The Johnstown Flood

American author and historian David McCullough’s debut book, The Johnstown Flood (1968), is a work of social history that chronicles the Johnstown Flood of 1889, a deluge of water and debris that tore through a steel community in Central Pennsylvania, killing more than 2,000 people and causing millions of dollars in damage. The flood resulted from a dam bursting in the mountains above Johnstown. The dam had been somewhat hurriedly built to create a lake for an exclusive summer resort, and although known to be weak, calls for it to be reinforced were ignored. The disaster that ensued is a story of inequality, greed, and gross negligence. To tell it, McCullough interviewed some of the few living survivors of the flood that has since become a national scandal etched into the American consciousness.

Other works by this author include John Adams, 1776, and The Wright Brothers.

Summary

Located about 70 miles east of Pittsburgh, Johnstown was founded in 1800 at the intersection of the Stony Creek and Little Conemaugh Rivers, where the two meet to form the larger Conemaugh River. Surrounded by the Allegheny Mountains in a very deep valley downstream from the Conemaugh River, the town was prone to flooding whenever heavy rainfall ensued. Making matters worse, developers had artificially diminished the river’s width, narrowing the waterway to allow for greater industry development on either side. To help combat this, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania built the South Fork Dam, completing construction in 1853.

As economic trends shifted from canal- and river-based industry to railroad transportation, the Commonwealth sold the dam and its reservoirs, which eventually ended up in the hands of private speculators. These speculators sought to repurpose the abandoned reservoir as an idyllic lake for wealthy vacationers. In doing so, they significantly weakened the structural integrity of the dam. For example, the dam was lowered so that a road might fit on top of it. Moreover, several pipes and relief valves were removed from the dam and sold off as scrap metal, making it difficult for the city to administer controlled releases of water during heavy rainfalls to ensure the dam would not break. Finally, the dam sprung frequent leaks in the decade leading up to the disaster, but the leaks were never properly repaired and were, instead, merely filled in with mud and straw.

Over May 29 and 30, 1889, the Conemaugh River Valley experienced the largest volume of rainfall ever recorded. By the morning of May 31, the reservoir was so swollen that water was beginning to crest the top of the dam. A group of nearby residents, led by South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club President Elias Unger, attempted to save the dam through various techniques. Some tried piling mud on top of the dam to increase its size. Others attempted to dig ditches on the side of the dam to allow the water to escape without destroying the dam. Still, others noticed that fish traps, which had been installed in recent years, had filled with debris that was preventing water from escaping through existing relief valves. Meanwhile, these men sent telegraphs to the city of Johnstown below, but their warnings of an imminent dam breach were ignored by authorities who dismissed them as false alarms.

By the early afternoon, Unger and his men abandoned their efforts. Certain that the dam would break, they headed for higher ground to save their own lives. About an hour later, the dam finally breached, unleashing 14.55 cubic meters of water as the reservoir emptied. That was equivalent to almost four billion gallons. As the water raged over 14 miles to the town of Johnstown, the torrent swept up mounds of debris, trees, and pieces of damaged houses, picking up speed the whole way. The water was briefly halted by mounds of debris that piled up underneath the Conemaugh Viaduct Bridge. However, when the bridge itself broke, the rush of water was faster and more powerful than before, owing to the pressure built up over the time the bridge had blocked it.

By the time the water hit Johnstown, it had already killed hundreds of people in several small towns, including 314 of Woodvale’s 1,100-person population. The wave had also picked up barbed wire and whole railroad cars at this point. When the residents of Johnstown saw the water bearing down on them, the wave was 60 feet high and traveling at 40 miles an hour. A second wave also hit the town from the other direction after gravity pulled a surge of water back down the other side of the valley. In all, 2,209 people were said to have died, though the author identifies at least one survivor, Leroy Temple, who had been presumed dead but later emerged in reports from many years later. Death toll quibbles aside, the Johnstown Flood resulted in the largest non-military loss of life in U.S. history, surpassed only by the Galveston Hurricane in 1900 and the September 11 attacks on New York City.

In the aftermath of the disaster, survivors sought legal damages, chiefly from the owners, operators, and members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, whose modifications to the dam dramatically weakened its structural integrity. Nevertheless, while some millionaire members donated relief funds of their own volition, the courts failed to find the club liable for the disaster, labeling the flood an “Act of God.” In the years that followed, however, several state courts adopted new precedents for dealing with liability concerning similar disasters, which would allow survivors legal recompense from both negligent and non-negligent parties.

The Johnstown Flood is a thoroughly-researched chronicle of one of American history’s deadliest—and arguably avoidable—disasters. This study guide was written using the e-book 50th-anniversary edition of The Johnstown Flood, published in 2018.