In late May of 1889, days of heavy rain struck the river valley in central Pennsylvania. Residents in Johnstown, a thriving city on the Little Conemaugh River, were no strangers to flooding. When riders shouted desperate warnings of a flood’s approach, most citizens in the Pennsylvania simply moved their family and valuables to the second floor.
Yet this was no normal flood.
South Fork Dam at Lake Conemaugh, 14 miles upstream, was maintained by South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club. The eight-year-old dam needed repairs that heavy rains only worsened. Repair efforts in late May failed to halt the disintegration.
On May 31st, swollen late waters overflowed the dam’s walls around 1:00 pm. Riders rode furiously downriver to warn residents. The dam washed away at 3:10 pm, drowning workers who struggled to fix it.
Twenty million tons of water deluged small communities near the dam, picking up trees, houses, railroad cars, and people—some still alive—on its rush toward Johnston.
The flood reached the city in ten minutes, crushing or drowning 2,000 citizens. Survivors washed downstream with the dead. Some survivors held onto debris entangled 40 feet high at the city’s Stone Bridge that caught fire. The flames killed about 80 people.
A horrified telegraph worker counted 63 bodies float past his office in 20 minutes.
The tragedy claimed 2,209 lives. A waterspout was originally blamed for the dam’s collapse, but the South Fork Fishing Club President later admitted that the problem was in the dam’s weakness.
Volunteers pitched tents in the city to help survivors and bury the dead. Clara Barton and the American Red Cross were among the volunteers. A week after the catastrophe, 13 or 14 people were found living in a single room of a house. Many survivors kept their windows tightly closed against the odor of decaying bodies.
Johnstown residents rebuilt their city. They celebrated their citizens’ resilience on the flood’s 100th anniversary.
-Sandra Merville Hart
Sources
History.com Staff. “May 31, 1889: The Johnstown Flood,” History.com, 2018/01/08 http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-johnstown-flood-2.
“Hundreds of Lives Lost: A Waterspout’s Dreadful Work in Pennsylvania,” Johnstownpa.com, 2018/01/08 https://www.johnstownpa.com/History/hist30.html.
Sandra Merville Hart 