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History of the Johnstown Flood: Including all the Fearful Record; the Breaking of the South Fork Dam; the Sweeping Out of the Conemaugh Valley; the Over-Throw of Johnstown; the Massing of the Wreck at the Railroad Bridge; Escapes, Rescues, Searches for Survivors and the Dead; Relief Organizations, Stupendous Charities, etc., etc., With Full Accounts also of the Destruction on the Susquehanna and Juniata Rivers, and the Bald Eagle Creek.Johnson, Willis Fletcher

History

History of the Johnstown Flood: Including all the Fearful Record; the Breaking of the South Fork Dam; the Sweeping Out of the Conemaugh Valley; the Over-Throw of Johnstown; the Massing of the Wreck at the Railroad Bridge; Escapes, Rescues, Searches for Survivors and the Dead; Relief Organizations, Stupendous Charities, etc., etc., With Full Accounts also of the Destruction on the Susquehanna and Juniata Rivers, and the Bald Eagle Creek.

Name: History of the Johnstown Flood: Including all the Fearful Record; the Breaking of the South Fork Dam; the Sweeping Out of the Conemaugh Valley; the Over-Throw of Johnstown; the Massing of the Wreck at the Railroad Bridge; Escapes, Rescues, Searches for Survivors and the Dead; Relief Organizations, Stupendous Charities, etc., etc., With Full Accounts also of the Destruction on the Susquehanna and Juniata Rivers, and the Bald Eagle Creek.
Author: Johnson, Willis Fletcher

Johnson, Willis Fletcher

Floods -- Pennsylvania -- Johnstown (Cambria County)

"Mrs. Ranney and I were on one of the trains at Conemaugh when the flood
came. There was but a moment's warning and the disaster was upon us. The
occupants of our car rushed for the door, where Mrs. Ranney and I became
separated. She was one of the first to jump, and I saw her run and
disappear behind the first house in sight. Before I could get out the
deluge was too high, and, with a number of others, I remained in the
car. Our car was lifted up and dashed against a car loaded with stone
and badly wrecked, but most of the occupants of this car were rescued.
As far as I know all who jumped from the car lost their lives. The
remainder of the train was swept away. I searched for days for Mrs.
Ranney, but could find no trace of her. I think she perished. The mind
cannot conceive the awful sight presented when we first saw the danger.
The approaching wall of water looked like Niagara, and huge engines were
caught up and whirled away as if they were mere wheel-barrows."

D. B. Cummins, of Philadelphia, the President of the Girard National
Bank, was one of the party of four which consisted of John Scott,
Solicitor-General of the Pennsylvania Railroad; Edmund Smith,
ex-Vice-President of the same company; and Colonel Welsh himself, who
had been stopping in the country a few miles back of Williamsport.

Mr. Cummins, in talking of the condition of things in that vicinity and
of his experience, said: "We were trout-fishing at Anderson's cabin,
about fourteen miles from Williamsport, at the time the flood started.
We went to Williamsport, intending to take a train for Philadelphia. Of
course, when we got there we found everything in a frightful condition,
and the people completely disheartened by the flood. Fortunately the
loss of life was very slight, especially when compared with the terrible
disaster in Johnstown. The loss, from a financial standpoint, will be
very great, for the city is completely inundated, and the lumber
industry seriously crippled. Besides, the stagnation of business for any
length of time produces results which are disastrous."

[Illustration: FOURTEENTH STREET, WASHINGTON, D. C., IN THE FLOOD.]

The first passengers that came from Altoona to New York by the
Pennsylvania Railroad since the floods included five members of the
"Night Off" Company, which played in Johnstown on Thursday night, about
whom considerable anxiety was felt for some time, till E. A. Eberle
received telegrams from his wife, the contents of which he at once gave
to the press. Mrs. Eberle was among the five who arrived.

"No words can tell the horrors of the scenes we witnessed," she said in
answer to a request for an account of her experiences, "and nothing that
has been published can convey any idea of the awful havoc wrought in
those few but apparently never-ending minutes in which the worst of the
flood passed us.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.