Railroad Disaster and Drowned Fireman in the Skagit Flood
A catastrophic flood in the Skagit Valley leads to two consecutive train wrecks and the death of fireman Ed Cole, leaving his young family behind.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Two railroad wrecks occurred on the Seattle & Northern railroad within twenty-four hours. One of the firemen, named Ed Cole, was killed and several of the crew were injured. The warm wind of Friday night had melted the snow in the hills and swollen the Skagit river and tributaries to torrents, and the railroad men realized that there was danger. The train had safely passed over what was supposed to be the worst part of the line, and was feeling its way along very cautiously. Just as the superintendent had said to the conductor that all danger was passed, there came a crash and a sudden halt. The track had been undermined, and as the engine bore it down a rail punctured the boiler. Ed Cole, his fireman, was found in the water on the opposite side, limp and unconscious, having received a fatal blow before falling into the water. Ed Cole was a member of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and leaves a young wife and three small children.
“The warm wind of Friday night had melted the snow in the hills and swollen the Skagit river and tributaries to torrents.”
The 1892 flooding of the Skagit River remains a historical benchmark for the region, illustrating the extreme vulnerability of early infrastructure to the Pacific Northwest's 'atmospheric river' weather events. Today, while we have improved flood management, the tension between regional rail transit and the volatile river systems of the Cascades remains a recurring challenge for city planners and engineers.
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