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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)

leaped from the train just as it was lifted off the track. The mother
and child were saved, but if one more minute had elapsed we all would
have perished.

"During all of this time the waters kept rushing down the Conemaugh and
through the beautiful town of Johnstown, picking up everything and
sparing nothing.

"The mountains by this time were black with people, and the moans and
sighs from those below brought tears to the eyes of the most
stony-hearted. There in that terrible rampage were brothers, sisters,
wives and husbands, and from the mountain could be seen the
panic-stricken marks in the faces of those who were struggling between
life and death. I really am unable to do justice to the scene, and its
details are almost beyond my power to relate. Then came the burning of
the debris near the Pennsylvania Railroad bridge. The scene was too
sickening to endure. We left the spot and journeyed across country and
delivered many notes, letters, etc., that were intrusted to us."

The gallant young engineer, John G. Parke, whose ride of warning has
already been described, relates the following:

"On Thursday night I noticed that the dam was in good order and the
water was nearly seven feet from the top. When the water is at this
height the lake is then nearly three miles in length. It rained hard on
Thursday night and I rode up to the end of the lake on the eventful day
and saw that the woods around there was teeming with a seething cauldron
of water. Colonel Unger, the president of the fishing club that owns the
property, put twenty-five Italians to work to fix the dam. A farmer in
the vicinity also lent a willing hand. To strengthen the dam a plow was
run along the top of it, and earth was then thrown into the furrows. On
the west side a channel was dug and a sluice was constructed. We cut
through about four feet of shale rock, when we came to solid rock which
was impossible to cut without blasting. Once we got the channel open the
water leaped down to the bed-rock, and a stream fully twenty feet wide
and three feet deep rushed out on that end of the dam, while great
quantities of water were coming in by the pier at the other end. And
then in the face of this great escape of water from the dam, it kept
rising at the rate of ten inches an hour.

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