| Bridge on the Toutle River collapsed from wet cement-like mud laced with cars, trucks, trees, steel girders, house pieces and dead animals. The 90 degree steaming Toutle River flowed into the larger Cowlltz, raising its temperature to the 80's ? enough to kill all its fish. Mud and debris poured into the Columbia and within 18 hours had shoaled its 40 foot channel to 14 feet. New sand bars stranded freighters upstream in Portland for 3 days. |
