History of the Johnstown Flood / Including all the Fearful Record; the Breaking of the South Fork Dam; the Sweeping Out of the Conemaugh Valley; the Over-Throw of Johnstown; the Massing of the Wreck at the Railroad Bridge; Escapes, Rescues, Searches for Survivors and the Dead; Relief Organizations, Stupendous Charities, etc., etc., With Full Accounts also of the Destruction on the Susquehanna and Juniata Rivers, and the Bald Eagle Creek.

by Willis Fletcher Johnson

[CHAPTER XI.]

The first survivors of the Johnstown wreck who arrived at Pittsburg were Joseph and Henry Lauffer and Lew Dalmeyer. They endured considerable hardship and had several narrow escapes with their lives. Their story of the disaster can best be told in their own language. Joe, the youngest of the Lauffer brothers, said:

“My brother and I left on Thursday for Johnstown. The night we arrived there it rained continually, and on Friday morning it began to flood. I started for the Cambria store at a quarter-past eight on Friday, and in fifteen minutes afterward I had to get out of the store in a wagon, the water was running so rapidly. We then arrived at the station and took the day express and went as far as Conemaugh, where we had to stop. The limited, however, got through, and just as we were about to start the bridge at South Fork gave way with a terrific crash, and we had to stay there. We then went to Johnstown. This was at a quarter to ten in the morning, when the flood was just beginning. The whole city of Johnstown was inundated and the people all moved up to the second floor.

“Now this is where the trouble occurred. These poor unfortunates did not know the reservoir would burst, and there are no skiffs in Johnstown to escape in. When the South Fork basin gave way mountains of water twenty feet high came rushing down the Conemaugh River, carrying before them death and destruction. I shall never forget the harrowing scene. Just think of it! thousands of people, men, and women, and children, struggling and weeping and wailing as they were being carried suddenly away in the raging current. Houses were picked up as if they were but a feather, and their inmates were all carried away with them, while cries of ‘God help me!’ ‘Save me!’ ‘I am drowning!’ ‘My child!’ and the like were heard on all sides. Those who were lucky enough to escape went to the mountains, and there they beheld the poor unfortunates being crushed to death among the debris without any chance of being rescued. Here and there a body was seen to make a wild leap into the air and then sink to the bottom.

“At the stone bridge of the Pennsylvania Railroad people were dashed to death against the piers. When the fire started there hundreds of bodies were burned. Many lookers-on up on the mountains, especially the woman, fainted.”

Mr. Lauffer’s brother, Harry, then told his part of the tale, which was not less interesting. He said: “We had a series of narrow escapes, and I tell you we don’t want to be around when anything of that kind occurs again.

“The scenes at Johnstown have not in the least been exaggerated, and, indeed, the worst is to be heard. When we got to Conemaugh and just as we were about to start the bridge gave way. This left the day express, the accommodation, a special train, and a freight train at the station. Above was the South Fork water basin, and all of the trains were well filled. We were discussing the situation when suddenly, without any warning, the whistles of every engine began to shriek, and in the noise could be heard the warning of the first engineer, ‘Fly for your lives! Rush to the mountains, the reservoir has burst.’ Then with a thundering peal came the mad rush of waters. No sooner had the cry been heard than those who could rushed from the train with a wild leap and up the mountains. To tell this story takes some time, but the moments in which the horrible scene was enacted were few. Then came the avalanche of water, leaping and rushing with tremendous force. The waves had angry crests of white, and their roar was something deafening. In one terrible swath they caught the four trains and lifted three of them right off the track, as if they were only a cork. There they floated in the river. Think of it, three large locomotives and finely finished Pullmans floating around, and above all the hundreds of poor unfortunates who were unable to escape from the car swiftly drifting toward death. Just as we were about to leap from the car I saw a mother, with a smiling, blue-eyed baby in her arms. I snatched it from her and leaped from the train just as it was lifted off the track. The mother and child were saved, but if one more minute had elapsed we all would have perished.

“During all of this time the waters kept rushing down the Conemaugh and through the beautiful town of Johnstown, picking up everything and sparing nothing.

“The mountains by this time were black with people, and the moans and sighs from those below brought tears to the eyes of the most stony-hearted. There in that terrible rampage were brothers, sisters, wives and husbands, and from the mountain could be seen the panic-stricken marks in the faces of those who were struggling between life and death. I really am unable to do justice to the scene, and its details are almost beyond my power to relate. Then came the burning of the debris near the Pennsylvania Railroad bridge. The scene was too sickening to endure. We left the spot and journeyed across country and delivered many notes, letters, etc., that were intrusted to us.”

The gallant young engineer, John G. Parke, whose ride of warning has already been described, relates the following: