Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1881-06-29
Storm at the Signal Station, Mt. Wash
ingtOn.

lhglOn.
Noticing that the sides of the summit
were strewed with boards, beams and de-
bris of all sorts, my guide explained tha
what | saw was the result of the grea
January gale, which had dem )llshed the
large shed used as an engine house, scat
tering the loose fragments far and wide.
begged him TO give me his recollection
of it.
During the forenoon preceding the
gale we observed nothing very unusual
but the clouds kept sinking and sinking
until the summit was quite above them.
Late in the afternoon my comrade, Ser
geant Nj, came to where | was lying
abed sick. and said: There is going to be
the devil to pay, so guess I'll make every
thing snug
by 9 O'Clock in the evening the wind
had increased to one hundred miles an
hour, with heavy sleet. At midnight the
velocity of the storm was one hundred
and twenty miles, and the exposed ther-
mometer recorded twenty -four degrees
below zero. With the stove red. we could
hardly get it above freezing inside the
house. Water floze within three feet of
tho f"o in foot, whore you are now sit
ting.
AT this time the noise outside was
deafening. About O'Clock the wind rose
to one hundred and fifty miles. 1t was
now blowing a hurricane. The wlnd
gathering up ali the loose ice of the
mountain, dashed it against the house
with one continued roar. | lay wondering
how long the building would stand tins,
when all at once there came a crash.
NJ" shouted to me to get up; but had
tumbled out in II hurry on hearing the
glass go. You see, was dressed to keep
myself warm in bed.
"Our united efforts were hardly equal
to closing the storm shutters from the
inside. but we finally succeeded, though
the lights went out when the wind came
in, and we worked in the dark"
He rose to show me how the shutters of
thick oak were first secured by an iron
bar, and secondly by strong wooden
buttons firmly screwed in the window
frame.
1--WE had scarcely done this" resumed
Doyle, land were shivering over the fire,
when Il heavy gust of wind again burst
open the shutters, as easily as if they had
never been fastened at all We sprang to
our feet. After hard tussle we again
secured the windows, by mailing Il cleat to
the floor, against which one end Of the
board was fixed, using the other as lever
You understand" | nodded. Well
even then it was all we could do to force
the shutters back into place, but we did it,
We had to do it.
The rest of the night we passed in the
momentary expectation that the building
would be blown into Tuckerman's, and
we with it. At o'clock in the morning
the wind registered one hundred and
eighty-six miles. 1t had shifted then from
east to northeast. From this time it
steadily fell to ten miles at o'clock, This
was the biggest blow ever experienced on
the mountain"
Suppose the house had gone, and the
hotel stood fast could you have effected
IN entrance into the hotelp' asked.
" We could not have faced the gale. :"
" Not for hundred feet? not in a mat
ter of life and death?"
"Impossible. The wind would have
lifted us from our feet like bags of wool.
We would have been dashed against the
ocks, and smashed like egg-shells," was
the quiet reply.
"And so lor some hours you expected
to he swept into eternity?"
:" fsas.4-.l-.---.-- - --culd. Each wrapped
himself in blankets and qurvs, Dru'i-
ing these tightly around him With
ropes, to which were attached bars of iron,
so that if the house went by the board we
might stand n chance-a slim one of an
ohoring somewhere, somehow"
Somewhere, indeed
When, on the following morning,
busted myself getting ready to go down
the mountain, heard a profound sigh,
followed by some half audible words,
proceeding from the adjoining. room
These words rang in my ears all that day.
"Ah, this horrible soitude" a
Drabe, IN Hvper'S Mtgtzjne for JulY.