The Avalanche That Threw a Snowplow Down the Canyon
A slide above Alvin swept a rotary snowplow and engine 200 feet down the mountainside, demolished a snowshed and bridge, and left an Italian laborer missing.
WELLINGTON, Wash., March 14.—An avalanche that swept down the mountainside above Alvin, a small station three miles west of here on the Great Northern Railway Sunday morning, wrecked a rotary snow plow and its engine from the "high line," carrying them 200 feet down the side of the canyon. Sweeping down to the "low line," it demolished a snowshed and knocked out one span of a small bridge one mile east of Scenic Hot Springs. John Annen, an engineer, was caught in the wreckage and received two broken ribs. An Italian laborer is missing and is thought to have been killed. These are believed to have been the only casualties resulting from the slide. The slide was a thousand feet long and moved with great rapidity.
“An Italian laborer is missing and is thought to have been killed.”
The Alvin slide is a reminder that clearing mountain rail lines has always been dangerous work, with laborers often bearing the hidden risk. Modern avalanche forecasting and closures have reduced—but not erased—the hazard for railroad and highway crews in the Cascades.
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