The San Francisco call., 1904-12-26

Tne steamship George w. Gloer'
which arrived in port yesterday. en-
countered a terrible storm on her trip
down the coast from the Columbia
River. In the fury of the gale she was
struck by terrific wave, which dashed
over her smokestack and almost sub
merged her. In all her many hundreds
Of voyages during her last twenty-five
years service on this coast she has
never had anything like so tempestu-
Gus passage.
She left Astoria on Friday morning.
The Columbia River bar was breaking
badly and was a seething mass of tur-
bulent waters at the time the Elder
crossed out. She had only gone fairly
out to sea when she ran into heavy
southwest gale. While she is known
all the world over as famous roller,
this storm showed up her qualities to
the limit. She was tossed right and
left by the high seas and the strong
wind. She rolled over so far that 1T al
most seemed she would never right
herself
At II o'clock Saturday morning, when
the storm was at it's height, tremen-
dous wave struck the steamship with
great violence, washing completely
over neT ana throwing IOuS VI WdlSI
on her decks. The vessel trembled in
every fiber, and the shock was so great
that many of the passengers thought
she had struck a rock. Stateroom doors
on the starboard side, where the wave
struck, were torn away, and windows
were smashed in. Every room on the
upper deck was flooded. One of the
passengers was severely cut on the
nose by fragments of flying glass.
Crockery was thrown from the tables
and scattered in all directions.
Assistant Cook Mahoney was thrown
completely across the galley by the
force of the shock and thrown against
a camp chair. He landed on his left
side, with the result that his left hand
is now rendered useless. 1t is badly
swollen and he fears it will be a long
time before he will have the use of It,.
Volumes of water poured through
the skylights and landed in torrents
upon the kitchen ranges. AS soon as
the vessel righted herself, the occupants
of the flooded rooms were removed to
other portions of the ship while the
drenched contents of the rooms were
removed and taken out to be dried.
The storm kept UP with great fury un-
til the vessel was about forty miles off
the harbor. John McMullen, one of the
passengers, said he had been a sea-
going man all his life, but he had never
encountered such a storm.
He said that out of the siXty-five
passengers on board but six managed
to scramble down to the dining saloon
for their meals At the time the big
wave approached the ship he was look
ing out of his stateroom window 1t
looked to him like a great tidal wave,
and was fully 20 feet high. AS it tow
cred up over the ship it looked like a
mountain. The higher the wave went
up the lower the ship seemed to go
down Suddenly the water came crash
ing down with a roar like thunder. 1t
buried the vessel from stem to stern
and caused her TO shake like an aspen
leaf. Had she not been of powerful
construction she would have gone to
the bottom
She reached port yesterday morning
at 1890 AS soon as she came along
side the dock she was gayly decked
with flags and Christmas trees, while
her damaged belongings were hauled
ashore and hung UP to dry on the dock.