DISASTROUS CLOUDBURST.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXVII, Issue 169, 18 July 1903, Page 4

DISASTROUS CLOUDBURST.

MANY LIVES LOST.

San Fjrancisco, June 20. An appalling disaster overwhelmed the town of Heppner, Oregon, on Sunday evening, June 14th. Details did not reach the outside world until the lQfcb, all means of communication being out off. The doomed town was in a canyon, down which a gigantic cloud burst and poured its waters without any warning. A wall of water twenty feet high rushed down the canyon, sweeping everything before it. Heppner was a country seat, and had about 2200 inhabitants. Almost the entire resident part of the town was destroyed, but some business houses situated on the higher ground escaped. Huge boulders weighing a ton were cauded down by the current, and many people were killed by being dashed against the rocks. The flood came with such suddenness that the inhabitants were unable to seek places of safety, and were carried down to death by the mighty rush of water. Several hundreds of badies were recovered, but the exact number of lives lost can never be known. The flood left a deposit of mud everywhere, and many b dies were buried in the debris ard soil. Early in the afternoon a thundersterm occurred, and later a heavy rainstorm set in, many small streams overflowing their banks. In an incredibly short space of time boidges wore swept away like straw*.

and the darkness of the eight soon made tho situation more appalling. As soon as possible after the flood subsided tho work of relief was begun by the citizens of tho town. Dozens of bodies were foond lodged along the bends of tho streams.

A young man of the town proved himself a hero. He mounted a horse and rode at breakneck speed over a rough road, and in inky darkness, to warn the people of Lexington, nine miles below Heppner, of their danger. He reached Lexington a few minutes ahead of the flood, which was hindered now and again in its work of destruction, now fretting over more level lands and again tearing over sharp descents with irresistible force. The people of Lexington fled to Horreidei, and escaped, though only two houses wore left standing in the town of flve hundred inhabitants.

The town will be rebuilt on tho hillside, as no one will venture to rebuild bis home in tho canyon where the horrible soenea of Sunday wero enacted.