The Leavenworth echo. [volume] (Leavenworth, Wash.) 1904-current, 1913-01-10
G. n. TRAFFIC BLOCKED
SINCE SUN. DEC. 20
Nothing Definite About When Road Will
Be Opened Up-Men Buried in
Slide at Tye

If the tie up on the Great Northern
was ever more complete than it has
been for the past twelve days, or since
Sunday, Dec. 2o, no man remembers
it. Not even during the great disaster
Of three years ago when one hundred
people lost their lives in the great slide
at Wellington, was the road so com
pletely blocked as it has been for the
past twelve days. For two weeks it
has showed up in the Cascades, and
when it stopped showing it rained,
which was even worse than snow, be-
cause the rain started slides, and right
there is where the trouble began. So
that readers may get an approximately
correct idea of what snow in the Cas-
cades means, we will say right here
that it often SHOWS twelve inches in an
hour. When it SHOWS right hard it may
pile up two feet in an hour, so that it
often SHOWS ten, twelve and even tt-
teen feet in one night. A big snow
fall in the mountains is something like
a cloudburst Of rain in the valleys.
With this word Of explanation we will
90 on with our story about the Great
Northern blockade. Sunday, Dec.
% it showed pretty hard, that night it
showed harder, and Monday morning
it began to rain. OF course this settled
the snow five or six feet in short time,
but it also caused slides. A tremen-
dous slide came down at the west end
of the concrete sheds erected at Tye
last summer without doing any ser
ious damage to the concrete
work, but right here begins wood
en- shed som six or eight hundred
feet long. This was completely
wrecked, the track being covered with
snow, rock, trees and wrecked shed
timbers to a depth of thirty or forty
feet for distance of some three hun
dred or more feet. There were other
slides of lesser consequence, dozens OF
them, indeed they came down too fast
to keep count OF them. Not all OF
them reached the track, but spent
themselves before reaching the right OF
way. Many of these were easily clean
ed out by the rotary snow plows, but
the big slide, where the debris consist
ed of ice, rock and timbers, had to be
cleaned out with shovels and all the
men it was possible to work were en-
gagged and set to work.
On Monday of this week, between
eleven and twelve o'clock, slide
came down and covered lot of men
engaged in trying to clear the track
where the wooden sheds were carried
away. Some time in the afternoon
two men were rescued with broken
legs and otherwise bruised. One was
taken out dead and two more are
known to be buried beneath the snow
and ice. After it rained few hours
on the 31st of December it ceased but
turned into snow, and it has been
showing almost constantly since De-
cember 2oth. After slide comes
down and clears the side OF noun
tain of snow it only requires about ten
or twelve hours to pile up enough
snow to form another slide. Where
the snow shed was destroyed is one of
the most exposed spots on the entire
road and it seems almost impossible to
rebuild the sheds before next summer.
Large gangs Of men are brought here
from Spokane and taken to the sum-
nit, but when they arrive there and
see the danger Of being covered by a
slide which may come down without
warning they refuse to go to work.
Men who have been up in the vi
cinity of the summit say one can hear
the rumbling noise of one or more
slides every hour during the day or
night. Not all Of them are on the line
of the railroads. Often one can be
heard for miles but can not be seen.
A large slide makes a rumbling noise
ike distant thunder. Pine trees two
and even three feet in diameter in the
path Of big slide are broken of ike