A Saturated Sound Country Braces for a Mountain Thaw

There is great fear among railroad men that the recent heavy rain storms will cause serious floods all over the Sound country. The storm has been general west of the Cascade mountains, and the rainfall near the Sound and in the valleys has been accompanied by a proportionate snowfall in the mountains. Snow has fallen in the last few days at as low altitudes as Franklin. At Eagle Gorge it is two feet deep, and on the summit it reaches a depth of ten to fifteen feet. As the ground is already saturated with water and the rivers are high and rising, a thaw in the mountains would be apt to bring down a deluge of water with serious consequences.

The unprecedentedly heavy and continuous rains have raised the water in Lake Washington so high that it has overflowed the parks for some distance and has wrecked one of the boathouses at Leschi Park and the boardwalk leading to the Madrona Park boathouse. It is higher than last winter, when it passed all previous high-water marks.

So far the railroads have gotten off very easily, for though there has been a slight fall of earth on the Great Northern shore line and on the Northern Pacific, near Black River junction, where the last slide occurred, it has not been such as to obstruct or interrupt traffic.