For nine days at the end of February 1910, the little town of Wellington, Washington was assailed by a terrible blizzard. Wellington was a Great Northern Railway stop high in the Cascades, on the west side of the first Cascade Tunnel, under Stevens Pass. As much as a foot of snow fell every hour, and, on the worst day, 11 feet of snow fell. Two trains - a passenger train and a mail train, both bound from Spokane to Seattle - were trapped in the depot. Snow plows were present at Wellington and others were sent to help, but they could not penetrate the snow accumulations and repeated avalanches along the stretch of tracks between Scenic and Leavenworth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wellington,_Washington_avalanche">Wikipedia
The snow swirled day after day, driven by breathtaking wind, and piling in drifts some 20 feet high. Then it started to rain. Lightning stabbed the darkness, illuminating two trains stuck in snow drifts on the tracks at Wellington, near Stevens Pass. Thunder boomed — and a wall of snow 14 feet high let loose and slammed into the trains, sweeping them 150 feet down into the Tye River gorge. In all, 96 souls were lost in the Wellington disaster on March 1, 1910. It was the most deadly avalanche in U.S. history. A century later, it still is.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2011211746_wellington28m.html">1910 Stevens Pass avalanche still deadliest in U.S. history