The White Cascade

Author: Gary Krist
Genre: Non-fiction / History
Publisher: Holt, Henry & Company, Inc., 2008
Pages: 352
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: In February 1910, a monstrous, record-breaking blizzard hit the Northwest. Nowhere was the danger more terrifying than near a tiny town called Wellington, perched high in the Cascade Mountains, where a desperate situation evolved: two trainloads of cold, hungry passengers and their crews found themselves marooned. For days, an army of the Great Northern Railroad's most dedicated men worked to rescue the trains, but just when escape seemed possible, the unthinkable occurred--a colossal avalanche tumbled down, sweeping the trains over the steep slope and down the mountainside. Centered on the astonishing spectacle of our nation's deadliest avalanche, The White Cascade is the masterfully told story of a never-before-documented tragedy.

Review: I cannot express how happy I was to delve back into disaster non-fiction. It's morbid I know, but there's just something about it that interests me. I think perhaps it's the element of chance. One seemingly insignificant decision is the difference between life or death. 

The power of nature and the power of the human spirit are also quite fascinating.

This was the first I had ever heard of this avalanche, and I have to say I wasn't wowed by this account. The bones were there, but the author failed to bring the reader onto the snow-covered mountainside and into a train. In the best disaster non-fiction readers feels as if they are a part of the action, actually living it, and the experience stays with them, haunts them even, long after the book concludes.

Where was the editor? Background information is always a plus in novels such as these, but I can't help but think Krist gave us too much practical information about railroading in general and didn't move the story along fast enough. The last chapter was fantastic, thought provoking.

Long story short, this isn't a bad read if you're interested in this particular disaster. However, if you want great disaster non-fiction because you want to be drawn in, there are numerous other options. For example:

The Hinckley Firestorm 
Iroquois Theatre Fire 
Texas School Explosion
Boston Molasses Flood