Rensselaer Republican, Volume 14, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 May 1882 — More Than Two Score Persons Buried by Snow-Slides From the Sierras. [ARTICLE]

More Than Two Score Persons Buried by Snow-Slides From the Sierras.

No alarm was felt by the inhabitants until about 4:30 o’clock on Wednesday afternoon, the 15th, when the first avalanche turned loose an 800foot precipice near the top of Mount Scowden, which rises to a height of 2,500 feet between and at the confluence of Lake and Mill Creek Canyons, overlooking the southern section of ofthetownof Lundy. This body of loose, dry snow dropped about 800 feet, where it struck upon a bench of the mountain, bounded out upon the air compressed beneath it, sailed over the tops of the tallest pines and came down, vertically, 1.500 feet irom its last point of contact with the earth. This demolished the residences Of and buried Mr. and Mrs. Winters, on the north side of Chicago avenue; Mr. and Mrs. Mayes and their three little girls, and a man named Antone Silver and four Frenchmen on the south side of the avenue. The last named party consisted of Joseph Caron, George Chagnon, August Dorvan and August Duval. Caron and one of the Mayes girls each saw the great mass of snow descending. Caron called to his companions that a snow cloud had burst above them, and the little girl rushed into the house and told her mother a cloud was falling. Stove-pipes and chimneys were Allied without being broken, shoeing that the hard, packed snow descended vertically. The second avalanches was no small affair, and was even more terrifying than the first. It started from a cliff over-hanging the business centre of the town, where no snow slides was ever known to occur.’ Three-fourths of the population were in the streets in the course of the avalanche when i started and they could not flee, as the snow was five feet deep and soft. Fortunately the slide struck on a broad and elongated rock mound or bench projecting from the mountain near its base and burst into a cloud of spray, or rather the compact snow was disintegrated and sent whirling with the velocity of fine shot from a gun, the rush of air created by the avalanche being sufficient to lift men from their feet and knock them several steps and to drive the fine snow into the planks of the building on the opposite side of the street. An avalanche that shot doWn Mount Discovery, on the west side of Lake Canyon, at eleven o’clock Wednesday night, buried many persons, swept away cabins and mining work, and covered the bodies of some of its victims’to a depth of forty-five feet. On reaching the open moraine an - avalanche down Mount Gilcrest spread out like a pigeon’s tail, to a width of nearly half a mile, and rolled down in a huge wall of snow 300 or 400 feet high. In a space of one hour and a half no less than nine ponderous avalanches were witnessed from the town, some of them running clear across Lake Lundy and one crossed the creek below. Forty-five men, two women and three little girls were buried by the slides. Four men were killed and many wounded.—Bodie Free Press.