OT: 125 years ago tonight,(Johnstown Flood)

Fullers Farmalls · May 30, 2014

it was pretty much the same kind of day here. Beautiful sunny and just the right temperature. Then it started raining, a lot. And no one knew that tomorrow the entire town would be turned on its head. For those of you who don't know, The Johnstown Flood of 1889 was the worst "Natural Disaster" before Hurricane Katrina. 2209 people perished at the hands of negligent wealthy business men who owned The Southfork Hunting and Fishing Club. A wall of water 40 feet high rushed down a narrow valley and then covered the town in a matter of minutes. Johnstown has been prone to flooding and it flooded again in 1936 and then again in 1977. The flood in 1977 took out a mobile home court that my grandfather built 9 years before. They lost 33 trailers but no lives. My pap waded through waist deep water to pull the last people out. They also saved a few trailers by putting chains around them and ripping them out to higher ground. I live on a hill just above where the trailer court was and the Conemaugh River that caused all these floods

Sorry for the long post just thought a lot of you guys might be interested in this.
nnalert more info

farmerjohn · May 30, 2014

Thanks Keith for reminding us of this historic event. The national flood memorial is a pretty cool display of what happened.

Will be passing by your place tomorrow on our way to Idlewild Park. Sounds to be great weather for it.

Fullers Farmalls · May 30, 2014

I love Idlewild. Great place for everyone. And The Memorial is a nice place to visit. Crazy to think this happened in our backyards.

Bspauld · May 31, 2014

My Grandmother survived that flood. I believe she was 9 at the time

MarkB_MI · May 31, 2014

David McCullough wrote an excellent book about the flood. Highly recommended reading.

Tim Barnes · May 31, 2014

I agree with MarkB, it's a good book. I read it and would recommend it to anyone that enjoys reading. The flood is also covered in the History Channel's series " The Men Who Built America". It shows how little Frick, who worked for Andrew Carnegie, cared about his workers. Many people believe Carnegie tried to deal with his guilt about the flood by building Carnegie Hall and his other charity type projects.

Brad Buchanan · May 31, 2014

Thanks for the interesting post.

Actually from reading the cited information it looks like the members of the hunting club made every effort to save the dam.

I guess everyones perception is different.

Brad

MarkB_MI · May 31, 2014

Brad, the facts surrounding the dam failure well-established, and this is not a matter of "perception".

It is a fact that John Parke, an engineer employed by the club, worked valiantly trying to save the dam. Which is not to say the very wealthy club members were the least bit concerned about the dam other than the inconvenience a failure might cause them personally. I'm pretty sure that no members of the Carnegie or Mellon families were shoulder-to-shoulder with Parke's crew as they worked to stop the dam from collapsing.

The real problem was that the dam had been substantially modified to the point where it was unsafe. Between the time the dam was constructed by the railroad and when Parke became involved, repairs were done by a fellow who knew nothing about dams; he removed the discharge pipes, effectively making it impossible to lower the water level behind the dam. It was not a matter of "if" the dam would fail, but rather "when".

Brad Buchanan · May 31, 2014

Well Mark,

Some of your points are well taken however to think that you can know what is or was in folks' minds is a bit dubious.

To accuse the Carnegie or other family of not caring a whit if people died in the flood is kinda like inferring that anyone who cares about the environment spikes trees and sabotages logging equipment to kill loggers.

Brad

Fullers Farmalls · May 31, 2014

Once it was starting to fail they did make an effort to save it but it was to little ay to late. They had removed the top level of the damn to widen it for carriages to pass over and had blocked the spillways to keep fish from escaping down them. These led to the water cresting the dam and eroding it at a rate that led to the disaster.

farmerjohn · May 31, 2014

I had read somewhere that the only thing the hunting club members did for the devastated families is donate blankets.

MarkB_MI · Jun 1, 2014

Brad, I can only suggest you read McCullough's book and draw your own conclusions. The owners of the dam had received notice that their dam was unsafe and yet did not fix it. I'd say that constitutes a lack of concern for those who lived and worked downstream.

Trkr · Jun 1, 2014

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Hauled this into downtown Johnstown this week for a show.

OT: 125 years ago tonight,(Johnstown Flood)

Fullers Farmalls

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Fullers Farmalls

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Bspauld

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Brad Buchanan

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