Side panels describe what’s happening, and the sound of rain, rushing water, telegraph warnings, train whistles and people’s screams complete the experience. We stared transfixed as the light traveled downstream. The water in the lake, represented by blue light, started to “move,” spilling out into the Little Conemaugh River. Hambright, a retired schoolteacher, led a group of us to a fiber-optic three-dimensional model of the flood’s path, offering a bird’s-eye view of the landscape and the settlements along the Little Conemaugh as they existed on that day.Īt a signal from Hambright, the display case lit up and the sequence of the flood started. There’s even a vial containing floodwater.Īccording to volunteer docent Richard Hambright, Johnstown’s flood was the second-greatest natural disaster in the country’s history in terms of loss of life, the largest being the Galveston Hurricane of 1900. One photograph shows a dazed family on the side of the road, another stacks of coffins, some heartbreakingly tiny. Flood relics include a chair, a pitcher, keys, a trunk, a pair of binoculars: the everyday items of life that were swept away in 10 awful minutes. The massive French Gothic structure contains three floors of display cases, photographs and drawings that chillingly depict the flood and its aftermath. Andrew Carnegie donated the funds for the new library. The Johnstown Flood Museum on Washington Street is housed in the former Cambria County Library, built at the site of an earlier library building that the flood destroyed. I headed there to get a complete picture. As I tried to picture the moment of the breach, I realized that this was just the beginning of the story 400 feet lower and about 14 miles downstream, Johnstown was the end. Standing on the dam, looking back at what was once the lake bed, I used my imagination to fill in the little valley with more than 70 feet of water. So destructive was the force of the water that several towns in its path were leveled, and locomotives were tossed about like bath toys. When the dam was breached, according to Bosley, “the water emptied out in about 45 minutes.” And in that interval a wall of water and gathering debris swept everything in its path - tree limbs, freight cars, houses and human bodies. The people downstream would pay for the pleasures of the rich. Club members apparently weren’t interested in maintaining the dam and actually lowered it so that carriages could cross the abutment. The rich and powerful of Pittsburgh built lavish “cottages” on the shores of the lake, some of which remain today, making it their private summer retreat for boating, fishing and picnicking. Park Ranger Doug Bosley explained that the lake was the site of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, an exclusive private association whose members included the likes of Andrew Carnegie and Andrew Mellon. A 92-year-old Heiser’s voice plays over speakers, while a model of him as a boy clinging to his barn roof hangs from the ceiling. The focal point is a display telling the story of Victor Heiser, a 16-year-old who survived the flood. A display case shows Victorian mourning garb. Photographs show piles of debris, a huge tree rammed through the front door of a house, freight cars tossed about. At the visitor center, I read about its causes: A mega storm in which about 10 inches of rain fell in the 24 hours leading up to the tragedy caused the long-neglected earthen dam holding back the lake waters to give way. I’ve always been fascinated by the Johnstown Flood, so I’d come to the memorial to learn more about it. Unger’s house is the original, but it’s not open to the public. Unger’s farm is now the site of the National Park Service’s Johnstown Flood National Memorial in South Fork, Pa., about 14 miles upriver from Johnstown. I could see the remainder of the dam: two earthen abutments with a telltale 270-foot gap between them. A railroad track ran along the valley floor. On a recent visit, I stood near Unger’s porch, looking out over a pastoral valley dotted with trees and the Little Conemaugh gently meandering through it.
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