RECORD FLOODS ON NOR’-WEST COAST OF NORTH AMERICA

Grey River Argus, 1 June 1948, Page 5

RECORD FLOODS ON NOR’-WEST COAST OF NORTH AMERICA

ONE CITY WIPED OUT In several American States and a Canadian province what are probably record floods are inundating vast areas and causing enormous damage exceeding fifty million dollars.

(Rec. 10,20) NEW YORK, May 3Q. For the first time in the history of Vancouver city’s railway links with Eastern Canada were cut to-day. This is the result of the disastrous floods. The floods are not only sweeping British Columbia, in Canada, but the Northwest Pacific areas of the United States. The tracks of both the major railway lines in Vancouver were awash, and all services to and from Vancouver were cancelled to-day. Five hundred passengers were stranded in four trains of the Canadian Pacific Railways Coy. Two trains of the Canadian National Railways also were tied up. Some relief came when the arranged a combined train-bus-plane service, under- which passengers were sent by rail to' Kelowna, and thence by bus to Penticton, and thence by air to Vancouver. Three of the Canadian Pacific Company’s twenty-five passenger planes were flown from Montreal to operate this shutter service. Laden with silt, the Fraser Rivei flowed over fifty thousand acres of agricultural lands, thus destroying grain, vegetable and fruit crops, and causing damage which will run into many millions of dollars. Thousands of people either have evacuated, or have assembled for evacuation from many areas. The Canadian Navy, Army and Air Force have combined in “Operation Overflow” ■to send hundreds of servicemen, with thousands of civilian volunteers, into the flooded’ areas and the menaced districts. The Services have mobilised all of their available planes, army trucks, crashboats, and other naval craft, as well as motor shovels, giant bulldozers, and explosives for the vast task of evacuating refugees and the checking of the onrush of the swirling waters. The Navy has concentrated on evacuations, the Army on battling at the water threatened dykes, and the Aii Force in dropping of food supplies and the flying in of thousands of sandbags. DEATH ROLL RISES (Rec. 10.20). NEW YORK, May 30. In British Columbia and in the North-West Pacific areas of the United States the death roll now has risen to eighteen. It is estimated that in the States of Oregon, Washington, -aijd Idaho alone, the floods will cause damage totalling thirty million dollars. A NEW HORROR To-day the floods devastating vast sections of the North-West Pacific States caused a new horror when a wall of water burst through a dyke surrounding the low-lying area of Vanport, in Oregon State, drowning many persons. The water burst into the west edge of this sprawling community, which was built as a shipyard city during the war. As it entered, hundreds of men, women and children were swept off their feet. Mothers saw -their children carried away by the water. Many children slipped from the grasp of their parents, as they dashed madly for the upper floors of apartment houses. A reportei' of the Associated Press says: “It was a madhouse of people, trying to save their lives, their families, and their goods”. THREE HUNDRED TRAPPED In the second floors of the houses there were three hundred people trapped, but they were saved. One J survivor said that the water was waist 'deep before the community knew tnat the water had broken through. His wife, he said, swam to higher ground, and he plunged through, carrying their baby. A woman and a child, and another woman, who were clinging to him, were swept away. He did not see them again. There were hundreds of children playing in the community area in a warm Sunday afternoon sunshine. There are two exits from the low area of ths community to a highway well above flood level. These were jammed, blocking the -way for pedestrians who were scrambling to get away from the rising water. 30,000 AFFECTED IN PORTLAND AREA The Red Cross at San Francisco states that thirty thousand persons face possible evacuation in the Portland area of Oregon. Emergency Red Cross crews, who were working against time, sandbagged a dyke system protecting the Portland metropolitan area, which has a population of half a million.

At Wenatchee, in Washington State, two thousand persons were taken to high ground in the expectation of a five-foot rise in the Columbia River.

Hundreds May Perish Water Catches Town Unawares VANPORT CITY SENDS S.O.S.' (Rec. 10.20). NEW YORK, May 30. In response to an appeal from the stricken city of Vanport, the Governor of Oregon State has to-night called out the National Guard to help to cope with the flood disaster. Vanport city lies between Portland and Vancouver. It was built to bouse the workers of the Henry Kaiser, the Swan Island, and the Oregon shipyards. The Red Cross has sent mobile disaster units of thirty cars, each of them equipped with portable radio, from Portland into the fringe of the flood area to direct the evacuation and to aid the persons in distress. The Red Cross has also set up a shelter for a myriad homeless people in the Portland schools. The police of Portland. Vanport, and Vancouver have combined to help. Boats have been sent to the flooded area to take off people who are clinging to the roof tops. A health officer said that he feared that the death roll might reach into the hundreds. The United Press says: The entire city of Vanport was inundated in 45 minutes, and the water,has levelled off to an average depth of fifteen feet. What was once a well planned community has now been practically obliterated, and the line of survivors from Vanport’s population of eighteen thousand seven hundred is stretched for miles along the main highway between Portland and Vancouver. They aU are heading for safety. National Guard officers have reported that a number of bodies has been sighted under debris along the Portland-Vancouver highway, but that workers were unable to reach them. Looting was reported in Vanport on, Monday at nightfall, and additional police were called in. MODERN RESCUE METHOD The United States Coastguard is sending a helicopter to the Portland area, to assist in rescue and in flood control operations. The helicopter is equipped with a special winch to enable it to rescue stranded flood victims from the air.

Scores of Houses Swept Away in Varport Flood (Rec. 11.40). LONDON, May 31. The flood waters at Vanport first buried a shack in which a man was killed. Then the water crashed into weather-board apartment houses. Whole units of these were broken and piled up like kindling wood against the one wall of the enclosed low-lying community. WALLS OF WATER '

There poured through the town walls of water like ocean breakers, tearing flimsy wooden houses from foundations, and sending them whirling along with the current. Very few of. scores of houses were still standing three hours after the water swept over the area. When the flood first struck, the resident of homes with second floors believed that they were safe, but as the level rose, it jerked these buildings loose, and swirled them around like match-boxes. Some of the houses crumpled. Others turned over. Those that had remained upright floated across the flooded area and smashed into other buildings, after which they folded up like accordions in the crush. fto SALVAGE

No one even attempted to salvage his belongings. The people all fled as they were. Mothers tossed their youngsters from their windows to rescuers beneath. A Red Cross worker said that one family in a car, was paralysed by fright as the waters rose. They were unable to move. None of the occupants of the car were seen to leave the car. Scores of weeping people sat along the highland area surrounding the flooded sector. They stared at every passer-by hoping to see a lost relative. Children were tied together to prevent them from straying. Red Cross officials and police said that it will be perhaps several days before the; toll of the victims has been established officially.