The White Cascade by Gary Krist

Author:Gary Krist
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Published: 2007-03-17T04:00:00+00:00

13

“The Reddened Snow”

This is not an hour for reciting the chapters thrilling, tragic, [or] pathetic of the calamity in the Cascades. The reality of the facts, the pain of suspense, the throbbing of hearts can never be expressed in words. The story is written in the torn mountain, in the reddened snow.

—Reverend W. E. Randall,

from a sermon delivered at

the First Baptist Church of Everett

Tuesday, March 1, 1910

Scenic Hot Springs

Morning

James H. O’Neill first received word of the Wellington snowslide about six hours after it happened. The superintendent had risen early, intending to check on the rotary before organizing a relief party to Wellington. He had slept well. Although some people at Scenic later claimed to have heard the crash of distant thunder overnight, O’Neill had been too deeply asleep to be roused by anything. (“I would not have heard a cannon that night,” he would later testify.) But when he and Dowling saw J. J. Mackey approaching them at about 8:00 A.M., looking haggard and grim from his overnight rush down the mountain from Wellington, O’Neill must have known instantly that the traveling engineer was not bringing good news.

The three men stood in the gray, drizzling rain as Mackey explained just how bad it was.

Whatever anguish O’Neill felt at that moment—whatever sorrow or guilt or dread of what was to follow—he pushed it instantly aside. Galvanized by the need for immediate action, he gathered his officers and set to work. The first task, he realized, would have to be rounding up as many men as possible to assist in the rescue. There were scores of men now at Scenic, and many had already been preparing to hike up the mountain to bring food and supplies to the stranded trains. This force would have to be augmented, supplied with extra tools and medical supplies, and sent out as quickly as possible.

Word would also have to be sent to the outside world, but with no working telegraph at Scenic it would have to be done on foot. Only O’Neill himself could take on this latter duty. Only he, as superintendent, had access to the telegraph codebook required for secure communication with headquarters in St. Paul. Only he had the authority to orchestrate the larger rescue effort that would be required—the gathering of medical supplies, the requisitioning of doctors, nurses, and extra workmen, the organization of special relief trains from Everett and Seattle. All of this would require the superintendent’s presence at the telegraph key.

So O’Neill put master mechanic Dowling, the second-ranking GN officer present, in charge of the rescue party. Dowling and Mackey would hastily organize their forces and then head up the mountain to Wellington, taking with them J. L. Godby the attendant from the hotel’s hot springs bath, who was the closest thing to a nurse available at Scenic. While this effort was being mobilized, O’Neill himself would hike west down the right-of-way to the first operational telegraph he could find. Assuming the tracks up from the coast were still remotely

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.