This day in history: Flash flood in Wenatchee killed more than a dozen. Spokane’s SWAT team was waiting for first call

From 1975: Spokane police formed a SWAT team (Special Weapons and Tactics) in November 1973 – but as of September 1975, the team had never been called into service.

The 15-person team had spent most of the past two years training for special operations, including hostage situations, perilous rescues and barricaded perpetrators.

“A SWAT team is not something you would call under all circumstances,” explained the police lieutenant in charge of the unit.

An unrelated story in the same issue of The Spokesman-Review showed that most police officers were engaged in much more mundane activities. On the previous Friday night, police staged another “raid” of Riverside Avenue, where they arrested 10 young people for drinking and carousing while “tooling” (cruising) Riverside Avenue.

From 1925: More than a dozen were dead in “the worst disaster which ever befell” the Wenatchee area when a flash flood raged through the region.

The town of Appleyard was “practically destroyed,” and the tracks were washed out at the Great Northern Terminal.

An “urgent call for help” was issued in an attempt to search for flood victims and rescue stranded residents. At least $500,000 in damage was inflicted on the region’s apple industry.

Cloudbursts in the mountains above Wenatchee were to blame. Hailstorms from the same system compounded the damage.