During the early morning hours of March 1, 1910, an avalanche roars down Windy Mountain near Stevens Pass in the Cascade Mountains, taking with it two Great Northern trains and 96 victims. This is one of the worst train disasters in U.S. history and the worst natural disaster (with the greatest number of fatalities) in Washington.
On February 23, 1910, after a snow delay at the east Cascade Mountains town of Leavenworth, two Great Northern trains, the Spokane Local passenger train No. 25 and Fast Mail train No. 27, proceeded westbound towards Puget Sound. There were five or six steam and electric engines, 15 boxcars, passenger cars, and sleepers.
The trains had passed through the Cascade Tunnel from the east to the west side of the mountains, when snow and avalanches forced them to stop near Wellington, in King County. Wellington was a small town populated almost entirely with Great Northern railway employees.
The train stopped under the peak of Windy Mountain, above Tye Creek. Heavy snowfall and avalanches made it impossible for train crews to clear the tracks. For six days, the trains waited in blizzard and avalanche conditions. On February 26, the telegraph lines went down and communication with the outside was lost. On the last day of February, the weather turned to rain with thunder and lightning. Thunder shook the snow-laden Cascade Mountains alive with avalanches. Then it happened.
Ninety-six people were killed, including 35 passengers, 58 Great Northern employees on the trains, and three railroad employees in the depot. Twenty-three passengers survived; they were pulled from the wreckage by railroad employees who immediately rushed from the hotel and other buildings where they had been staying. The work was soon abandoned; it was not until 21 weeks later, in late July, that it was possible for the last of the bodies to be retrieved.
The immediate cause of the avalanche was the rain and thunder. But, conditions had been set by the clear cutting of timber and by forest fires caused by steam locomotive sparks, which opened up the slopes above the tracks and created an ideal environment for slides to occur.
My personal view on the matter: Had the clearing of wood and forest fires not happened, this incident would have been chalked up as a normal disaster, much like an earthquake. However, mankind has yet again played a part in causing this to happen, which is not surprising at this point as humans have over the years, destroyed Earth's natural resources in favor of development or self-productivity. Not that it's wrong per se but such disasters could have been mostly prevented if there weren't excess destruction.
References:
Lange, G. (2003, January 26). Train disaster at wellington kills 96 on march 1, 1910. Retrieved from http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&File_Id=5127
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