Great Disasters and Horrors in the World's History

by Allen Howard Godbey

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.