In keeping with Kyle’s Public Library’s last featured book about the Mississippi flood of 1927 that changed American society, this week’s column will focus on renowned historian David McCullough’s book “The Johnstown Flood,” which chronicles another of the country’s worst flood disasters: the 1889 flood in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.
At the end of the nineteenth century America was in what is known as its Gilded Age. It was a time of rapid population and economic growth, but also one of political and corporate corruption coupled with a broad disparity between extreme wealth and extreme poverty.
During this period Johnstown, PA was a booming coal and steel town. Nestled in the mountains above it was the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, an exclusive resort for wealthy tycoons. A shoddily constructed earthen dam was hastily built and poorly maintained to create a lake for the resort’s patrons. Despite repeated warnings about the dam’s safety, nothing was done.
Then came the rains. By the morning of May 31, 1889, there was water in the streets of Johnstown. Businesses and families moved furnishings and supplies to the upper stories of their buildings as they had previously done in times of heavy rains. But nothing could prepare the town for what came next.
Around 3:00 p.m., the poorly constructed, ill-maintained resort dam that held back a lake over two miles long and a little over a mile wide burst, unleashing 20 million tons of water. Within an hour this massive body of water smashed into Johnstown 14 miles below with the force of Niagara falls.
Eyewitnesses described it as a rolling hill of water and debris approximately a half-mile wide and 40 feet high. Debris included buildings, animals, and people, both dead and alive. But this was just the start of the devastation. When the water and debris hit the Pennsylvania Railroad Company bridge, debris piled 40 feet high and caught fire.
In the end the debris field covered 30 square miles, and four square miles of downtown Johns-town were completely destroyed. The flood resulted in 2,209 deaths, including the loss of 99 entire families. More than 750 victims were never identified, and approximately 1,600 homes were destroyed. The flood also marked the first major peacetime disaster relief effort for the Red Cross.
“The Johnstown Flood” was David McCullough’s first book, and his most recent work “The Wright Brothers” is currently on The New York Times nonfiction bestseller list. For these and other McCullough titles, stop by the Kyle Public Library.
