On Memorial Day 1889, a storm struck western Pennsylvania. Floods were common enough in the mountain
community of Johnstown and the surrounding villages. This
one was extraordinary. Upstream the valley sat a structure that was poised to
make the flood much worse, the dam
at South Fork Reservoir.
David McCullough describes the flood and the
devastating dam break in The Johnstown
Flood. It was the worst disaster in the United States up until its time with more than
2,000 people killed by the huge wave that swept down the valley, with more
killed by fire and disease in the aftermath.
The dam had originally
built by the State of Pennsylvania too supply water for a canal. Within a few years the canal was
closed because the railroad provided freight and passenger transportation through the area. The dam changed
hands several times after that. I fell into disrepair. Somewhere along the line
someone salvaged the pipes that allowed one to control the water level behind
the dam; though in it partly collapsed state it no longer held much water.
This changed when
developers bought the dam and surrounding property to build a resort for the
wealthy industrialists of Pittsburgh. The dam was rebuilt with
indifference to materials and methods. The drain pipes were never restored. The
spillway was obstructed by a grate (to keep the fish in the stocked lake from
disappearing downstream) and low bridge. By the time of the flood, perhaps
since it was repaired, there was a slight dip in the center of the dam,
creating an unknown, unprotected second spillway. This dip was hard to see with
the eye on the large dam, but a survey to measure the elevations would have
turned it up.
The dam filled and the
lake became quite large. The vacationers sailed ships on it. The water level
was commonly within a couple of feet of the spillway, and there was no
practical way for the dam operators to control that water level. It was a
disaster waiting to happen.
Many of the people of
Johnstown expressed concern that the dam was a danger to the city. However, the
prevailing view was that the wealthy elite of Pittsburgh would have it built
right; very few endeavored to assess it for themselves. Similarly, the members
of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, including such prominences as Andrew Carnegie, had faith that the developer did the
work right, and they put no effort into checking it out.
When the floodwaters
overtopped the earthen dam, it collapsed quickly, unleashing a deadly wave of
possibly 20 million tons of water. It is hard to imagine the devastation caused
by the wave, even 15 miles downstream in Johnstown. McCullough describes it,
sometimes in great detail, based on reports from the time. The rolling wall of
water seems awesome at first, but as it begins to destroy homes and injure and
kill people, it becomes sickening as well.
The people of that
valley recovered with admirable speed and took over the cleanup and restoration
of their town the very next day. Soon aid came from across the country, and
especially from elsewhere in Pennsylvania, including the National Guard and a still young American Red Cross.
As the initial terror of
the event subsided, attention turned to the club at South Fork. Though the
press, including the Engineering
News, laid blame
on the club and the shoddy, unprofessional work done to rebuild the dam, the courts
never held the club or its members accountable. The courts, mostly in
Pittsburgh where club members held sway, accepted that it was an act of God.
It’s clear to more objective observers that a properly built dam would probably
have survived the flood, or at the very least would have had a much less
damaging failure. Though McCullough suggests the residents of Johnstown and the
members of the club were too trusting, he does not shy away from the negligence
of those who rebuilt the dam in a way that would almost surely lead to the
disaster that came.
David McCollough also
wrote
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