The Johnstown flood of 1889 was one of the worst floods in US history. The flood killed 2,200 people and did 17 million dollars worth of damage to the city of Johnstown. After doing additional research on the topic, I learned two very interesting things about the flood. One was that most of the floodwater came from a reservoir that was owned by a group of investors, including Henry Crick, who was a close associate of Andrew Carnegie. This was interesting because it shows how wealthy people do things for their own gain, such as when Henry Crick blatantly lowered the reservoir’s dam to make it easier to cross by carriage, with no regard to the stability of the dam. Another interesting fact about the flood was that it was one of the first natural disasters responded to by Clara Barton and the newly formed American Red Cross. The American Red Cross was formed shortly after the Civil War, in which Clara Barton served as a nurse to soldiers, and still exists today. I personally found this event both alarming and unexpected, because it happened so close to Erie, and yet is not often mentioned or spoken of even though it claimed over 2,000 lives and destroyed an entire city. I believe there were many factors that affected the outcome of this event, and no single factor is to blame. The main factors that caused this disaster include the faulty dam, the lack of government supervision of the dam, the city itself for not realizing the potential danger sooner and acting on it, and the large amount of rainfall that month. One shocking detail about this event is that some people caught on fire while struggling not to drown. This was because of the factories and debris that caught fire during the accident and covered the some parts of the city in smog and flames. This detail was shocking because a comedian, Dane Cook, once joked about a theoretical situation in which a man is drowning in a pool, but the surface of the pool is on fire. At the time I first heard this, I did not think it was possible. To learn that it had actually happened to real people is stunning.
As we all know, the Johnstown flood was a flood that occurred in Johnstown, Pennsylvania on May 31, 1889. However, there were many facts that were not mentioned in the movie we watched in class. In 1889, Johnstown was a steel company town of Germans and Welsh founded in 1794. Its population was 30,000 people. The afternoon of May 31st was cold and rainy, not uncommon in the area. However, a dam located fourteen miles up the Little Conemaugh, a river adjacent to the town, was not holding up well. The dam was not maintained well, and at precisely 4:07 residents heard a thunder-like roar. Many immediately knew trouble. The South Fork Dam had broken, sending 20 million tons of water coming towards Johnstown at 40 miles per hour. The height of the water at some points were at 89 feet above river level, and despite thousands of people's efforts to escape, they found themselves being tangled in barbed wire from the town's wire works, surrounded in muddy, oily water filled with debris from crushed buildings. Once darkness fell, the people of Johnstown were either clinging for dear life on debris, sitting in their attics, or swept downstream to the Stone Bridge. Eighty of the survivors were piled up at the arches of the bridge when the debris caught on fire, trapping them in a circle of flames. By morning, water remained in the streets and the townsfolk did what they could and waited for help to arrive. There were many aspects of the flood that surprised me. One aspect was that bodies were found as far away from the town as Cincinnati. The last body found was 22 years later, in 1911. Another aspect was that the wave rushed through the town and crushed everything in a matter of 10 minutes. It had only taken 10 minutes to destroy something that would take 2,209 lives, 1,600 homes and 5 years to rebuild. However, that was what surprised me the most. Through this terrible tragedy, organizations all across the world came to help. $3,742,818.78 was collected for Johnstown's relief effort from the United States and 18 other countries. The Red Cross arrived on June 5th, only six days afterward. This may seem like a long time, but it was pretty quick when any roads and railroads coming to and from Johnstown were flooded as well. After all this, who is truly to blame? Many blame the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, who never maintained the dam. However, I think it was everyone's fault. Had the club known a terrible flood was going to arrive, they probably would have fixed it. If an inhabitant of Johnstown was truly concerned, they should have went up to the dam and fixed it themselves. Honestly, I think what has happened is said and done and we should just move on from the past.
Tristrum and Fallon have certainly provided some extensive facts on the flood! I have to agree that no one wanted this event to happen. I would have felt tremendous guilt, and given vast donations to victims, after the flood if I was a member of The South Fork F & H Club.
The dam was originally 72 feet (22 m) high and 931 feet (284 m) long. Between 1881 when the club was opened, and 1889, the dam frequently sprang leaks and was patched, mostly with mud and straw. Additionally, a previous owner removed and sold for scrap the 3 cast iron discharge pipes that previously allowed a controlled release of water. There had been some speculation as to the dam's integrity, and concerns had been raised by the head of the Cambria Iron Works downstream in Johnstown. Carnegie Steel's chief competitor, the Cambria Iron and Steel Company, at that time boasted the world's largest annual steel production. However, no major corrective action was taken, and the flawed dam held the waters of Lake Conemaugh back until the disaster of May 31, 1889. Many people would blame the Pennsylvania Railroad for the Johnstown flood, but I disagree, I put the blame on the hunting club. The Pennsylvania government owned the dam until 1853, when they sold it to the Pennsylvania Railroad, to that day the dam was in pristine condition. Once the railroad got control of the dam it quickly began to fall apart. In 1862 the dam sprang a leak close to the discharge pipes, so they decided to take them out. There would no longer be anything to relieve the pressure in the dam. The railroad let the dam go for seventeen years, to slowly deteriorate, but in 1879 the hunting club decided to buy the dam and put cottages and a club house on the land. The club knew that there were problems, so it was now their responsibility to fix the damages and make sure nothing will go wrong. They even attempted to fix them, but they obviously didn’t do a good enough job. So I blame the hunting club for the flood because they knew that there were problems pertaining to the dam, and had they fixed them properly, the flood would never have occurred. Since they did a bad job repairing the dam they should be to blame. The Johnstown flood should not have happened if the hunting club did a good job fixing the dam’s problems. 2,209 lives would have been saved if this flood never occurred.
I think all your Johnstown Flood comments point to the fact that this dam was just a plain bad idea. Could it have been maintained better, sure. Yet, wasn't it just a disaster waiting to happen? I have visited the site of the former lake. It's a beautiful valley now (no lake), and I can't help wondering if a smaller lake or no lake (or at least a competent dam) would have saved thousands from a horrific death...and destruction of a town.
The Johnstown flood of 1889 was one of the worst floods in US history. The flood killed 2,200 people and did 17 million dollars worth of damage to the city of Johnstown. After doing additional research on the topic, I learned two very interesting things about the flood. One was that most of the floodwater came from a reservoir that was owned by a group of investors, including Henry Crick, who was a close associate of Andrew Carnegie. This was interesting because it shows how wealthy people do things for their own gain, such as when Henry Crick blatantly lowered the reservoir’s dam to make it easier to cross by carriage, with no regard to the stability of the dam. Another interesting fact about the flood was that it was one of the first natural disasters responded to by Clara Barton and the newly formed American Red Cross. The American Red Cross was formed shortly after the Civil War, in which Clara Barton served as a nurse to soldiers, and still exists today. I personally found this event both alarming and unexpected, because it happened so close to Erie, and yet is not often mentioned or spoken of even though it claimed over 2,000 lives and destroyed an entire city. I believe there were many factors that affected the outcome of this event, and no single factor is to blame. The main factors that caused this disaster include the faulty dam, the lack of government supervision of the dam, the city itself for not realizing the potential danger sooner and acting on it, and the large amount of rainfall that month. One shocking detail about this event is that some people caught on fire while struggling not to drown. This was because of the factories and debris that caught fire during the accident and covered the some parts of the city in smog and flames. This detail was shocking because a comedian, Dane Cook, once joked about a theoretical situation in which a man is drowning in a pool, but the surface of the pool is on fire. At the time I first heard this, I did not think it was possible. To learn that it had actually happened to real people is stunning.
ReplyDeleteAs we all know, the Johnstown flood was a flood that occurred in Johnstown, Pennsylvania on May 31, 1889. However, there were many facts that were not mentioned in the movie we watched in class. In 1889, Johnstown was a steel company town of Germans and Welsh founded in 1794. Its population was 30,000 people. The afternoon of May 31st was cold and rainy, not uncommon in the area. However, a dam located fourteen miles up the Little Conemaugh, a river adjacent to the town, was not holding up well. The dam was not maintained well, and at precisely 4:07 residents heard a thunder-like roar. Many immediately knew trouble. The South Fork Dam had broken, sending 20 million tons of water coming towards Johnstown at 40 miles per hour. The height of the water at some points were at 89 feet above river level, and despite thousands of people's efforts to escape, they found themselves being tangled in barbed wire from the town's wire works, surrounded in muddy, oily water filled with debris from crushed buildings. Once darkness fell, the people of Johnstown were either clinging for dear life on debris, sitting in their attics, or swept downstream to the Stone Bridge. Eighty of the survivors were piled up at the arches of the bridge when the debris caught on fire, trapping them in a circle of flames. By morning, water remained in the streets and the townsfolk did what they could and waited for help to arrive. There were many aspects of the flood that surprised me. One aspect was that bodies were found as far away from the town as Cincinnati. The last body found was 22 years later, in 1911. Another aspect was that the wave rushed through the town and crushed everything in a matter of 10 minutes. It had only taken 10 minutes to destroy something that would take 2,209 lives, 1,600 homes and 5 years to rebuild. However, that was what surprised me the most. Through this terrible tragedy, organizations all across the world came to help. $3,742,818.78 was collected for Johnstown's relief effort from the United States and 18 other countries. The Red Cross arrived on June 5th, only six days afterward. This may seem like a long time, but it was pretty quick when any roads and railroads coming to and from Johnstown were flooded as well. After all this, who is truly to blame? Many blame the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, who never maintained the dam. However, I think it was everyone's fault. Had the club known a terrible flood was going to arrive, they probably would have fixed it. If an inhabitant of Johnstown was truly concerned, they should have went up to the dam and fixed it themselves. Honestly, I think what has happened is said and done and we should just move on from the past.
ReplyDeleteTristrum and Fallon have certainly provided some extensive facts on the flood! I have to agree that no one wanted this event to happen. I would have felt tremendous guilt, and given vast donations to victims, after the flood if I was a member of The South Fork F & H Club.
ReplyDeleteThe dam was originally 72 feet (22 m) high and 931 feet (284 m) long. Between 1881 when the club was opened, and 1889, the dam frequently sprang leaks and was patched, mostly with mud and straw. Additionally, a previous owner removed and sold for scrap the 3 cast iron discharge pipes that previously allowed a controlled release of water. There had been some speculation as to the dam's integrity, and concerns had been raised by the head of the Cambria Iron Works downstream in Johnstown. Carnegie Steel's chief competitor, the Cambria Iron and Steel Company, at that time boasted the world's largest annual steel production. However, no major corrective action was taken, and the flawed dam held the waters of Lake Conemaugh back until the disaster of May 31, 1889. Many people would blame the Pennsylvania Railroad for the Johnstown flood, but I disagree, I put the blame on the hunting club. The Pennsylvania government owned the dam until 1853, when they sold it to the Pennsylvania Railroad, to that day the dam was in pristine condition. Once the railroad got control of the dam it quickly began to fall apart. In 1862 the dam sprang a leak close to the discharge pipes, so they decided to take them out. There would no longer be anything to relieve the pressure in the dam. The railroad let the dam go for seventeen years, to slowly deteriorate, but in 1879 the hunting club decided to buy the dam and put cottages and a club house on the land. The club knew that there were problems, so it was now their responsibility to fix the damages and make sure nothing will go wrong. They even attempted to fix them, but they obviously didn’t do a good enough job. So I blame the hunting club for the flood because they knew that there were problems pertaining to the dam, and had they fixed them properly, the flood would never have occurred. Since they did a bad job repairing the dam they should be to blame. The Johnstown flood should not have happened if the hunting club did a good job fixing the dam’s problems. 2,209 lives would have been saved if this flood never occurred.
ReplyDeleteI think all your Johnstown Flood comments point to the fact that this dam was just a plain bad idea. Could it have been maintained better, sure. Yet, wasn't it just a disaster waiting to happen? I have visited the site of the former lake. It's a beautiful valley now (no lake), and I can't help wondering if a smaller lake or no lake (or at least a competent dam) would have saved thousands from a horrific death...and destruction of a town.
ReplyDelete