The Johnstown flood followed a long rain storm in the Alleghanies--a storm of several days' duration. All the rivers running east were swollen, and the immense dam of the huge Conemaugh valley burst with a thunderous report. The reservoir was a large one, four miles long by one broad, and over seventy feet deep. This vast body of water swept a wave twenty feet high at the rate of twenty miles an hour, right down into {333}the narrow and deep valley, where were eight villages boasting a population of 58,000. Johnstown, Pennsylvania, the largest of the towns in the valley, lay at the junction of Stony Creek and the Conemaugh river, and had extensive iron works, banks, and many business houses. This and all the villages were swept out of being in two hours, so rapid and vehement was the coming of the torrent. Thousands were drowned, and nearly two thousand people were burned to death by means of a mass of wreckage which was caught and held at a new bridge near the town. The houses were all made of wood, timber had floated down the current and stacked up, and hundreds of trees were piled up at this bridge for a space of sixty acres. It is presumed that some furnaces set fire to this mass, and the poor creatures whose helpless forms had been entangled in the débris, met an awful death by fire. There was no chance for escape; the raging torrent was ready to engulf them, while the fierce flames were eager to lap up all that the waters spared. Railroad tracks were swept away, telegraph poles leveled, and though Philadelphia and other cities sent help and food at once, it was impossible to reach the helpless victims for forty-eight hours, and when at last soldiers and navvies on rescue trains reached the scene, there was nothing to be done but to feed the living and bury the dead. Nearly 10,000 perished, and all who had escaped with their lives tried to succor the sufferers, save a few Hungarian Slavs and Italians, who plundered the dead, but who were shot at once as a reward for their greediness. It is not possible to picture the condition of the Valley after the waters receded. In many places the whole town was swept as bare as though a gigantic broom had passed over it, nothing but sand and gravel being left. Where a house chanced to be left standing, it was filled with mud and slime to the third story, while trees, broken timbers and debris was piled up to the second story. Not a house was fit for occupancy. Dead bodies were found in cellars, and in some dwellings horses had been forced into the rooms by the rushing waters, and lay there putrefying. {334}They all fared alike. A few citizens were held prisoners in their frame houses, and floated over two miles to a place of safety, but these fortunate ones were the exception. Medicines, clothing, money and food were liberally poured into the unfortunate region. Men and women from all over the country offered their services to care for the living and the dead.