CHAPTER XVI.

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

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

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

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

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.