Devastating Floods Paralyze the Pacific Northwest
Massive flooding across the Fraser Valley and regional rivers has severed communications, washed away farms, and cut off rail travel.
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.
Water continues to reign throughout the West between the Pacific ocean and the Rocky mountains. The Fraser valley is a great sea, and the Skagit, Cedar, White, Puyallup, and Columbia rivers are swelling. Communication lines are severed, and railroads are struggling to maintain service via steamboat transfers. In the Chilliwack district alone, 2,000 people have been rendered homeless. A witness reported seeing the body of a Chinese miner, still lashed to his sluice box, carried downstream by the current. It is estimated that 4,000 families in total have been displaced by the disaster.
“Where a week or so ago were fertile farms... is now a weary waste of water extending to the horizon.”
Pacific Northwest flooding remains a constant environmental threat to the region's infrastructure. This account of the 1894 floods (implied by context) highlights how vulnerable the growing settlements were to the natural cycles of the river systems we still manage today.
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