Hundreds of lives were saved by this second Paul Revere, by name John G. Parke, and hundreds more would probably have escaped violent death if the warning had been heeded. It is not exaggeration to call young Parke a hero. He is an engineer. He saw that the South Fork dam must go, and jumping into the saddle, he dashed down the valley at terrific speed, shouting out his warning: “The dam! The dam is breaking. Run for your lives!” When he arrived at South Fork station, Parke sent a telegraphic message to Johnstown, two miles below, warning the inhabitants of the town of the coming disaster. He sent his message fully an hour before the flood came. When the water was almost upon him Parke fled to the mountains. Too modest to speak of his actions in this regard, young Mr. Parke was prevailed upon to tell what he knew about the breaking of the dam. Said he: “On Thursday night the dam was in perfect condition, and the water was not within seven feet of the top. At that stage the lake is nearly three miles long. It rained very hard Thursday night, I am told, for I slept too soundly myself to hear it, but when I got up Friday morning I could see there was a flood, for the water was over the drive in front of the club house and the level of the water in the lake had risen until it was only four feet below the top of the dam. I rode up to the head of the lake and saw that the woods were boiling full of water. South Fork and Muddy Run, which emptied into the lake were fetching trees, logs, cut timber, and stuff from a sawmill that was up in the woods in that direction. This was about 7.30 o’clock. When I returned, Col. Unger, the president of the club, hired twenty-two Italians, and a number of farmers joined in to work on the dam. Altogether thirty men were at work. A plough was run along the top of the dam, and earth was thrown on the face of the dam to strengthen it. At the same time a channel was dug on the west end of the dam to make a sluiceway there. There was about three feet of shale rock through which it was possible to cut, but then we struck bed rock that it was impossible to get through without blasting. When we got the channel opened, the water soon scoured down to the bed rock, and a stream 30 feet wide and 3 feet deep rushed out on that end of the dam, while the weir was letting an enormous quantity on the other end. Notwithstanding these outlets, the water kept rising at the rate of about 10 inches an hour.