"An Act of Providence": State Clears the Great Northern for the Wellington Dead
After a joint inquiry with the coroner's jury into the Wellington disaster, the state railroad commission finds the train crew did everything reasonable and calls the catastrophe an act of God — then quietly asks engineers to study the grade.
OLYMPIA, March 26. — The state railroad commission today gave out the following:
"After its investigation, held jointly with the coroner's jury, of the Wellington disaster, the railroad commission has reached the conclusion that the railroad officials in charge of the train took every precaution that could reasonably have been expected in view of the conditions that existed at the time, and that the catastrophe was an act of Providence, which the officials could not reasonably be expected to have foreseen.
The investigation relative to this wreck by the railroad commission will be continued for the purpose of determining what steps should be taken to safeguard operations in the future under similar conditions, and to this end the commission will probably call engineers of high standing to estimate the conditions on the Great Northern for the purpose of testifying on the subject before the commission."
“The catastrophe was an act of Providence, which the officials could not reasonably be expected to have foreseen.”
The Wellington slide in the Cascades killed 96 people and remains the worst avalanche in American history; the railroad commission's verdict — company blameless, mountain to blame — is the ancestor of every modern inquiry that finds a disaster nobody's fault. Note that the same order exonerating the Great Northern also set about studying how to keep it from happening again.
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