Houses were toppled over, a shingle mill swept away, a lumber mill flooded and a section of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad's main line washed out this morning when the McCann Shingle Company's dam near Edgewick gave away as the result of pressure of water caused by leakage from the city's Cedar River dam.
The plant of the North Bend Lumber Company at Edgewick was flooded and many of the cottages of mill workmen carried away.
The McCann mill was carried across the North Bend Company's log pond and landed against the latter's mill. The scene of the flood is about five miles beyond North Bend and a half mile off the Sunset Highway.
Report of the damage first reached Seattle by telephone message from W. C. Weeks of the North Bend Lumber Company.
Mr Weeks said the water in Boxley Creek, a little stream running through the mill property, suddenly began to rise about 2 o'clock this morning and in eight minutes had risen four feet and flooded the property.
The water came so fast, said Mr. Weeks, that the occupants had no time to save personal belongings. No estimate of the damage could be given.
Boxley Creek, according to Mr. Weeks, is a small brook fed by leakage from Cedar Lake.
The Milwaukee Railroad reports between forty and fifty feet of fill on its main line carried away and much debris left on the tracks. Telegraph poles and wires were carried down. The trains are being detoured over the Northern Pacific between Black River and Easton until repairs are made.
A report received at the City Hall late this morning said the flood was caused by the old dam of the McCann Shingle Company giving away. The city recently flooded the Cedar River dam basin to test the result of sealing operations that have been going on there for several months and the leakage from the dam is said to have filled Boxley Creek behind the shingle company's dam until the pressure became too great for the old timbers of the dam.
An accident to the city's Cedar River power station occurred last night that has caused a shut down of the plant, but it is said to have had nothing to do with the flood that caused the damage at Edgewood. According to a report to the Light Department, one of the gate valves at the dam broke and flooded two of the generators.
The shut down lasted only a few hours. The plant again is running and there was no interruption of lighting service at any time, officers of the city light said this afternoon.
Small springs in the vicinity of Boxley Creek developed at the time the Cedar River dam was filled originallly and several small slides occurred. Rattlesnake Lake was also flooded and the overflow did considerable damage, the city acquiring the property.
Sealing operations at the dam, in effort to close the leaks in the basin, have been in progress for some months and recently the city officers decided to test the operations by again flooding the basin.
Boxely Creek is about one mile north of the dam, between the Cedar River and the south fork of the Snoqualmie River. The two rivers are about three miles apart, Cedar River running at an elevation of about 1,500 feet above sea level and Snoqualmie about 550 feet above sea level, leaving a drop of between 900 and 1,000 feet. Although the bank is more than a mile wide between Cedar River and the point of the supposed outbreak the water has evidently found its way through opening thousands of years old in the glacial moraine, and has broken out on the Snoqualmie slope.