April 18, 2006 at Lotta's fountain in San Francisco.  (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)