The Silver State

THE STORM
IN
THE
MOUNTAINS.
Ten Feet of Snow on the Level at
Truckee—Desperate Efforts to Clear
the Road.
The following is from the Truckee Re-
publican of the 19th, and is the latest in-
formation obtainable regarding the great
storm in the Sierra Nevada:
"Of all the storms that ever stormed in
the Sierra Nevada Mountains the one
which commenced on Wednesday last
dwarfs all others into insignificance.
There has never been anything like it in
the history of Truckee and the mem-
ory of the oldest inhabitant is being
raked in vain to recall a parallel to it.
Commencing on Wednesday afternoon
for over fifty hours, without a moment's
cessation, the wind blew a furious gale
and the air was so filled with snow that
it was impossible to see across the street
and it was only strong men who could
expose themselves to its fury, and then
only for a short space of time. The snow
was light and was drifted by the gale
into huge drifts, obliterating all paths
and all trails and burying everything ex-
cept the tallest houses. Truckee is
virtually nothing but a collection of
snow drifts, nearly every house being
covered so that it is possible to walk (on
snowshoes) over them. A gable here
and there projects showing a habitation
beneath the snowy covering. There is
hardly any communication from house to
house except by snowshoes,
"There have been no trains over the
mountains since Wednesday, and there
is no prophet in our midst who can tell
when there will be one. The two passen-
ger trains which left San Francisco last
Wednesday are stuck in the snow two
miles west of Blue Canyon. They have
been there nearly three days, and the
passengers have been kept alive by des-
perate efforts. Food has been packed to
them from the Canyon on snow shoes.
The snow-plow which sought to extricate
the trains is stuck a mile or so from them,
unable to get forward or back. Wednes-
day's train No. 4. west-bound. left
Truckee Thursday morning, and is report-
ed to be at Emigrant Gap. Thursday's
two east-bound trains reached Truckee
and are still here.
"Thursday night a snow-plow and five
engines left here and went to the Summit.
In returning they struck immense drifts
this side of the big bend and became
stalled. The point where they got stuck
is only three and a half miles from town.
Here they have been ever since without
food and it is impossible to render them
any assistance. A man came down from
the beleaguered train yesterday and re-
ported the men as being in a sad plight,
as all they had to eat was two swallows
of coffee and an onion. Yesterday an
effort was made to reach them, and six
engines and a snow-plow were sent out.
These became stalled before they reached
the whistling post and it was dark before
they could be got back to town. Last
night Supt. Whited, who is making his
headquarters here, tried to open the road
to Reno.
"Twelve engines were sent out behind a
plow. They reached a cut about a mile
east of town when they became hope-
lessly stuck and had to be shoveled out.
They got back to town at 10 A. M. At
2 o'clock this afternoon a desperate at-
tempt was inaugurated to reach the poor
fellows up at Cold Stream. Twelve
engines which is all the available power
at hand, together with 200 hundred
shovelers were sent out with the plow.
There was a lot of provisions on board and
several expert snowshoers. It is deter-
mined that the men shall be rescued and
provisions will be carried to them in
any event. The engines are all powerful
ten-wheelers and as they went out of
the yard each puffing and snorting,
vomiting huge volumes of smoke, what an
imposing spectacle it was! It seemed as
though no obstacle could check their
progress so mighty did they appear
And yet how puny were their efforts
against the Snow Monarch.
The manner of working the snow plow
is as follows: With all the speed and
power obtainable the plow is rushed for-
ward into the drifts. The momentum
becomes slower and slower and finally no
further progress can be made. The
whole string of engines by this time are
buried in the snow and to back out is im-
possible. The snow shovelers are then
put to work digging out the engines and
plow. When clear the engines back out
down the track a distance and make an-
other rush and dive in the snow. Some-
times not fifty feet of track is cleared at
a rush, sometimes a quarter of a mile can
be cleared. This is called bucking snow.
It is slow and tedious work, not without
great danger, and is very exhausting to
the men. By working this way the 12
engines made Donner Creek bridge, one
and a half miles in three hours. The en-
gines returned to town to renew the work
in the morning.
"About dark twenty-four of the men im-
prisoned at Cold Stream reached town.
They had walked through fifteen feet of
snow three miles in five hours. They
walked single file and each man took a
turn in breaking a trail. Sometimes a
man would become exhausted before go-
ing ten feet. Their situation while stuck
in the snow was not as bad as reported.
They found a wood chopper's cabin near
and there were plenty of provisions to
be had."