Johnstown Flood

bridge downstream in the background The city of Johnstown, Pennsylvania was founded in 1800 by Swiss immigrant Joseph Johns (anglicized from "Schantz") where the Stonycreek and Little Conemaugh rivers joined to form the Conemaugh River. It began to prosper with the building of the Pennsylvania Main Line Canal in 1836. Construction of the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Cambria Iron Works in the 1850s brought further industry to town, and eventually led to abandonment of the canal. By 1889, Johnstown's industries had attracted numerous Welsh and German immigrants to work. With a population of 30,000, it was a growing industrial community known for the quality of its steel. The high, steep hills of the narrow Conemaugh Valley and the Allegheny Mountains to the east restricted development of Johnstown, keeping it close to the riverfront areas. The valley received large amounts of runoff from rain and snowfall. The area surrounding the city is prone to flooding due to its location on the rivers, whose upstream watersheds include an extensive drainage basin of the Allegheny plateau. Adding to these factors, slag from the iron furnaces of the steel mills was dumped along the river to create more land for building and narrowed the riverbed. Developers' artificial narrowing of the riverbed to maximize early industries left the city even more flood-prone. Henry Clay Frick led a group of Pittsburgh speculators, including Benjamin Ruff, to purchase the abandoned reservoir, modify it, and convert it into a private resort lake as a property for their wealthy associates. Many were connected through business and social links to Carnegie Steel. Development included lowering the dam to make its top wide enough to hold a road for a carriageway and putting a fish screen in the spillway. Workers lowered the dam, which had been high, by . These alterations are thought to have increased the vulnerability of the dam. Moreover, a system of relief pipes and valves, a feature of the original dam which had previously been sold off for scrap, was not replaced. The club had no way of lowering the water level in the lake in case of an emergency. The Pittsburgh speculators built cottages and a clubhouse to create the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, an exclusive and private mountain retreat. Membership grew to include more than fifty wealthy steel, coal, and railroad industrialists. Lake Conemaugh at the club's site was in elevation above Johnstown. The lake was about long, about wide, and deep near the dam. The dam was high and long. ==Events of the flood==

's spillway as it appeared in 1980 On May 28, 1889, a low-pressure area formed over Nebraska and Kansas. By the time this weather pattern reached western Pennsylvania two days later, it had developed into what would be termed the heaviest rainfall event that had ever been recorded in that part of the United States. The U.S. Army Signal Corps estimated that of rain fell in 24 hours over the region. The warnings ultimately were not passed to the authorities in Johnstown, however, as there had been many false alarms in the past of the dam not holding against flooding, in the streets, trapping some people in their houses. Between 2:50 and 2:55 pm the South Fork Dam breached. Lidar analysis of the Lake Conemaugh basin reveals that it contained 14.55 million cubic meters (3.843 billion gallons) of water at the moment the dam collapsed. From his idle locomotive in the town's railyard, engineer John Hess heard and felt the rumbling of the approaching flood. Throwing his locomotive into reverse, he raced backward toward East Conemaugh, the whistle blowing constantly. His warning saved many people who reached high ground. When the flood hit, it picked up the still-moving locomotive off the tracks and floated it aside; Hess himself survived, but at least fifty people died, including about twenty-five passengers stranded on trains in the village. Just before reaching the main part of Johnstown, the flood surge hit the Cambria Iron Works in the town of Woodvale, sweeping up railroad cars and barbed wire. Of Woodvale's 1,100 residents, 314 died in the flood. Boilers exploded when the flood hit the Gautier Wire Works, causing black smoke seen by Johnstown residents. Miles of barbed wire became entangled with the rest of the debris in the flood waters. Fifty-seven minutes after the dam collapsed, the flood reached Johnstown. Residents were caught by surprise as the wall of water and debris bore down, traveling at speeds of and reaching a height of in places. Some people, realizing the danger, tried to escape by running towards high ground, but most were hit by the surging floodwater in their homes and workplaces. Many people were crushed by pieces of debris, and others became caught in barbed wire from the wire factory upstream. Those who reached attics or roofs, or managed to stay afloat on pieces of floating debris, waited hours for help to arrive. The Stone Bridge, a substantial arched structure, carried the Pennsylvania Railroad across the Conemaugh River in the center of Johnstown. The debris carried by the flood, now including twisted steel rails, boxcars, entire buildings, and the bodies of the flood's victims, formed a temporary dam at the bridge, forcing the flood surge to roll upstream along the channel of the Stoney Creek River. Eventually, gravity caused the surge to return to the dam, resulting in a second wave that hit the city from a different direction. Some people who had been washed downstream became trapped in an inferno as the debris that had piled up against the bridge caught fire; at least eighty people died there. The fire burned for three days. After floodwaters receded, the pile of debris at the bridge was seen to cover , and reached in height. It took workers three months to remove the mass of debris, the delay owing in part to the huge quantity of barbed wire from the ironworks entangled with the wreckage. Dynamite was eventually used. == Victims ==

(1890) The total death toll from the flood was calculated originally as 2,209 people, == Investigation ==

On June 5, 1889, five days after the flood, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) appointed a committee of four prominent engineers to investigate the cause of the disaster. The committee was led by the esteemed James B. Francis, a hydraulic engineer best known for his work related to canals, flood control, turbine design, dam construction, and hydraulic calculations. Francis was a founding member of the ASCE and served as its president from November 1880 to January 1882. The committee visited the site of the South Fork Dam, reviewed the original engineering design of the dam and modifications made during repairs, interviewed eyewitnesses, commissioned a topographic survey of the dam remnants, and performed hydrologic calculations. The ASCE committee completed their investigation report on January 15, 1890, but its final report was sealed and not shared with other ASCE members or the public. At ASCE's annual convention in June 1890, committee member Max Becker was quoted as saying, "We will hardly [publish our investigation] report this session, unless pressed to do so, as we do not want to become involved in any litigation." The long-awaited report was presented at that meeting by James Francis. The other three investigators, William Worthen, Alphonse Fteley, and Max Becker, did not attend. In its final report, the ASCE committee concluded the dam would have failed even if it had been maintained within the original design specifications, i.e., with a higher embankment crest and with five large discharge pipes at the dam's base. This claim has since been challenged. A hydraulic analysis published in 2016 confirmed that the changes made to the dam by the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club severely reduced its ability to withstand major storms. Lowering the dam by as much as and failing to replace the discharge pipes at its base cut the dam's safe discharge capacity in half. This fatal lowering of the dam greatly reduced the capacity of the main spillway and virtually eliminated the action of an emergency spillway on the western abutment. Walter Frank first documented the presence of that emergency spillway in a 1988 ASCE publication. Its existence is supported by topographic data from 1889 which shows the western abutment to be about one foot lower than the crest of the dam remnants, even after the dam had previously been lowered as much as three feet by the South Fork Club. Adding the width of the emergency spillway to that of the main spillway yielded the total width of spillway capacity that had been specified in the 1847 design of William Morris, a state engineer. == Legal ==

In the years following the disaster, some survivors blamed the members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club for their modifications to the dam that lowered its level and gradually blocked a spillway. They were also accused of failing to maintain the dam properly, so that it was unable to contain the additional water of the unusually heavy rainfall. The club was successfully defended in court by the firm of Knox and Reed (later Reed Smith LLP), whose partners Philander Knox and James Hay Reed were both club members. Knox and Reed successfully argued that the dam's failure was a natural disaster which was an Act of God. No legal compensation was ever paid to the survivors of the flood. Neither the club nor its members was ever held legally responsible for the disaster. This perceived injustice is considered to have aided the acceptance, in later cases, of a new definition of "strict, joint, and several liability," so that even a "non-negligent defendant could be held liable for damage caused by the unnatural use of land." Individual members of the South Fork Club, millionaires in their day, contributed to the recovery in Johnstown. Along with about half of the club members, co-founder Henry Clay Frick donated thousands of dollars to the relief effort. After the flood, Andrew Carnegie built the town a new library. Popular feeling ran high, as is reflected in Isaac G. Reed's poem: ==Aftermath==

The Johnstown Flood was the worst flood to hit the United States in the 19th century, and to date, the worst to strike Pennsylvania. 1,600 homes were destroyed, at an estimated total cost of million (equivalent to $billion in ), and of downtown Johnstown were completely destroyed. Debris at the Stone Bridge covered thirty acres, and clean-up operations were to continue for years. Cambria Iron and Steel's facilities were heavily damaged; they returned to full production within 18 months. Working seven days and nights, workmen built a wooden trestle bridge to temporarily replace the Conemaugh Viaduct, which had been destroyed by the flood. The Pennsylvania Railroad restored service to Pittsburgh, away, by June 2. Food, clothing, medicine, and other provisions began arriving by rail. Morticians traveled by railroad. Johnstown's first call for help requested coffins and undertakers. The demolition expert "Dynamite Bill" Flinn and his 900-man crew cleared the wreckage at the Stone Bridge. They carted off debris, distributed food, and erected temporary housing. At its peak, the army of relief workers totaled about 7,000. One of the first outsiders to arrive was Clara Barton, the founder and president of the American Red Cross. Barton arrived on June 5, 1889, to lead the group's first major disaster relief effort; she did not leave for more than five months. Donations for the relief effort came from all over the U.S. and overseas. $3,742,818.78 was collected for the Johnstown relief effort from within the U.S. and 18 foreign countries, including Russia, France, Germany, Great Britain, Australia, and the Ottoman Empire. File:After the Flood at Johnstown -- Main Street.jpg|Authorities averting looting on Main Street, as depicted in a June 15, 1889, illustration in ''Harper's Weekly (This was shown satirically in the 1978 book MAD Goes to Pieces'' as "The morning after the final concert of The Who.") File:Remmants of house in Johnstown Flood.jpg|A house almost completely destroyed in the flood File:Johnstown Tree in House.jpg|The John Schultz house in Johnstown, Pennsylvania after the flood. Skewered by a huge tree uprooted by the flood, the house floated down from its location on Union Street to the end of Main. Six people, including Schultz, were inside the house when the flood hit; all survived. File:JOFL destruction.jpg|View of lower Johnstown three days after the flood File:Johnstown Main Street 1889 flood.jpg|Main Street after flood File:Wea00785 - Flickr - NOAA Photo Library.jpg|Ruins of the Hulbert House Subsequent floods Floods have continued to be a concern for Johnstown, which had major flooding in 1894, 1907, 1924, 1936, and 1977. The biggest flood of the first half of the 20th century was the St. Patrick's Day flood of March 1936. That flood also reached Pittsburgh, where it was known as the Pittsburgh Flood of 1936. Following the 1936 flood, the United States Army Corps of Engineers dredged the Conemaugh River within the city and built concrete river walls, creating a channel nearly deep. Upon completion, the Corps proclaimed Johnstown "flood free". The new river walls withstood Hurricane Agnes in 1972, but on the night of 19 July 1977, a severe thunderstorm dropped of rain in eight hours on the watershed above the city and the rivers began to rise. By dawn, the city was under water that reached as high as . Seven counties were declared a disaster area, suffering $200 million in property damage, and 78 people died. Forty were killed by the Laurel Run Dam failure. Another 50,000 were rendered homeless as a result of this "100-year flood". Markers on a corner of City Hall at 401 Main Street show the height of the crests of the 1889, 1936, and 1977 floods. == Legacy ==

At Point Park in Johnstown, at the confluence of the Stonycreek and Little Conemaugh rivers, an eternal flame burns in memory of the flood victims. The Carnegie Library in Johnstown is now operated by the Johnstown Area Heritage Association. It has adapted it for use as the Johnstown Flood Museum. Portions of the Stone Bridge have been made part of the Johnstown Flood National Memorial. This includes a park and was established in 1969 and managed by the National Park Service. In 2008, the bridge was restored in a project including new lighting as part of commemorative activities related to the flood. Supporters of the memorial also believed it was important to gain control over the remaining buildings and property of the former South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, in order to have full interpretation. The area and contributing buildings were designated as the National Historic Landmark District in 1986 and added to the National Register of Historic Places. It is also administered by the National Park Service. Combined with the failure of the Walnut Grove Dam less than a year later, the Flood brought national attention to the issue of dam safety. Effect on the development of American law in Johnstown, Pennsylvania Survivors of the flood were unable to recover damages in court because of the South Fork Club's ample resources. First, the wealthy club owners had designed the club's financial structure to keep their personal assets separated from it and, secondly, it was difficult for any suit to prove that any particular owner had behaved negligently. Though the former reason was probably more central to the failure of survivors' suits against the club, the latter received coverage and extensive criticism in the national press. As a result of this criticism, in the 1890s, state courts around the country adopted Rylands v. Fletcher, a British common law precedent which had formerly been largely ignored in the United States. State courts' adoption of Rylands, which held that a non-negligent defendant could be held liable for damage caused by the unnatural use of land, foreshadowed the legal system's 20th-century acceptance of strict liability. == Depiction in media ==

Film and television • The Johnstown Flood, a 1926 American silent epic film directed by Irving Cummings and starring Janet Gaynor. A print is held at George Eastman House. • Slap Shot, a 1977 film was filmed in Johnstown, renamed as the fictitious "Charlestown" for the film. There are several references to an also fictitious "1938 flood," when the character Reg Dunlop (Paul Newman) refers to a statue of a dog that had warned the town of the coming flood. Radio announcer Jim Carr also refers to Charlestown's nickname, "Flood City." • The Johnstown Flood, a 1989 short documentary film which won the Documentary Short Subject Oscar in 1990. • The Men Who Built America - "Bloody Battles" aka "Blood Is Spilled", an episode of the 2012 miniseries docudrama. Theater • "A True History of the Johnstown Flood" by Rebecca Gilman. • By the early 20th century, entertainers developed an exhibition portraying the flood, using moving scenery, light effects, and a live narrator. It was featured as a main attraction at the Stockholm Exhibition of 1909, where it was seen by 100,000 and presented as "our time's greatest electromechanical spectacle", The stage was wide, and the show employed a total of 13 stagehands. Music • "Mother Country", written by singer-songwriter John Stewart in 1969, contains the lyrics "What ever happened to those faces in the old photographsI mean, the little boys Boys? Hell they were men Who stood knee deep in the Johnstown mud In the time of that terrible flood And they listened to the water, that awful noise And then they put away the dreams that belonged to little boys." • "Highway Patrolman", a track from Bruce Springsteen's 1982 album Nebraska, mentions a (fictional) song titled "Night of the Johnstown Flood". Literature Poems • "The Pennsylvania Disaster," a poem by William McGonagall • "By the Conemaugh", a poem by Florence Earle Coates. • "A Voice from Death", a poem by Walt Whitman commissioned by Joseph Pulitzer for the New York World and published on its front page for June 7, 1889. Whitman claimed to have written it in an hour and a half after being deeply moved by the reports of the impact on a working-class city. Short stories • Brian Booker's "A Drowning Accident", in One Story (Issue #57, May 30, 2005), was largely based on the Johnstown Flood of 1889. • Caitlín R. Kiernan featured the flood in her "To This Water (Johnstown, Pennsylvania, 1889)", in her collected Tales of Pain and Wonder (1994). • Donald Keith's science fiction serial Mutiny in the Time Machine was published in ''Boys' Life'' magazine beginning in Dec 1962. It involved a Boy Scout troop discovering a time machine and travelling to Johnstown just prior to the flood. • Jim Shepard's Privilege, in Ploughshares, (Fall 2023 Issue) is a story of historical fiction based on the Johnstown Flood of 1889. Historical works • Willis Fletcher Johnson wrote in 1889 a book called History of the Johnstown Flood (published by Edgewood Publishing Co.), one of the first accounts of the flood published as a book. • James Herbert Walker wrote a 40-page pamphlet in 1889 called The Johnstown Horror!!! Or Valley of Death, Being a Complete and Thrilling Account of the Awful Floods and Their Appalling Ruin. Published by the National Publishing Company, the pamphlet was being sold in New York City less than a week after the disaster and was later expanded to a book of over 400 pages. • Gertrude Quinn Slattery, who survived the flood as a six-year-old girl, published a memoir entitled Johnstown and Its Flood in 1936. • Historian and author David McCullough's first book was The Johnstown Flood (1968), published by Simon & Schuster. • Weatherman and author Al Roker wrote ''Ruthless Tide: The Heroes and Villains of the Johnstown Flood, America's Astonishing Gilded Age Disaster''. In fiction • Marden A. Dahlstedt wrote the young adult novel The Terrible Wave (1972), featuring a young girl as the main character. • John Jakes featured the flood in his novel The Americans (1979), set in 1890 and the final book in the series of The Kent Family Chronicles. • Kathleen Cambor wrote the historical novel In Sunlight, In a Beautiful Garden (2001), based on events of the flood. The book was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. • Peg Kehret's fantasy novel The Flood Disaster, features two students assigned a project on the flood who travel back in time. • Murray Leinster's fantasy novel The Time Tunnel (1967) features two time travelers who were unable to warn the Johnstown population of the coming disaster. • Colleen Coble wrote The Wedding Quilt Bride (2001), which tells the story of a romance between a member of the club's granddaughter and a man brought in to see if the dam was really in trouble. It follows him trying to convince the people of the danger and then the flood. • Mary Hogan's The Woman in the Photo (2016) is about two young women, one in present-day America and one in Johnstown, Pennsylvania in 1889, before and during the Flood. • The Star Trek: The Original Series novel Rough Trails (2006) (third part of the Star Trek: New Earth mini-series) by L.A. Graf recreates the Johnstown Flood set on another planet. ==See also==