The Great Cascade Washout
Heavy winter rains have crippled regional rail lines, severing Kennewick's connection to Western Washington.
The only rail route open between here and Western Washington is the S.P.S. (Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway), which follows the route of the proposed Evergreen Highway down the north bank of the Columbia. Owing to heavy rainfall in the Cascade mountains, the tracks of the Northern Pacific, the Great Northern, and the Milwaukee have been washed out and closed to traffic. Both the Northern Pacific and the Great Northern have been routing their trains out of Pasco over the tracks of the S.P.S. The only trains operating over the main line of the N.P. are locals between Spokane and Ellensburg. The warm rain has put the Yakima river out of its banks and it is the highest it has been since 1906. Residents in the bottom lands along the Yakima river are being driven to higher lands, some being able to remove their stock and other personal property, while others have had to abandon everything in their haste to save themselves.
“The river is a roaring flood, big trees being carried like battering rams against every object in their path.”
Today's I-90 corridor across the Cascades is engineered to withstand far more, but the vulnerability of the mountain passes remains a defining feature of life in the Pacific Northwest. In 1917, Kennewick's total isolation during a weather event underscored the fragility of the young city's infrastructure and its total reliance on the Columbia River's geography.
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