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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. — John Shaqi

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)

"My train left Pittsburg on Friday morning for Johnstown. The train was
due at Sang Hollow at two minutes after four, but was five minutes late.
At Sang Hollow, just as we were about to pull out, we heard that the
flood was coming. Looking ahead, up the valley, we saw an immense wall
of water thirty feet high, raging, roaring, rushing toward us. The
engineer reversed his engine and rushed back to the hills at full speed,
and we barely escaped the waters. We ran back three hundred yards, and
the flood swept by, tearing up track, telegraph poles, trees, and
houses. Superintendent Pitcairn was on the train. We all got out and
tried to save the floating people. Taking the bell cord we formed a line
and threw the rope out, thus saving seven persons. We could have saved
more, but many were afraid to let go of the debris. It was an awful
sight. The immense volume of water was roaring along, whirling over huge
rocks, dashing against the banks and leaping high into the air, and this
seething flood was strewn with timber, trunks of trees, parts of houses,
and hundreds of human beings, cattle, and almost every living animal.
The fearful peril of the living was not more awful than the horrors of
hundreds of distorted, bleeding corpses whirling along the avalanche of
death. We counted one hundred and seven people floating by and dead
without number. A section of roof came by on which were sitting a woman
and girl. A man named C. W. Heppenstall, of Pittsburg, waded and swam to
the roof. He brought the girl in first and then the woman. They told us
they were not relatives. The woman had lost her husband and four
children, and the girl her father and mother, and entire family. A
little boy came by with his mother. Both were as calm as could be, and
the boy was apparently trying to comfort the mother. They passed
unheeding our proffered help, and striking the bridge below, went down
into the vortex like lead.

"One beautiful girl came by with her hands raised in prayer, and,
although we shouted to her and ran along the bank, she paid no
attention. We could have saved her if she had caught the rope. An old
man and his wife whom we saved said that eleven persons started from
Cambria City on the roof with him, but that the others had dropped off.

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