Mother Nature is the real power here

By DON GRAYDON
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Regardless of who the mayor is, the real power around here is wielded by Mother Nature. She seems boundless in her enthusiasm, dropping 100 inches of rain a year and lavishing floods, fires, storms and earthquakes on this mountain paradise.

A matter-of-fact report on a 1996 Town Council meeting notes that "Councilman McLaughlin was held up by the avalanche earlier that day and not in attendance."

Town historian David Cameron also serves as the unpaid disaster coordinator. Cameron supervised sandbagging efforts for three floods during the winter of 1995-96.

He sends people to sandbagging school to learn how to build bulwarks against the water, without injuring their back in the process.

"A substantial portion of the people here . . . have bad backs and are over 40," he explains.

Cameron also has to worry about unnatural disaster. One particularly unsettling scenario has a long freight train derailing in town, blocking both the main road out to U.S. 2 and the graveled detour route out of town.

Continued:

• Small town 'on brink of change'
• Tiny village boasts lots of diversity
• Small populace has no shortage of activists
• Progress may bring end to isolated splendor