Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1910-03-10
SLIDE SWEEPS TRAINS
OVER EDGE OF CANYON
Twenty=three Dead, Twenty-Five
Missing, Under Avalanche in
State Of Washington.
FALL 200 FEET INTO A GULCE
Coaches in Twisted Debris at Noun
tain's Base-Transcontinental
Lines Suffer.

Conditions almost unprecedented in
that section have virtually cut off the
entire northwest, and have tied up
traffic on half a dozen transcontinental
railroads. ThaWs in the mountains
have caused avalanches and snow
slides that have swept away mountain
towns and sections of railroad tracks
from Nevada to British Columbia.
Floods also have caused widespread
damage.
In the Cascade mountains in Wash
fngton two Great Northern trains were
buried by an avalanche. Twenty
bodies were recovered and scores are
injured or missing The exact num-
Der of deaths caused by avalanches in
the Rockies, in Idaho, and in western
Montana probably will not be known
until the summer sun melts the great
masses of snow and ice in the canon
into which several mining towns were
swept.
Further details of the disaster in
which an avalanche swept two Great
Northern passenger trains and a part
of the town of Wellington, Wash,
down the mountainside at the west
portal of the Cascade tunnel shows it
to be more serious than first reported.
Twenty-three lives are known to have
been lost when the mass of snow,
stones and uprooted trees hurled the
cars containing seventy sleeping per
cov,r o,-or +bo ,orrOur lad on IN tho hot
tom of the canyon 200 feet below, and
twenty-five more were reported miss
ing. Besides these a score were in
jured.
The avalanche rolled down the noun
tain at 4:3O a. m. The two trains,
three locomotives, four powerful cleo
trio motors, the depot and water tank
were swept off the ledge and deposited
in a twisted mass of wreckage at the
foot of the mountain. The noise from
the snowslide, which was a mile long,
could be heard throughout the valley.
The wrecked trains lie piled on top
of each other 200 feet below the sid
ing on which they stood when the
avalanche swept over them. The cars
were crushed into kindling wood and
no one in the train escaped injury.
The slide filled the shelf On which the
tracks at Wellington are laid and roll
ed over the edge into the valley.
Messages telling of the disaster were
sent to Everett and a relief train,
bearing physicians, nurses and work
ers, was made up and dispatched. Ow-
ing to previous slides which blocked
the road and swept away parts of the
track, the rescue train could get no
further than Scenic, whence the res
cuers had to make their way on foot
over the snow.
In the later wreck of Oriental linn
tied train No. 2, east bound, on the
Great Northern, one person was killed
and twelve were injured. The entire
train escaped plunging down a fifty
foot embankment near Milan by a mar
row margin. 1t carried 775 passen-
gers. AS the train was rounding a
curve the engineer, Alonzo Garlic, of
Spokane, saw a great mass of powders
blocking the way. Garlic throw on the
emergency brakes twenty-five feet be-
fore the train ran into the rocks. When
the train struck the mass gas tanks
in the cars exploded. Fire started i'm
mediately in five of the forward cars
and they began to topple over the en-
bankment Conductor B. S. Robertson
ran forward and uncoupled the last
three cars, saving them.
The exact number of dead in all the
disasters will not be known for weeks,
not until the snow, which is over forty
feet deep in the canyon, has melted.
Workmen digging in the snow and
wreckage report finding dismembered
bodies, severed arms and hands.
Four transcontinental lines into
Washington and Oregon are block
AIDED. Only one railroad is operating
into Salt Lake City. West of Utah
the Southern Pacific and Western Pa
cific lines have been cut by swollen
mountain streams