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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)

"Our company left Johnstown on Friday morning. We only got two miles
away, as far as Conemaugh, when we were stopped by a landslide a little
way ahead. About noon we went to dinner, and soon after we came back
some of our company noticed that the flood had extended and was washing
away the embankment on which our train stood. They called the engineer's
attention to the fact, and he took the train a few hundred feet further.
It was fortunate he did so, for a little while after the embankment
caved in.

"Then we could not move forward or backward, as ahead was the landslide
and behind there was no track. Even then we were not frightened, and it
was not till about three o'clock, when we saw a heavy iron bridge go
down as if it were made of paper, that we began to be seriously alarmed.
Just before the dam broke a gravel train came tearing down, with the
engine giving out the most awful shriek I ever heard. Every one
recognized that this was a note of warning. We fled as hard as we could
run down the embankment, across a ditch, and for a distance equal to
about two blocks up the hillside. Once I turned to look at the vast wall
of water, but was hurried on by my friends. When I had gone about the
distance of another block the head of the flood had passed far away, and
with it went houses, cars, locomotives, everything that a few minutes
before had made up a busy scene. The wall of water looked to be fifty
feet high. It was of a deep yellow color, but the crest was white with
foam.

"Three of us reached the house of Mrs. William Wright, who took us in
and treated us most kindly. I did not take any account of time, but I
imagine it was about an hour before the water ceased to rush past the
house. The conductor of our train, Charles A. Wartham, behaved with the
greatest bravery. He took a crippled passenger on his back in the rush
up the hill. A floating house struck the cripple, carried him away and
tore some of the clothes off Wartham's back, and he managed to struggle
on and save himself. Our ride to Ebensburg, sixteen miles, in a lumber
wagon without springs, was trying, but no one thought of complaining.
Later in the day we were sent to Cresson and thence to Altoona."




CHAPTER XXXVI.


No travelers in an upheaved and disorganized land push through with more
pluck and courage than the newspaper correspondents. Accounts have
already been given of some of their experiences. A writer in the New
York _Times_ thus told of his, a week after the events described:

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