OCR Text |
Show THE RECENT STORMS. By accounts received from all parts of the territory, the storms have been most devastating wherever they have visited. Buildings, roads, grain fields, orchards, etc., etc. have all been severely damaged by the late floods and cloud bursts. A telegram to the Deseret News, from Provo, received on the 19th inst., states that Captain R. P. Hopkins, who passed through there by the noon train from Castle Valley reports that on Sunday last about 4 o'clock at Cottonwood Springs, on the ?? ?? Castle Valley, a cloud burst and carried away his entire mercantile stores, consisting of dry goods, flour and grain for men working on the grade. Nothing was saved but a few bars of steel. He barely escaped with his life. A cloud had burst in Soldier canyon, the main traveled road from the north to Castle Valley and washed out the canyon road, so that it is impossible to convey supplies; and also a cloud burst near Castle Dale the county seat of Castle Valley; and did considerable damage to the place. A number of places and culverts on the grade were washed away by rain storms in various places. The Territorial Enquirer of the 20th inst. gives an account of a terrible mud slide, which nearly proved fatal in its moving course. It says: ?? Dan Jones came into town from Provo canyon on Tuesday afternoon and reported that the heavy rain storm which visited this vicinity on that day raised the water of Provo River fully three feet higher than ordinarily. The water sweld [swelled] the sides of the mountains clean. He and his team came pretty near being carried away with a monster mud slide, which he estimated ?? ?? feet ?? and from four to ten feet deep. Luckily, Dan saw the moving pile of mud just in time to enable him to post themselves at a safer and more convenient point of observation." Alpine and American Fork seems to have suffered far worse than any of the other settlements of which we have any account. A correspondent at Alpine, Utah County sends a thrilling account to the Deseret News of the floods which visited that region on last Sunday morning. The people were on the way to meeting, when a moderate rainstorm set in, and about half-past 10, while the services were in progress a tremendous roaring was heard in the distance. A cloud had burst in the mountains, and the roaring was the noise of the approaching waters. The Bishop announced this fact to the congregation, and advised all the watermasters present to go and attend to the ditches. The torrent was the largest ever witnessed in that neighborhood, and had not the channel been very large, the settlement would have suffered to a fearful extent. As the multitude stood watching the bridge, expecting it to go down every moment, the earth fairly shook from the concussions of the boulders that were buried down stream by the force of the raging waters. The stream was literally covered with timbers, as if the mountains had been totally cleared of their growth, many of the logs being from 1 ½ to 2 feet in diameter. This was especially the case when the second cloud burst, about 12:30 p. m., when thousands of cords were carried down with the stream. On the 15th instant, the date of the correspondent's letter, the bed of the creek was alive with men and teams, engaged in getting out the wood, and there still remained between the foot of the mountain and the channel of Dry Creek (about half a mile), enough timber to furnish fuel for the settlement for more than a year. Notwithstanding the severity of the flood, the damage is light compared to that of a year ago. The grain is uninjured, but considerable ?? has been spoiled by the recent rains. The correspondent, I. Devey, says that American Fork canyon, on the other side of the mountain, and Lehi must have suffered far worse than Alpine. |