8/10/21
Phil and I took off on our own today to go up to the Johnstown Flood Memorial. Rick & Jenn didn’t want to go.
On the way up, we found a covered bridge and stopped to stretch our legs for a bit.
The story of the Johnstown Flood is one of the saddest I have heard in a long time, it just didn’t have to happen!
The cause of the flood has been blamed on the failure of the South Fork dam, which contained the Lake Conemaugh Reservoir. The lake was part of the canal system, which was no longer useful as a means of moving barges with the increased use of the railroad. The land, including the lake and dam were eventually sold to a group of entrepreneurs who were members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, a prestigious club which included the wealthy and elite from New York and Philadelphia. After purchasing the dam, they modified it in several ways. They lowered it enough to make it wide enough for a road, they put a screen in the spillway to keep the fish from escaping into the river below, which also trapped debris. A system of relief pipes and valves, a feature included in the original dam, and previously sold off for scrap, was not replaced, so there was no way to lower the level of the water behind the dam. Lake Conemaugh at the club’s site was 450’ in elevation above Johnstown. The lake was about 2 miles long, about 1 mile wide and 60’ deep near the dam.
The dam was 72’ high and 931’ long. After 1881, when the club opened, the dam frequently sprang leaks, which were patched with mud and straw.
Johnstown had been built into a river valley with the Little Conemaugh and Stoney Creek Rivers, running along both sides of the town to merge on the western end. At least once or twice a year, these rivers would flood. Home and business owners would move what they could of their belongings to the upper floors and then sit and wait to assess the damages when the rivers went back down.
In the days before the flood, there had been days of torrential rain, causing all the tributary creeks and smaller rivers to dump runoff into the lake and the two rivers in Johnstown.
On May 31, 1889, even as the citizens of Johnstown settled down for their long wait, the activity at the South Fork Dam was frantic. Officials feared the dam would fail. Since midmorning, they had worked to avoid this, because they feared the consequences. Among the attempts were efforts to add height to the dam, then to dig a second spillway to relieve pressure from the breast, and finally to release the heavy screens placed on the overflows. By a little after 3:00 pm, club officials, the laborers they had hired and many others looked on as the dam “just moved away.”
Within an hour, a body of water which engineers at the time estimated moved into the valley with the force of Niagara Falls, rolled into Johnstown with 14 miles of accumulated debris, which included houses, barns, animals and people, dead and alive. Those that saw it coming described it as a rolling hill of debris about 40’ high and a half-mile wide. But most only heard the thunderous rumble as it swept into the town to add Johnstown to a wake that already included bits and pieces of the communities of South Fork, Mineral Point, Woodvale and East Conemaugh.
Statistics:
· 2209 people died
· 99 entire families died, including 396 children
· 124 women and 198 men were left widowed
· More than 750 victims were never identified and rest in the Plot of the Unknown in Grandview Cemetery
· Bodies were found as far away as Cincinnati, and as late as 1911
· 1600 homes were destroyed
· $17 million in property damage was done
· Four square miles of downtown Johnstown were completely destroyed
· The pile of debris at the stone bridge covered 30 acres
Just something silly along the road on the way home.
On the way home from the Memorial, we went by the Flight 93 Memorial to visit the Tower of Voices that we couldn’t see when we were here before because it started raining. We could hear the chimes from the parking lot when we got out of the truck. It was so soothing and I will never hear wind chimes again without thinking of this Tower of Voices.
Very interesting. I have known about this flood for many years, but I didn't know there was a memorial for it. Thank you for sharing. I should add it to my list of places to go.
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