The Wellington avalanche was the worst avalanche, measured in terms of lives lost, in the history of the United States. 96 people died at 2 a.m. on March 1, 1910, when an avalanche down Windy Mountain struck two Great Northern Railway trains stalled in the snow at the town of Wellington, Washington, on the west side of the first Cascade Tunnel under Stevens Pass. One was a mail train, the other a passenger train; both were bound from Spokane to Seattle. The impact of the snow threw the trains 150 feet into the Tye River valley.
23 passengers survived the avalanche. Of the 96 dead, 35 were passengers, 58 were GN employees on the trains, and 3 were GN employees in the town.
Wellington was renamed Tye after the disaster because of the connotation of the old name.
An avalanche is caused when a build up of snow is released down a slope, and is one of the major dangers faced in the mountains in winter.
Avalanches are often classified by what they are made of, for example snow, ice, rock or soil avalanches.
Avalanches occur when the load on the upper snow layers exceeds bonding forces (bonding to layer beneath, support from anchors such as rocks and trees, stress support from top or bottom of slope).
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