January 1965 slide creates Island havoc

Fifty years and 13 nights ago, on January 30, 1965, at approximately 1:20 a.m., a mass of earth slid from the Oregon hillside into the Columbia River and moved enough water to be classified a tsunami. What was described as a 30-foot shock wave in one report moved swiftly in the direction of southwest Puget Island, killing one man and lifting a dragline and a woman's home over the dike while she slept upstairs.

Damages were estimated at $70,000 at the time. According to an inflation calculator those damages would easily cost more than $500,000 today.

Haakan Gabrielsen, a 60 year old Norwegian immigrant who had lived on the island since 1907, lost his life that night. He couldn't have known what hit him. His home, located outside the dike on the southwest side of Puget Island was in the direct path of the wall of water which shattered his home. His body was found in a nearby field amongst the debris of his house, including what was left of his cast iron tub, broken into pieces.

"He was a very nice man," David Nelson, a great nephew of Gabrielsen, remembered. "It was a terrible end for a peaceful fellow who never caused any problems."

Though Gabrielsen got along with his family very well he chose to move to the other side of the island, according to Nelson.

Travel to and from each side of the island takes a lot less time these days, but back then it would have been a big deal. He was a confirmed bachelor who worked at the sawmill in Oregon and did odd jobs. Nelson described him as a strong personality who loved kids, hunting, fishing on Sunny Sands and riding his bicycle.

"He never did get his driver's license," Nelson remarked. "I can remember him vividly. He would invariably show up at my house at lunchtime. It was always a good time."

The rocks had been falling all evening, according to reports in The Eagle on February 4, 1965. That week, The Eagle also reported, "Another wet week especially the first three days, According to records January was another wet month with 20.40 inches of rain. This was on top of two wet months in 1964. The last three months show a total of 62. 53 inches of moisture (rain and snow)."

The slide washed a portion of the Spokane-Portland-Seattle railroad track into the river on the Oregon side. Boats and floats were pulled loose in the lower Welcome Slough. A couple homes, including the Aegerter dairy farm, escaped major damage that night, but morning light showed just how much debris the water had moved.

John Aegerter remembers that night clearly. He's pretty certain he's the only person alive to witness the event, the wall of water.

"I'd heard crumbling all night long," Aegerter said. "It was after midnight and I was in bed, uneasy. I got up and saw a car stop at Haakon's house. A man stepped out of the vehicle and then he hopped right back in and I watched him barrel up the road."

That man was Elroy Svensen and he was in the car with his wife.

"Electrical lines were arcing, snapping behind him," Aegerter said. "I could see an outline of a wave coming over the dike following the car, close on his heels."

The power went out. Aegerter pulled on his clothes and ran to wake his parents.

And just like that the catastrophic event was over. Just like that it was aftermath.

"Mrs. Olsen was my first concern," Aegerter said of a woman who lived nearby. "Our animals were upset, and my parents went to check on them and assess the damage on the farm."

Aegerter grabbed his flashlight and began the trek to Olsen's home across land he had known for more than 20 years. It had become alien.

"It was an obstacle course with trees and debris everywhere," Aegerter said. "When I got there, the house wasn't there any more."

The Olsen home had been outside the dike. It now sat inside the dike in one of Aegerter's fields.

"At that time there was a 40-foot ditch all around the Island which was dug when they built the dikes. Everybody had a bridge to get to and from their houses," the late Island resident Elroy Svensen wrote in Fall, 2001, Columbia River Gillne.tter

Aegerter made his way to the house, which was in the ditch, and found the lower floor crushed.

"She was upstairs," he said, "and she was in shock. I quieted her down and told her help was on the way. I ran into Elroy Svensen and Leroy Wika on the way back down.

"Haakon just got the brunt of it. Somehow his cat survived. We adopted him.

"The only thing that saved our house? The long distance cable line. It was caught in our trees and so taut you could play a tune on it. It held up a lot of the debris."

According to Svensen's account, he and his wife had gone to get the "the widow Bessie Olsen and the bachelor Haakon Gabrielsen out."

It was just before midnight and they started to have misgivings about waking anyone. Nevertheless, they pulled up to the Gabrielsen home.

"I paused with one foot on the road when all hell broke loose," Svensen wrote. "The Bonneville high tension wires were making so much lightning that I got scared. I got into my car and put my foot to the gas pedal of my four-month old Chevy Impala. When we went by the widow's (Mrs. Bessie Olsen) house, we were doing 70 or 80 miles per hour.

"When we went flying by Aegerters' dairy, they could see debris piling across the road behind us," Svensen continued. "The widow's house, I found out later, came across the road right behind us."

Unaware that Aegerter had gone to the Olsen home, Svensen had rounded some fellows up and found a volunteer, Leroy Wika, to help him check on the widow. They passed Aegerter on the way, who told them she was okay, but in shock.

"When we got there Leroy and I knocked the upstairs window out to get her out," Svensen said. "It was about six feet from the ground. We heard Mrs. Olsen say, 'You are wrecking my house!' That poor woman didn't know what she had gone through. It wasn't very easy to get her out, she was a fair size woman, and getting her down to ground level wasn't easy."

They got her out and with the other volunteers, got her to safety.

Clean up was a big job. According to reports in The Eagle, "two to three thousand feet of drainage ditch was gone, three pumps were out and 36 acres of land that had just been seeded would need to be reseeded."

There was damage to the dike. The county engineer at the time reported that "the dike had lost approximately one-half foot in elevation on 3,100 feet of length." The PUD had to rebuild 4,000 feet of line to bring services back to normal.

Governor Dan Evans declared Puget Island a disaster area.

According to a freelance writer from Puget Island named Aileen S. Vassar, Island residents, friends, families and neighbors helped with the clean up.

"A few weeks after this night of terror," Vassar wrote, "the Puget Island Volunteer Fire Department, recognizing the hopelessness of the situation, placed an item in the local newpaper asking all persons that were physically able to report to the Aegerter farm at 9:30 the following Saturday morning to 'hand pick sticks.'

"Soon after daylight on that warm, sunny Saturday, the place swarmed with men, women, children, tractors, carts, trucks and a lone wheelbarrow. Supervision was unnecessary for it was obvious what had to be done."

Fifty years later, a scar remains on the Oregon hillside, a reminder of a tragedy so long ago. Puget Island is durable and so are the people who inhabit it. They go about their business, spend time with friends and family, ride their bikes and fish Sunny Sands, just like Haakon Gabrielsen, so long ago.