The Johnstown Horror!!!: or, Valley of Death, being A Complete and Thrilling Account; of the Awful Floods and Their Appalling RuinWalker, James Herbert
History
The Johnstown Horror!!!: or, Valley of Death, being A Complete and Thrilling Account; of the Awful Floods and Their Appalling Ruin
On the morning of June 5th one of the leading journals contained the
following announcements, printed in large type, and preceding its vivid
account of the terrible situation at Johnstown.
Death, ruin, plague! Threatened outbreak of disease in the fate stricken
valley. Awful effluvia from corpses! Swift and decisive means must be
taken to clear away the masses of putrefying matter that underlie the
wreck of what was once a town. Proposed use of explosives. Crowds of
refugees are already attacked by pneumonia and the germs of typhus
pervade both air and water. Victims yet unnumbered. Dreadful discoveries
hourly made! Heaps of the drowned, the mangled and the burned are found
in pockets between rocks and under packed accumulations of sand!
Pennsylvania regiments ordered to the scene to keep ward over an
afflicted and heartbroken people. Blame where it belongs. The ears of
the inhabitants were dulled to fear by warnings many times
repeated--forty-two years ago the dam broke--vivid stories of witnesses
of the great tragedy--the owners of the lake must bear a gigantic burden
of remorse--sufferings of survivors!
These were the terrible headings in a single issue of a newspaper.
A registry of the living who were residents of Johnstown prior to the
flood was begun to-day. Out of a total population of 39,400 the names of
only 10,600 have been recorded. This may give an approximate idea of the
number of those who lost their lives.
Gaunt Menace of Pestilence.
The most important near fact of to-day is the increasing danger of
pestilence.
As the work of disengaging the bodies of the dead progresses the
horrible peril becomes more and more apparent. There is need of the
speediest possible measures to offset the gravity of the sanitary
situation.
From every part of the stricken valley the same cry of alarm arises, for
at every point where the dead are being discovered, as the waters
continue to abate, the same peril exists.
The use of explosives, especially dynamite, has been discussed. There is
some opposition to it, but it may yet be resorted to. The great mass of
ruins at the Pennsylvania Railroad bridge, which is still smoking and
smouldering, is a ghastly mine of human flesh and bones in all sorts of
hideous shapes, and unless desperate means are employed, cannot be
cleared away in weeks to come.
[Illustration: READING THE HORRIBLE NEWS.]
Still, vigorous work in that direction is being performed, and
explosives will be used in a limited degree to further it. This great
work may be divided into two parts--the clearing away of the mass of
debris lodged against the Pennsylvania Railroad bridge, and the
examination and removal of the many wrecked buildings which mark the
site of Johnstown.
Order Out of Chaos.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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