News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1889-08-01
A FEARFUL FLOOD.
AN ALPINE DISASTER LIKE
THE JoHNSToWN HORROR.
A Tremendous Mass of Pent-Up
Water Breaks Through An Icy
Dam and Overwhelms a Populous
Valley.

Martigny and the vast wooded ridge oil
: the Tete NOir, in Southern Switzerland,
still bears fearful traces of the most de
vastating flood recorded in local history,
concerning which [ heard many q grim
legend from the herdsmen and wood
cutters of the district while exploring
the scene Of the famous tragedy.
Strangely enough, this great catastrophe
was in all its chief details an almost
literal prophecy of the Conemaugh dis
aster, with the additional interest of
having been caused by the bursting of
a natural dam, the formation of which
was well-nigh as destructive as its col
lapse.
Early in that fatal summer the river
Dranse (Which runs down into the
Rhone through that steep, narrow,
rocky valley at the lower end of which
stands the town of Martigny) suddenly
dried up so completely that not a drop
of water was left in the deep, zig-2ag
channel which had echoed with the roar
of leaping torrents only a few days be-
fore. The whole valley was in dismay,
and many of the peasants fed from
their homes, remembering that a similar
phenomenon had Immediately preceded
the three most terrible landslides ever
known in Switzerland. A few of the
holder spirits, however, volunteered to
ascend the gorge and find out the cause
of this weird prodigy, and they discov-
cred it only too Don
A mighty mass of ice, upon which a
good-sized village might have stood
with ease, had broken away from the
great glacier overhead and slipped right
down into the bed of the Dranse, which
it blocked so completely that not n drop
could pa S. Behind this natural dam
the checked waters of the river were
forming a kind of vast reservoir, rising
ever higher and higher, and engul1ing
one by n the tiny upland hamlets that
chung to the slopes on either side. Thus,
by a hideOus g~rOtesqueness of horror,
men were being drowned on a mountain
top, while their comrades in the valley
below were tortured with thirst!
Few men could nave faced unmoved
the sight of this tremendous mass of
pent-up waters Sufficient to drown the
whole valley at one rush. hanging right
over their heads and threatening to
burst upon them at any moment. But
the dreadful crisis, which would have
utterly unstrung any weaker spirit, only
nerved these bold hearts to redoubled
energy. 1t was at once decided to cut
n tunnel through the ice, in order to let
off the water ere it could overflow. All
the men who could be collected were
brought together III a wonderfully short
space of time, and to work they went,
hewing their way through the ice bar
rier as manfully as the brave fellows
who ne now toiling amid the ruins of
JOhnstown.
Seldom has q more desperate task
been attempted; never has it beer more
heroically carried out. The cutting of
the tunnel-begun from both ends at
acc in order to save time-went on day
and night for more than two weeks, the
gangs relieving each other every few
hours. During the whole of this time
the gallant men worked with death star
ing themIn the face, for at any instant
the imprisoned waters that gurgled and
growled beneath their feet might break
loose and sweep them hcadlong to de-
struc.ion. But nota man wavered. The
ghostly darkness, the deadly chill of the
icy walls that hut them in. the hollow
roar of the unseen waters beneath, the
crashing and s2lintering of the huge
blocks of ice that kept falling around
them ON every side, the trembling and
grooming of the whole mass as the flood
DISSS6u upOh II ilbIuCI dllu udIo6I, Jtle
ever-present and hourly-deepening
s adow of a sudden and horrible death
might well nave appalled, the stoutest
heart. But, even when the pickaxes
actually dropped from their bcnumbed
fingers, the little band of heroes never
finched for n moment.
And now the work was well-nigh
done, and the daring miners who had
spent so long in this living grave were
looking i~oyfully forward to the speedy
end of their dreadful task, when, almost
at the last moment, it was suddenly dis.
covered that by some fatal error the two
cuttings which were approaching eacn
other from opposite sides of the dam
were proceeding on different levels, and
could never meet unless a slanting pas
a were cut from II to the other.
This fresh labor occupied two whole
days, during which the devoted men
fairly gave themselves up for lost, deem
ing it impossible to complete the addi-
tional work before the food rose to the
mouth of the tunnel and drowned them
all where they stood. But at length the
last stroke was given, the workmen re-
tired, the water began to pour freely
through the tunnel, and the hiss and
splash of its first leap into the dry chan
mel below was answered by a deep and
heartfelt ''Thank God :" from every
man of that heroic band.
Then there came, in the very moment
of triumph, the blacklist horror of the
whole TRACE ly. Already the mass of
water above the dam was visibly re-
duced, and the gallant miners-rejoic-
ing in the thought that their valor and
perseverance had redeemed from death
IL H. e III tIo+ I,o,RIo1 -, tLo ra1 I
ley-were Just startingto return to the
homes, when, unexpected as lightning
from a cloudless sky, the lOng-delayed
destruction came. The constant ham
mering of the escaping waters, as they
fell in one great cataract right upon the
base of the ice dam, inflicted upon the
latter a shock which, weakened as it al
ready was by the tremendous pressure
from above, it was quite unable to sus-
tain. With q crash more terrific than
the loudest thunder, the whole of the
mighty mass gave way, and a volume of
water to which Niagara itself would
nave seemed small, fell like a thunder
bold right upon the doomed valley.
What followed ever those who saw it
could neYer tell, and in truth the stron-
Cest words would be too weak to convey
the full horror of a catastrophe which
compressed the havoc of years into q
few terrible moments. So tremendous
was the rush of the great wave from
that vast height down the narrow defile
that it seemed to leap with a bound from
the higher enl of the valley to the
lower. In the forcible words of an eve
witness, 'It came like q mountain fred
from n cannon" And as if to heighten
this dreadful drama to the utmost, the
inhabitants of the valley, seeing the bed
If the river filling again, concluded that
the tunneling had been successful, and
were just returning to their various oc-
equations in the joyful persuasion that
all was o safe, when, in the very mo-
ment of their fullest confidence, the
death-blow fell.
Thus, by a strange and CHASTITY irony
of fortune, the heroism of the brave
miners served only to make the havoc
more deadly. TheiI success in running
of a part of the n cumulated waters had
spread throughout the whO'e valley,
right down to Martigny itself, the belief
Il at all danger was now past, aud the
entire population lay right in the track
of the destruction when it came. Its
coming was so swift and sudden that
flight was impossible, AMI indeed no
place of refuge could be accounted safe
from the sweep OF that great harvest of
death. A solid stone bridge that
%spanned the gorge fully sixty feet above