JohnstownPA1889Flood

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Flood History

On May 31, 1889, a neglected dam and a phenomenal storm led to a catastrophe inwhich 2,209 people died. It's a story of great tragedy, but also of triumphant recoveryVisit the Johnstown Flood Museum, which is operated by the Johnstown Area HeritaAssociation, to find out more about this shocking episode in American history.

History of the Johnstown Flood

The Johnstown Area Heritage Association receives many inquiries about the 1889 flood.Please visit the 1889 Flood Resources page on the Archives & Research section of this site

for a broad range of links, essays, downloadable information and more.

The following narrative about the 1889 flood is by Edwin Hutcheson, excerpted from"Floods of Johnstown: 1889-1936 -1977," published in 1989 by the Cambria CountyTourist Council.

By the morning of May 31, 1889, there was water in the streets. Business people weremoving their wares to the upper stories of their buildings. Families moved furnishings andsupplies they would need to wait out the deluge.

Johnstown had been built into a river valley on the Appalachian Plateau. The Little

Conemaugh and the Stony Creek Rivers, which ran along the peripheral of the town andmerged to form the Conemaugh River at the western end, drained a 657 square milewatershed which dropped in the rivers from mountains 500 feet above (Click here for amap of the area, published shortly after the flood). At least once a year, one or both of therivers overflowed into the streets sending the town's residents into a scurry to protect whatthey could of their homes and belongings.

Some of these floods were caused when heavy snows melted too quickly in the spring.And others, at any season of the year, when a heavy rain fell over the area. Whichever,floods were a fact of life to the nineteenth century resident of this industrial community insouthwestern Pennsylvania. And, in the late afternoon of May 31, 1889, people were

gathered in the upper stories of their homes, waiting out the worst of it, just as they haddone many times before.

Even as the residents of Johnstown prepared for their long wait, activity at the South Forkdam, just 14 miles above the city was frantic. The South Fork dam held back LakeConemaugh, the pleasure lake of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, a prestigiousclub which included such famed entrepreneurs as Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frickon its membership rolls. (Click here for more information about the club and the dam; a

list of club members is also availablethere). Officials there feared the dam would

'
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s ory o eJohnstown Flood

1936 & 1977 Floods

Facts About theJohnstown Flood

The Club & the Dam

The Flood and theAmerican Red Cross

The Relief Effort

Survivor Stories

Remembering theJohnstown Flood

. ,avoid this, because they feared theconsequences. The lake was a little overtwo miles long, a little over a mile wide atits widest spot, and 60 feet deep at the damitself.

Among the attempts were efforts to addheight to the dam, then to dig a secondspillway to relieve pressure from thebreast, and finally to release the heavyscreens placed on the overflows to keepthe stocked fish from escaping into thestreams below. By a little after 3 p.m.,when most people in Johnstown weresettling in to be marooned for theevening, club officials and the laborers

they recruited, as well as a good sizedaudience from the little community ofSouth Fork just below the dam, watchedin dumbfounded horror as the dam "just moved away. "

Within the hour, a body of water which engineers at the time estimated moved into thevalley with the force of Niagara Falls, rolled into Johnstown with 14 miles of accumulateddebris, which included houses, barns, animals and people, dead and alive.

Those who saw it coming described it as arolling hill of debris about 40 feet high anda halfamile wide. But most only heard thethunderous rumble as it swept into the cityto add Johnstown to a wake that alreadyincluded bits and pieces of thecommunities of South Fork, Mineral Point,Woodvale and East Conemaugh.

Some continued to wait out the disaster intheir houses, others were picked up by theflood wave for a wild ride through thetown to the Pennsylvania Railroad

Company's Stone Bridge where debrispiled 40 feet high and over 30 acres, then caught fire. Still others were shot down theConemaugh River to die or be rescued at Nineveh, Bolivar or other communitiesdownstream.

Six-year-old Gertrude Quinn Slattery was one ofthose caught in the flood wave. Years later shewould write about her experience as she washurled through the torrents on what she describesas a "raft with a wet muddy mattress andbeddin .''
http://www.jaha.org/FloodMuseum/remembering.htmlhttp://www.jaha.org/FloodMuseum/survivors.htmlhttp://www.jaha.org/FloodMuseum/response.htmlhttp://www.jaha.org/FloodMuseum/RedCross.htmlhttp://www.jaha.org/FloodMuseum/clubanddam.htmlhttp://www.jaha.org/FloodMuseum/facts.htmlhttp://www.jaha.org/FloodMuseum/1936.htmlhttp://www.jaha.org/FloodMuseum/history.html


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"I had great faith that I would not be abandoned,"she wrote. "While my thoughts were thusengaged, a large roof came floating toward mewith about twenty people on it. I cried and calledacross the water to them to help me. This, ofcourse they could not do. The roof was big, andthey were all holding on for dear life, feelingevery minute that they would be tossed to death. While I watched I kept praying, calling,

and begging someone to save me. Then I saw a man come to the edge, the others holdinghim and talking excitedly. I could see they were trying to restrain him but he kept pullingto get away which he finally did, and plunged into the swirling waters and disappeared.

Then his head appeared and I could see hewas looking in my direction and I called,cried, and begged him to come to me. Hekept going down and coming up, sometimeslost to my sight entirely, only to come upnext time much closer to my raft. The waterwas now between fifteen and twenty feet

deep.

"As I sat watching this man struggling in thewater my mind was firmly fixed on the factthat he was my saviour. At last he reachedme, drew himself up and over the side of themattress and lifted me up. I put both arms

around his neck and held on to him like grim death. Together we went downstream withthe ebb and flow of the reflex to the accompaniment of crunching, grinding, gurgling,splashing and crying and moaning of many. After drifting about we saw a little whitebuilding, standing at the edge of the water, apparently where the hill began. At the window

were two men with poles helping to rescue people floating by. I was too far out for thepoles, so the men called:

'Throw that baby over here to us.'

"My hero said: 'Do you think you can catch her?'

"They said: 'We can try.'"

"So Maxwell McAchren threw me across the water (some say twenty feet, others fifteen. Icould never find out, so I leave it to your imagination. It was considered a great feat in the

town, I know.)"

The response to the disaster was immediate as over 100 newspapers and magazines sentwriters and illustrators to Johnstown torecount the story for the world.

Although not noted for their accuracy, thereports touched the hearts of the readers.People sent money, clothing, and food.Medical societies and doctors and hospitals


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.their practices and hurried to Johnstown toassist. Lumber was sent for rebuildinghouses and businesses.

The dead were lined up in morguesthroughout the city and in communities further down the Conemaugh River until somesurvivor in search of a loved one came to identify them. Although damaged itself, thePresbyterian Church on Main Street was the site of one of the morgues. A reporter fromthe New York Evening Post described the scene there.

"The first floor has been washed out completelyand the second, while submerged, was badlydamaged, but not ruined. The walls, floors, andpews were drenched and the mud has collectedon the mattings and carpets an inch deep.Walking is attended with much difficulty, and theundertakers and attendants, with arms bared,slide about the slippery surface at a tremendousrate. The chancel is filled with coffins, strips of

muslin, boards and all undertaking accessories.Lying across the top of the pews are a dozen pineboxes each containing a victim of the flood.Printed cards are tacked to each. Upon them thesex and full description of the enclosed body iswritten with the name of the known." (Click herefor a list of flood victims, their addresses, agesand burial places).

The living set up tents, often near to the placestheir former homes had been located and began what must of been perceived of as theimpossible task of cleaning up and starting life again. Clara Barton and her Washington, D. C . contingent of the Red Cross built hotels for people to live in and warehouses to storethe many supplies the community received (click here for more on the Red Cross inJohnstown). By July 1, stores opened on the Main Street for business. The Cambria IronCompany reopened on June 6. Five years later, an observer would have been hard pressedto imagine the destruction in the valley on May 31, 1889.

Yet no city, county, or state legislation was enacted to protect people from similar disastersin the future. Suits were filed against the members of the South Fork Fishing and HuntingClub, but in keeping with the times, the courts viewed the dam break as an act of God, andno legal compensation was made to the survivors.

The city would continue to suffernuisance floods, with water in the streetsand in people's basements especially inthe spring of the year. It would be another47 years, and not until more property wasdestroyed and more lives lost, until someconstructive efforts were made to controlthe waters that flowed through Johnstown.
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Further reading on this site

Facts about the Johnstown Flood -- Statistics about the flood and its aftermath.

The South Fork Fishing & Hunting Club and the South Fork Dam -- More about theclub, including its members and activities, and the ill-fated dam it owned.

Survivor stories of the Johnstown Flood -- Some of the best-known survivor storiesfrom the flood. See the education home page below for first-person survivor stories.

The American Red Cross and the Johnstown Flood -- More about the Red Cross, itsfounder Clara Barton , and its first major non-battlefield relief effort -- theJohnstown flood.

The relief effort of the Johnstown Flood -- Information on the immediate flood reliefefforts, including the intense interest of the mass media, and the tremendousoutpouring of charity from around the world.

Remembering the Johnstown Flood -- How the flood was memorialized then, andhow it is remembered today.

The Johnstown floods of 1936 and 1977 -- Information on the flood of 1936, theriver channelization project that occurred in its aftermath, and the 1977 flood.

The Johnstown Flood Museum's education home page-- This section features a widevariety of flood image galleries, period maps of Johnstown, primary sources,timelines, eyewitness accounts and more as part of three educational "threads" ondifferent flood-related themes. Intended primarily for educators and students, thethreads do contain information useful to general researchers as well -- the "StudentResources" links are a good place to start.

Downloadable resources on this site

The members of the South Fork Fishing & Hunting Club

A contemporary map of the flood's path

A list of flood victims, including their ages, addresses and burial places

2013. Johnstown Area Heritage Association. All rights reserved.i
http://www.jaha.org/storelanding/store_landing.htmlhttp://www.jaha.org/FloodMuseum/flood_victims.pdfhttp://www.jaha.org/FloodMuseum/floodmap.pdfhttp://www.jaha.org/FloodMuseum/club.pdfhttp://www.jaha.org/edu/flood/index.htmlhttp://www.jaha.org/FloodMuseum/1936.htmlhttp://www.jaha.org/FloodMuseum/remembering.htmlhttp://www.jaha.org/FloodMuseum/response.htmlhttp://www.jaha.org/FloodMuseum/RedCross.htmlhttp://www.jaha.org/FloodMuseum/survivors.htmlhttp://www.jaha.org/FloodMuseum/clubanddam.htmlhttp://www.jaha.org/FloodMuseum/facts.html

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JohnstownPA1889Flood