The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1910-03-06
SURV|V0ROF HORROR
DETAILS DISASTER
Section Hand Gives Graphic
Account of the Avalanche
at Wellington.
SLIDE OCCURRED DURING
TERRIFIC THUNDER STORM
Lightning Was Binding, and
Rescuers Had Difficulty in
Getting Down the Gulch.
By Associated Press.

BN Associated Press.
WELLINGTON, Wash, March o
Slow progress WAS made today by the
men who are cXcavating Death gorge
pnd only few bodies were brought out.
The weather was unfavorable, being
rold, with snow The rotary plows and
hundreds of men are working night and
hav toward Wellington from both sides
pf the Cascades. When the engines,
with chains, cables and derricks. ar
rive. the ruins will be explored rapidly.
Among the three bodies found today
were those of Engineer j. b. Jarglgan
and Fireman Harry Otto Partridge OF
Biloxi. Miss, Tomorrow trains are eH-
pected to bring crowds of slehtsecrs
from Seattle and Everett TO Scenic, but
these visitors will not be permitted, the
freedom OF Wellington If they climb
the mountain TO look upon the scenes
OF horror.
Rear Guard Long Storm.
The warm weather and the rains have
reduced the height of the snow IN the
mountains one-half. The snowfall TO-
dav and that which may como tomorrow
is the rear guard of the long storm. the
weather bureau having promised normal
weather during the coming week, wtn
cold nights and bright. pleasant days.
L
likelihood of snowsEdcs. Some places
on the mountains arc bare.
Looking down from Wellington INTO
the gorge where tho wrecked trains and
sixty dead are buried. nothing Is to be
seen on the surface of the snow except
broken trees, the pilot or an engine,
portions of two electric motors and
fragments of a rotary plow. Coroner
T c. Snyder of King county, who cstl-
mates the number of dead at more than
a hundred, believes that all the bodies
will have been recovered within j
week.
Section Hand Tells Story
Ed Clark. section hand. who par.
ticir ed III the early relief work at
Wellington. gives graphic account OF
his experience. He says:
.'On that night, about forty of us. all
Americans, were asleep with our clothes
ON in the bunkhousc lnst above well
lington. Suddenly / heard noise l
can't describe and then Charlie Ander-
son. the section boss, rushed IN. =.
q BOYS, for God s sake, get upl'
he shouted, and the men sprang up.
Anderson said that the passenger trains
and motors had been swept out. Get
out Of this quick. men, or you II be
cleaned out With that he ran out to
tell others.
at was laundering and lightning
when we ran out, The flashes were
awful racket. 1t was dark as pitch
when the lightning didn t blind us. We
heard Il faint moaning down the gulch
and made a break for it. There were
only two or three little railroad Ian.
terms for light All around us we could
near trees swapping and other slides
tumbling down. We didn t know how
big they were, but we stumbled and
rolled down into tho gulley where we
'fSome mad grabbed up what axes
there were when they first ran out, and
then the lanterns showed a row of
hands beckoning in every little hole
and opening in the coaches We
started chopping between the out
stretched hands and so began TO take
them out.
eve had worked hard all day and
were pretty we'll played ont but we ali
set to work. each man Tor himself and
none leading. We could hear passen
gers crying for water. Somc were cry.
ing for nothing az all. We got some of
them out alive, but many died before
we could get at them, although they
were living when we reached the
spot"
Agent Starved Out.
At Alvin the station agent was
forced to leave on account of having no
food. and at Berne five miles east OF
the tunnel, the employees of the road
were starved out and were forced to
send 2 messenger over almost iDsur'
mountable obstacles TO get help.
There is no confirmation of the re
port that six laborcrs were killed in an
avalanche at Cascade on the cast slope
of the mountains thursday morning
Two men lost their lives in slide there
February 27.
Two hundred laborers with picks and
shovels went to work this morning in
the snowy graveyard of the gorge be
low the railroad station. Less than
half of the 100 bodies buried by the
avalanche had been recovered wher
work stopped last night. The bodies
when found are in their sleeping gar
ments. and Identification is difficult
Unless the outer clothing is near by.
SO far as is known, there is no list
of the foreign laborers who were sleep
ing in the day coaches, and their mum
Der is not known.