An Avalanche of Rain

From the tropical seas came a wild and brutal storm -or rather a series of storms following vengefully one upon the other -to rain destruction and tragedy upon a vast area encompassing most of Northern California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Nevada.

It brought back tragic memories of the region's worst previous disaster of that kind, the great flood of December 1955, which cost the lives of 74 people and caused millions of dollars in dam age. In both cases moist tropical air, swept by jet streams from Hawaii, collided over the West Coast with cool air, resulting in avalanches of rain.

For Their Lives. Under the ceaseless pounding of last week's wind-whipped rains, dams burst, quiet rivers turned into leaping furies and swept beyond their banks, the melting snows of the Sierra and other western ranges poured relentlessly into the valleys. One place alone - Blue Canyon in the High Sierra -got a torrential 24.67 in. of rain in five days. Whole villages disappeared, homes and bridges toppled, and the streets of cities and towns became ca nals as thousands upon thousands of refugees, aided by disaster rescue crews, ran for their lives.

In Oregon, a new, 165-ft.-high, 6,000-ft.-long highway bridge collapsed, car rying a man in his car to death in the savage, swollen floodwaters. A spreading flood from the Willamette River forced evacuation of Salem's Memorial Hospital, and 1,000 other Salem people packed their belongings and fled for high ground. Elsewhere in the state, people were drowned as their cars washed over fallen bridges or were electrocuted by torn power lines. At Reedsport, a railroad bridge across the Umpqua River was opened for a three-story house which floated out into the Pacific Ocean -the fourth house to float by. In Idaho, snow slides and rising water cut off village after village in the southern part of the state, necessitating rescue work by helicopter. In Central Idaho, a bulldozer operator, pushing toward ten stranded cars containing 50 people, died when a snowslide swept him off the road.

In Washington, highway crews worked fast to clear away massive slides that isolated two passenger trains for two days near the roiling Columbia River. An Air Force plane dropped 1,000 Ibs. of food to the 300 stranded passengers, who were finally evacuated safely. In California, gale winds whipped bridges off their foundations and stranded hundreds of motorists on the Red wood Highway. Almost every town along the Eel River, in the northwestern corner of the state, was under water. City officials in Rio Dell put out orders to knock down telephone and power poles to convert the main street into a landing pad for rescue helicopters. In the Indian reservation towns of Hoopa and Willow Creek, the whole population fled to the high-ground school auditorium. In other towns, the rampaging waters were too swift even for the fleet est, and people died in rivers that once were streets.

Hope Against Hope. Finally, the storms subsided somewhat. In many places, people returned to their homes to begin the heartbreaking business of restoration. In many others, there was simply nothing to restore. All told, the storms left more than 7,000 people homeless. The number of dead stood at at least 40, and it would require many days before officials could count the millions of dollars in property damage.

At week's end, the thousands of tempest-tossed citizens could only hope against hope that this was the end of it all, that new-brewing storms in the Pacific would spend themselves before reaching the West Coast.

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