Belding banner. (Belding, Mich.) 1889-1918, 1911-03-30
LETTER FROM BODIE
John Wagner Tells of Thrilling Ex-
perience with Snow Slide

perience with snow Shue
A letter from John Wagner TO his
father relates a thrilling experience he
had and the terrible havoc produced
by snow slide in the mountains IL
miles from Bodie, which occurred March
8. A new electric plant had been es-
tablished there at the base OF the noun
tain costing $4,000. Ii was located
in an isolated place and no one lived in
that part Of the county. Eight people
lived at the plant. Teams could not get
there on account of the deep snow and
Mr.. Wagner with ten Others having
skis made the trip. The slide COM
pletely demolished the plant and only
! one person saved.
Mr.. Wagner says:
"The place was simply one vast field
OF snow. The slide covered several acres
and the snow was from 10 TO 20 feet
deep, so you can see we had quite
task on our hands TO find the bodies.
We had hopes of finding some one OF
them alive. After shoveling snow all
the morning we finally located the
house where a man and his wife lived.
This had been a concrete house. When
the slide struck it the house was crush
ed like an egg shell and most of it had
been carried away The slide occurred
at II o'clock midnight and everyone
except those on duty were asleep.
! When the slide struck the house one
of the concrete walls fell across the bed
where this man and his wife were asleep
in such manner as to crush the life
tout of the man and the wife wasn't
even injured. She was pinned in bed
by the big slab of concrete and could
not move. There was 8 feet OF snow
lover her and she had been in that place
about 80 hours from the time the slide
occurred until we took her out. She
was still alive and conscious. We made
a tobogan for her and dragged her three
miles to The nearest ranch and got q
doctor out there as quick as we possibly
lcould. The woman is still alive and
seems to be getting along pretty well.
At present she is i'm Bodie. We brought
her i'm day or so ago, most OF the way
on tobogan. They are going to &c,
her through to hospital if she car
stand the trip. think she will recov
if she has first class attendance. Hel
father will be in Bodie Tuesday to look
after her.
We worked for eight days out there
before we found all of the bodies. The
woman was the only one who escaped
with her life, the seven other people
were all men and were killed out right
, While we were at work getting tht
bodies out there were about IS men anC
dozen teams working out of Bodit
to get road broken to the plant. They
succeeded in breaking eight miles Of
road in about as many days. The
teams brought out Baskets as far a.
they could come and it was up TO III
fellows to come across the valley nine
miles and to take the caskets on tobOg
ans the rest Of the way which was nc
very small job. We dug graves and
buried the remains the best we could
We had to bury them out there as il
was next to impossible to get the bodies
TO Bodie.
i am none the worse off for the trip
except fear my good looks have beer
ruined temporarily as my face and
hands were burnt to a blister from the
sun. The sunlight here, especially in
the winter time, is very strong and ont
is obliged to wear dark glasses whcr
out side. Even with the glasses good
many of the boys went snow blind
which is very painful. ! consider my
self lucky as / escaped the snow blind
, ness.