Nothing can give so clear an idea of the exact character of the terrible flood--totally different from the overflow of a river--than the personal narratives of survivors. A chapter devoted to these will be of interest, and serve also to illustrate the breaking up of family and social ties that are an inevitable consequent of great calamities of every kind. The flood was slightly less sudden at Johnstown proper than higher up the valley. Yet, to the inhabitants, in every part of the city, it was almost instantaneous. All narrators agree in the statement that they were taken completely by surprise. Few of them, whether by sound of whistle, or sight of cloud, or of coming torrent, had so much as a minute’s warning. Mr. Rose seems to have had the longest notice of any. He reckons less than three minutes after he looked from his window and saw the flood a mile above, before his house fell, and himself and family were struggling beneath the water. His carriage-house was broken, perhaps three minutes in advance of his dwelling. The water which overthrew it was a sort of advance guard preceding the main body. This partial division of forces was doubtless due to the two great bends in the river, which have already been described, or rather to one of them, since one would have nearly the effect of two. The upper bend was two miles round, while the railroad cut across the neck was only seventy-five feet. The smaller portion of water pouring through the cut got nearly two miles the start of the main body, which had to flow round the bend. The water which got the start at the first cut had to flow round the second bend, not being high enough to command the short way through the second cut. Practically, therefore, the distribution of water made at two bends and cuts was only a little more than that which was made at one. Had there been no bends and railroad cuts between Conemaugh Lake and Johnstown; had the flood been confined for the entire distance to a single channel, then the towns below would have recognized no previous swell whatever; a single gigantic wall of water would have struck Johnstown as distinctly as it struck South Point; the inhabitants, in most cases, would not have had time even to reach their [Illustration: MILL CREEK.] upper stories; the wave, even more than it did, would have crushed as with the single blow of a mighty hammer, and the number of survivors who could tell a tale of wonderful deliverance would have been correspondingly diminished. The lesson of these facts is for those who dwell below dams or reservoirs. If there be nothing in the nature of the channel to distribute the water, and the rupture be instantaneous, the destruction of life and property will be awful to contemplate.