The Winter the River Took Lowell
Days of warm rain on deep snow sent the Snohomish over its banks in 1917 — and families rowed out of their own second-story windows.
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.
The Snohomish river, swollen by three days of warm rain falling upon the snow in the mountains, went out of its banks at Lowell early yesterday morning, and by evening the lowlands lay under four feet of water.
Families in the houses nearest the river were taken off by boat, in some instances from the windows of second stories. Milk ranchers report heavy losses among stock, and the mill at Lowell has banked its fires.
Old residents recall the flood of 1896, and say the river has served notice, as it does each decade or so, that the lowlands are its own.
“The lowlands are its own.”
Atmospheric rivers on mountain snowpack still flood the same bends of the Snohomish — the 'once-a-decade notice' now arrives more often, and the same lowland neighborhoods watch the gauges every November.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.