THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD.
“A sullen hoarse murmur, and nameless fear!--
A sound like the tread of a hurrying host!--
A roar like the storm, as the wild waters near,
Like the dash of the sea on a crag-bordered coast!
A wave like a mountain sweeps swift through the vale
Ten thousand wrecked homes tossing dark in its spray,
Wild cries of death-anguish echo mocks with her wail--
And the fiend of the flood now has claimed his prey!”
India, profiting by long and sad experience, has provided, as far as may
be possible, against the contingencies of drought and famine, by the
establishment of a magnificent system of storage reservoirs, to furnish
water for irrigating when rain is wanting. Some of these tanks are fine
specimens of engineering, and so far as records go, no disaster has ever
attended their establishment. But to be ready and efficient, for
purposes of irrigation, the water must be above the level of the
surrounding country: hence, the only practicable plan has been to dam up
the courses of streams and ravines in the hills. As nearly all Bengal is
comparatively low and level, this method is not applicable there; hence,
the terrible famines consequent in a comparatively small decrease of the
average rain supply. But in the Deccan, in the Madras presidency, and in
Ceylon, the reservoir system has been carried to an extent astounding to
the white man, who depends with tolerable certainty upon the rain, and
who is accustomed to consider other races as universally indolent and
improvident. In fourteen districts of the Madras presidency
[Illustration: MAP OF CONEMAUGH VALLEY.]
are nearly fifty-five thousand irrigation reservoirs, four-fifths of
which are in regular operation. Their size may be estimated by the fact
that the retaining dykes average half a mile in length. One ancient
reservoir, now broken, had a dam thirty miles long, shutting in an
artificial lake of eighty square miles. The Veranum tank covers
fifty-three square miles, has a dam twelve miles long, and produces
$55,000 per year. In Ceylon may be seen a gigantic dam of cemented
stone, fifteen miles long, one hundred feet wide at the base, and forty
feet wide at the top.
The same plan is of late years being extensively operated in our western
tracts for the reclaiming of extensive tracts otherwise not cultivable.
With these exceptions no great use of the reservoir system has been made
in this country. Every saw-mill, grist-mill or factory in our land
usually has its dam in an adjacent stream to insure a fair supply of
water: but none of these can be properly considered general precautions
against drought. The only prominent public works of the sort are the
Croton storage reservoirs, by which New York is supplied with water.
There are eighteen reservoirs, with a total capacity of fourteen
thousand millions of gallons. China has a great canal irrigation system,
which is, perhaps, safer in some respects than the Hindoo system, but
which can not command as large an increase of supply in time of drought,
the water being drawn from the rivers, and thus having comparatively
little fall. But the canals so thoroughly intersect the whole country as
to serve as public highways: and in many sections there are no other
roads.
Doubtless the methods of construction in India have been learned by long
experience. Certain it is that for many years, at least, no serious
trouble has ever arisen from defective retaining dykes. The public
welfare is so intimately connected with these pools that they are
carefully inspected and repaired. The destruction of the system might
at any time precipitate a terrible famine.
Not having a similar condition of things to contend with, the average
American is not concerned about the few dams scattered about the land,
not one in a score of which would cause any serious loss were it to
break: and even were such death-traps scattered over every county, it is
doubtful if a race who will crouch behind a Mississippi levee and refuse
flight till the last moment, could ever be brought to a proper
realization of the danger, or their culpable negligence. The American is
in a hurry: and so if speed be obtained, trains may wreck, vessels
collide, or boilers burst, and the coroner’s jury will obligingly render
a verdict of “nobody to blame.” Since he also wants things at the bottom
market price, he encourages the production of countless unsafe
buildings, dams, and similar structures, merely because they are cheap.
The most terrible lesson ever given to cheap dam builders in the history
of our country is one, which, with the reader’s indulgence, we shall
endeavor to narrate.
In southwest central Pennsylvania, among the foot-hills of the
Alleghanies, lies the peaceful and picturesque valley of the Little
Conemaugh. Here, in 1889, within a stretch of a dozen miles, lay five
industrious and thriving towns: South Fork, Mineral Point, Conemaugh,
Woodvale and Johnstown. The last of these, embracing as it did, Cambria
and Conemaugh Borough, was a city of thirty thousand people. The
population of South Fork was two thousand, Mineral Point had eight
hundred, Conemaugh and Woodvale about two thousand five hundred each.
The total population of the valley within the distance named could not
have been far from thirty-eight thousand.
Johnstown was the center of interest as of population. Thither came on
May 30th--“Decoration Day"--people from Altoona, Hollidaysburg,
Somerset, Latrobe, Ebensburg and Wilmore, and from the four other towns
already mentioned. There was a great concourse, a long and impressive
procession of soldiers and secret orders, with bands of music, flags,
regalia, banners, bunting and devices. With solemn pomp the cemetery was
visited, and flowers were strewn on the graves of the patriotic dead.
This sad but pleasing duty ended, the procession turned again toward the
city, and entering the Opera House, listened to an eloquent oration. It
was a day of more than ordinary interest and elation for Johnstown. The
city stood happy and unsuspecting on the very brink of an awful doom.
During the day the sky had been overcast, and there were occasional
light showers. At nightfall the clouds lowered more heavily, and seemed
to descend nearer to the earth. At nine o’clock there was a gentle rain;
at eleven, a tremendous down-pour, which continued with little
interruption during the remainder of the night. It seemed as if the
windows of heaven had been opened.
The site of Johnstown is at the Junction of Stony Creek with the Little
Conemaugh. Before eight o’clock on the morning of the 31st of May, both
streams were bank-full. As the day advanced the lower parts of the town
were inundated. By eleven o’clock there was a depth of five feet at the
corner of Main and Market streets, and at the Cambria Iron Company’s
store.
Still higher the waters rose. In the houses most exposed, carpets were
removed from the floors, and pianos and organs were lifted on chairs and
tables. Soon the two angry streams were mingling their waters in the
business center of the town. Both streams had been as high before, but
never both at the same time. Some thought the Cambria Iron Company,
which had narrowed the channel below the stone bridge, was responsible,
and should be required to widen it again, and so make a free exit for
the waters.
By two o’clock the water was two to ten feet deep all over the city
proper, and the people had retired to their houses. There was
inconvenience and cessation of business, but no one apprehended serious
danger. They surveyed the providence of God without fear; little
thinking of the destruction that, swifter than the avalanche, would
presently come through the heedlessness or the greed of man.
Twelve miles up the river, eastward, and at an elevation of four hundred
and fifty feet above the city, lay Conemaugh Lake. This was an
artificial reservoir, covering four hundred, or perhaps four hundred and
fifty acres of land, and having an average depth of thirty feet. Across
the south fork of the Conemaugh, about two miles above its junction with
the main stream, had been built a dam, sixty-two feet high in the
center, and eight hundred and fifty feet long. The valley, narrow at the
dam, widened above into an extensive basin. Proposed in 1836, and
authorized three years later, this reservoir had been finally
constructed in 1852, as a feeder to the Pennsylvania canal, fourteen
miles below. A culvert at the bottom of the dam contained fine iron
discharge pipes, each two feet in diameter, which could be opened at low
water thus sending the contents of the reservoir to the canal at
Johnstown. In 1857, the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, having bought the
canal, abandoned it, and the reservoir was thenceforth disused. In July,
1862, the culvert beneath it gave way, owing to some imperfection of the
foundation. The depth of water in the reservoir was, at the time, not
greater than forty feet; hardly more than half its actual capacity. The
breach widened into a chasm, and the water of the reservoir was
discharged, with the exception of about eight feet at the bottom; but so
slow was the process, owing to the substantial character of the dam, and
the resistance it presented, that little harm resulted.
From 1862 to 1880, the reservoir was empty, and the property, containing
something more than five hundred acres, was a waste. In 1875 it was
bought by Congressman John Reilly, and was by him, four years later,
transferred to the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club. This was an
association of three gentlemen; suggested and organized by Colonel B. F.
Ruff, a successful railroad and tunnel contractor. All these parties had
ceased from membership in the club prior to the great disaster.
The original dam, constructed with care and solidity, had involved an
expenditure of $240,000. It was built in regular layers and solidly
rammed, and when finished was higher in the middle than at the ends,
having a spill-way cut through rock in the side of the hill. The cost of
reconstruction was no more than $17,000. No engineer, good or bad, had
charge of the work. The material used was, for the most part, not more
substantial than shale and earth and straw. The pipes at the bottom were
permanently closed, and as the dam advanced, the water was discharged
through a board flume over the top. It was at first intended to raise
the new dam to a height of no more than forty feet, but it was presently
discovered that to cut down the spill-way through rock would cost more
than to construct the dam to the original elevation. This was
accordingly done, though not perfectly, as the dam was two or three feet
lower than the old one, and had, besides, a sag in the middle. A fatal
mistake, if once the water should begin to flow over the crest.
Another mistake was the obstruction of the spill-way with an iron
grating placed to retain the fish, without taking the precaution at the
same time to enlarge the passage. This would have been expensive; and
here, as in the construction of the dam, it is apparent that economy was
consulted.
The sum of the mistakes made in the summer of 1880, and which culminated
in the disaster of 1889, were, according to the report of a corps of
engineers, who made a careful survey, “the lowering of the crest, the
dishing, or central sag of the crest, the closing of the bottom culvert,
and the obstruction of the spill-way.”
The people of the towns below had often discussed the possible rupture
of the dam, but they scarcely feared it. Had it not been built by men
who understood their business; and might not these be trusted, as men
trust their lives to the doctor and their souls to the priest? Had it
not resisted the flood of June, 1887--the highest ever known--and why
then should it yield to any other? It is certain that in the towns below
some were not thinking of the reservoir at all; while, in case it should
give way, few had formed the remotest conception of the possible
disaster. On the very day of the awful calamity, when the streets and
sidewalks of Johnstown were already under water, a leading citizen, to
the question, “How much higher do you think the water will rise if the
reservoir should burst?” answered quietly, “About two feet;” and we have
not heard that any ventured to correct the estimate.
Unsuspecting souls were they, and yet wholly like other men. Those long
resident by the volcano have ceased to fear its fires. Familiarity, even
with danger, breeds contempt. The evil which still delays, we fondly
believe will never come. And as to the consequences, if those who build
dams know so little, why should simple townsmen be expected to know
more? Had they guaged that reservoir, and did they know that up there in
the mountains were six hundred and forty millions of cubic feet of
water, enough to make a veritable Niagara, for more than half an hour,
ready to rush down upon them? Had they calculated the awful energy of
twenty millions of tons of water falling four hundred and fifty feet in
a progress of a dozen miles; and this progress down a pent-up valley, in
some places not more than three hundred feet in width? Had they
considered that the flow of a mountain of water, sixty feet high at
starting, must be far more rapid on the top than at the bottom? That the
base, entangled among obstructions, and overspreading them, would
furnish to the water above, an inclined plane, smooth as glass, along
which it would shoot with the speed of an arrow, to fall over the edge
of the retarded water beneath, and furnish in its turn a ready passage
for the water above and behind? That in consequence of this law, the
flood would come not by a gradual rise, giving time for escape, but like
a rolling mountain, to smite with the impact of a falling asteroid, and
crush in an instant everything in its way? Had they reflected that such
a body of water would outrun the swiftest Paul Revere who might mount
steed to fly with the warning to the towns below? That to the doomed,
the first announcement of danger would be the stroke of the destroyer?
That to the living there would be absolutely no more time for flight
than to the sinner, of preparation for judgment after Gabriel shall have
blown his trumpet? It is safe to say that few, if any, had even remotely
conceived the possibilities in the case. Men learn by experience, and
even from experience they fail to learn; for the lesson of to-day is
forgotten to-morrow: and human heedlessness is perpetual.
The crest of the dam stood four or five feet above the spill-way.
Towards noon of the 31st, persons on the watch saw the water of the
reservoir rising at the rate of a foot an hour. Meanwhile a rumor had
spread that the dam was leaking, and this attracted other observers.
Some declared that jets of water were leaping from the lower side to a
distance of thirty feet. Somewhere about half-past two o’clock water
began to run over the top. The structure was then evidently doomed; for,
though riprapped with stone on both slopes, no rampart of earth could
long withstand the abrasion of a torrent running over its crest, and
down its lower face. A South Fork pastor reached the spot at ten minutes
before three. A foot of water was then running over the dam. A few
minutes later a break was made “large enough to admit the passage of a
train of cars;” then presently the whole thing dissolved almost
instantly, like a phantom. A breach was made four hundred and
twenty-nine feet wide clean down to the bottom, and with the noise of
seven thunders and a tread that shook the hills like a young earthquake,
out rushed a mountain of water “tree-top high.” At such a sight the awed
spectator could only gasp, “God have mercy on the people in the vale
below.” Rushing onward a mile in three minutes, or as some have claimed,
twice or thrice as fast, in an instant down went a mill, two houses and
some barns, up went an iron bridge tossed like a thing of straw, and a
moment later the flood was at South Fork. Two trains, a passenger and a
freight, detained by a wash-out further up the road, were standing at
the station. Warned by the awful roar, the passenger train sprang out
just in time to save the lives of the people on board. The engineer of
the freight, seeing it impossible to move with his heavy train,
unhitched the locomotive, opened the throttle-valve, and with the
fireman, flew for life. The seething mountain leaped on the train and
dragged it away, regardless
[Illustration: THE BROKEN DAM.]
of two brakemen, who surrendered their lives. The village of South Fork,
standing in the angle above the junction of two streams, and on high
ground, was comparatively unharmed, though two lives and considerable
property were destroyed.
On rushed the river down a valley, having from the lake to Johnstown an
average grade of more than thirty feet in a mile. A mile and a quarter
below South Fork the river strikes at right angles a projecting cliff.
The baffled stream makes a detour of two miles and returns almost into
itself, having accomplished an absolute advance of no more than
seventy-five feet. A railroad cut no longer than this quits the river
above, then regains and crosses it by a viaduct below. The railroad bed
at the upper end of the cut is twenty feet above the stream, while at
the lower end it is seventy. Here the torrent divided; a part of it,
twenty feet deep and forty feet above the river-bed, flowing through the
cut, the other part following the channel around. When this latter
portion returning struck the cliff at the lower end of the cut, the
water rose to the enormous height of one hundred and twenty-five feet.
From this point the monster, towering to heaven, and like a “wild beast
dreadful and terrible and strong exceedingly,” and ravening for prey,
sprang upon Mineral Point, a little more than a mile below. The town was
instantly “wiped out,” forty houses being swept away and sixteen persons
drowned. The rest doubtless were saved by clinging to the wreck; or
warned by the ominous roar, they had fled to the neighboring hills. The
Methodist church, lifted from its foundation and tossing on the torrent,
solemnly, and for the last time tolled its bell, as if recognizing the
end of its days and usefulness; and continued to toll until its burial
was accomplished beneath the waters.
Two miles and a half below Mineral Point the flood encountered another
bend of the river, with a cut and viaduct in all respects similar to
that which has been described. Here again was enacted the grand and
terrific scene which took place above. Then from this augmented height
the torrent swept down upon East Conemaugh and Franklin, a mile below.
These villages standing on opposite sides of the river, constituted the
first of that series of boroughs known by the name of Johnstown.
An engineer, backing up the road, and pulling at the nose of his
locomotive a train of freight cars, had proceeded a third of a mile
above Conemaugh. Here the roar of the coming flood broke upon his ears,
and looking up the river he saw the descending avalanche. Instantly
reversing his engine and drawing the throttle, his whistle all the while
shrieking a wild alarm, he pushed at utmost speed the obstructing cars
back to the yard of the Pennsylvania road. Then leaping from his engine,
and leaving his whistle still to sound its warning, he ran to his house
near by, and with his family escaped to the hill just as the rolling
torrent dashed its billows at his feet.
Three passenger trains and one freight had been standing on the
side-tracks some hours, detained by the wash-out already mentioned. The
passengers were reading, writing, conversing, worrying, walking up and
down the tracks in the rain, or watching the driftwood and the
constantly rising river, but conscious of no danger. Something was said
about a reservoir somewhere up the road, which might burst and come down
upon them, but they gave the matter no second thought. Twice was one of
the trains compelled to move, as the water undermined the track, and
caused it to fall into the river. Once they were startled by the crash
of a bridge, which yielded to
[Illustration: FLEEING ENGINE.]
the rushing waters, and was swept away. It was near the hour of four in
the afternoon, and they were still wearily waiting. Suddenly they were
startled by the long, shrill shriek, close to their ears, of engineer
Hess’ whistle, and looking out of their windows up the river, they saw
an enormous mass of wreckage, roots, trees, and driftwood borne aloft on
the back of the torrent, and rushing toward them. With one impulse, the
most of the passengers leaped from the trains and fled for their lives.
Those in the first train had to run round, or creep under the second in
order to reach the town, and thence the hill. Between the trains and the
town there was a ditch ten feet wide, and five and a half feet deep, and
filled with water. Into this, many plunged--nine women and girls
together. A gentleman who had leaped across tarried a moment to give a
helping hand, and all were rescued, save one, an aged woman. She was
apparently dazed; for, refusing the proffered hand, she said, “I will go
this way,” walked toward the maddened waters, and was lost. The rest
fled amain to the rising ground near by, with the raging torrent not ten
feet behind them. Gaining the hill they turned to behold a grand and
awful scene--the crashing, tumbling buildings lifted from their
foundations and hurled against each other; the shrieks and cries and
screams of agonizing, despairing, dying men and women, and all Conemaugh
going down in the fierce river. The round-house sprang from its seat
like a toy tossed from a giant’s hand, and more than thirty great
locomotives were rolled along “like so many pebbles.” All the trains
were carried away. In some of the cars the passengers could yet be seen,
while on the top of one car, loosened from the rest, were two men
struggling desperately to keep their hold as it rolled from side to
side. The whole four trains drifted down about five hundred feet, when
they were stopped in a singular manner. Some inexplicable movement of
the water lifted the head of one train and threw it across that of the
other. Engines from the round-house were rolled down and piled against
these, a mass of trees and drift were added, and the whole four trains,
with the exception of two or three cars, were arrested and anchored in
the midst of the flood.
But, though the whistle was a warning, and the hills were a refuge to
the people of East Conemaugh, the lives of twenty-four were lost; while
of the passengers on the trains, twenty-six are known to have perished.
One family were carried down in their house, which held together till it
drifted against the steep hillside, some distance below, where it was
arrested long enough for them to make their escape.
Two sisters, clinging to driftwood, were being swept past the woolen
mill in Woodvale, when a rope was thrown to them and they were saved.
One man was carried on a drifting log clear through Johnstown and over
into Kernville, to find deliverance at the end of a wild, three-miles
ride. Another, overtaken at the fair grounds, climbed on the ticket
shed, and thence upon a telephone pole. This being quickly broken down
by the impact of some solid body, he mounted a passing log and dashed
ahead all the way to the stone bridge, a distance of more than two
miles. Here he took hold of some wreckage, and by the backwater was
carried to Main street, near the Presbyterian church, whence he worked
his way to final safety.
A quarter of a mile below East Conemaugh was the town of Woodvale. The
story of its calamity has few details, since all its five thousand
inhabitants were either drowning or engaged in a mad struggle for their
lives. Every one of its eight hundred houses was lifted in a minute--not
one
[Illustration: WRECK OF THE TRAINS.]
remained; nothing but parts of the walls of the large woollen and flour
mills. To the hills forty or sixty rods distant, not many succeeded in
escaping. Relatively but few attempted it, for when the whistles sounded
the alarm, the hills were too distant and the flood was too near. Such
as fled were overtaken by the raging waters, and, to make destruction
doubly sure, a freight train was standing between them and the hill, and
this at the supreme moment, began to move. Thus many perished when there
was but a step between them and deliverance. The houses were mostly
frames, and the people were commonly swept away with their shattered
dwellings. We know there were thousands of wonderful escapes, the
recital of which would fill a bulky volume; but more than one-third of
the total population were quickly counted with the dead.
Laden with corpses and debris gathered from five towns; with cars and
trees and all the nameless accumulation from a valley twelve miles long,
the torrent now swept down on Conemaugh Borough. This in turn was
quickly swept away, though more of the inhabitants succeeded in escaping
to the hills. At the lower end of the borough were the Gautier Mills, a
part of the great Cambria Iron Company’s plant. These occupied perhaps
ten or twelve acres of ground. When the flood struck them with their
hundreds of fierce fires, there were thunderous explosions that shook
the hills, and the whole seemed to rise up at once and slide forward on
the slanting flood. One or two experiences from this part of the town
must suffice for hundreds more. One lady drifted far down across the
Seventh Ward and lay all night among the wreckage, within easy reach of
seven dead persons, while the luxuriant hair of a dead woman drifted
frequently across her face, half buried beneath the water. A wealth
German lady, a prominent member of the Lutheran church, said, “My son
Henry and his wife, my son Charles and my son-in-law were all drowned;
my pastor and his wife and four nice little children were lost; there is
not one brick of our good, big church left on top of another; and here
is the key, which alone remains. I think my heart must break from
overmuch sorrow.” A few days later she sank into the grave.