| Title | : | The Johnstown Flood |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0844662925 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780844662923 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 302 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1968 |
Graced by David McCullough's remarkable gift for writing richly textured, sympathetic social history, The Johnstown Flood is an absorbing, classic portrait of life in nineteenth-century America, of overweening confidence, of energy, and of tragedy. It also offers a powerful historical lesson for our century and all times: the danger of assuming that because people are in positions of responsibility they are necessarily behaving responsibly.
The Johnstown Flood Reviews
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"The Johnstown Flood (or Great Flood of 1889 as it became known locally) occurred on May 31, 1889. It was the result of the catastrophic failure of the South Fork Dam situated on the Little Conemaugh River 14 miles (23 km) upstream of the town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, USA, made worse by several days of extremely heavy rainfall. The dam's failure unleashed a torrent of 20 million tons of water (4.8 billion U.S. gallons; 18.2 million cubic meters; 18.2 billion litres) from the reservoir known as Lake Conemaugh. With a volumetric flow rate that temporarily equalled that of the Mississippi River,[2] the flood killed 2,209 people[3] and caused US$17 million of damage (the equivalent of about $425 million in 2012 dollars)." - Wikipedia.
Those are the facts and figures. In The Johnstown Flood, David McCullough gives you all as well as the heart and soul of this heinous catastrophe.
Behind the numbers and stats, and even the human tragedy, there is an evil lurking here. This horror probably wouldn't have happened if not for a "let them eat cake" attitude by an elite few who wanted to maintain their Summer-fun pleasure palaces on a dammed lake perched precariously above a small town in a narrow valley below.
The book on the whole reads like a newspaper feature article or Op-Ed piece that comes out a few weeks after a contentious event where more questions than answers arise after the dust settles. It posits hypotheticals, wondering aloud all the what-ifs the public has been asking.
These days your average joe would be hard pressed to give correct details on the Johnstown Flood. The event is fading into memory as time passes and other tragedies occur. McCullough, who excels at these history snippets (See, this and his
1776 for proof. I highly recommend both,) does an excellent job of recreating the scene, dredging up the past and hosing it off to look, smell, sound and feel as fresh and as horrid as the day it happened. -
*2209 - killed
*750 - unidentified dead
*99- families totally wiped out
*1600- homes destroyed
These are just a few of the horrific statistics resultant from the Johnstown Flood of May 31, 1889 which is one of the most devastating natural disasters in American history. My favorite historian, David McCullough, provides a complete description of the event, beginning with the biggest storm in the area's history on May 30 to the aftermath which took years of recovery.
Johnstown, Pennsylvania, a steel town, was located in a valley fourteen miles below an earthen dam erected by the South Fork Hunting and Fishing Club, a private retreat for the wealthy from nearby Pittsburgh. The club had dammed the area on the mountain to create a large lake for their recreational pleasure and repairs were done periodically as the dam was not structurally sound. The people of Johnstown were in constant fear that the dam would break and when the huge rain storm of May 30 struck the area, their fears became reality. A mountain of water approximately 45 feet high thundered down the valley and Johnstown was doomed.
There is so much in this book that it is impossible to give it justice in a review........the loss of families, unbelievable rescues, miraculous escapes, bravery, blame, and the aftermath of the flood. McCullough has done amazing research and, as with all his books, the descriptions will grip the reader. I highly recommend this amazing book.
Note: The GR page indicates that I have read this book twice, which I have not. -
What a magnificent story of impending doom, all that could be easily avoided were it not for human greed and lack of caring about the "working person" by 19th-century capitalists that built the dam and the mills as well as the managers than ran the town's industry as well as the town itself. An excellent museum of the flood is in Johnstown, too, with a chilling electronic diorama of the disaster as it unfolded. One of my best friends is now a sociologist teaching at UP-Johnstown, where his dissertation on the deindustrialization of the steel industry earned him an interview in the early days of academic positions starting to be hard to come by, and he cinched it! Many of his students are sympathetic to his most radical critique of society as their parents and grandparents had lost those steel mill jobs that were, as typical, replaced by "McJobs" - low income, few/no benefits or security, etc..
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First book by a fine historical author. It is a good recounting of the famous Johnstown, PA flood in 1889. Way to many names and details and recounting of the same thing over and over again. A good book but not an easy book to read due to a laborious style. I have a lot of his books and can only hope that he gets better at a narrative story style. He does lay out the problem with the dam in Johnstown, as well as those probably responsible for the dam failure -the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, whose members are a Who's Who of Gilded Age elites. And yet, the main culprit was the weather and the sheer amount of rain that came down, coupled with bad timber management, a poor rebuild of the damn, and South Fork's rather casual lack of concern with the problem that had been growing for years. Total devastation and I was living back home in PA when the 2nd Johnstown Flood occurred in 1977 and despite all the new engineering that went into making sure the 1889 flood would not happen again, Mother Nature and the topography of the land just cannot seem to stop flooding there. Informative book, but I wonder if in later years the author might have written a more easily readable book.
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Please read the GR book description. I will not repeat what is there. It is to the point and absolutely correct concerning the book's content, the author's manner of writing and what future generations should take note of. Look at the last sentence one more time:
“It (the flood) also offers a powerful historical lesson for our century and all times: the danger of assuming that because people are in positions of responsibility they are necessarily behaving responsibly.”
In my view this sentence could be improved upon. We, as citizens and thinking individuals, must not shirk out own responsibilities; it is up to each and every one of us to ensure that adequate precautions and sound decisions are made. If something goes wrong it is inexcusable to blame others with the excuse “it’s their job" or "they should have taken care of that"! It is our job to see that those in power perform their jobs correctly or have them removed! In addition, when humans take actions affecting forces of nature we must take careful forethought. This is stated in the book and needs to be emphasized.
The book is thorough, but easy to follow. It never becomes dry. Dates and figures are interestingly woven into the telling. McCullough gives the necessary background information so a reader can understand the events accurately, concluding with a balanced analysis of who was at fault. Those who suffered, those who died (the accepted death count is set at over 2209 individuals) are drawn in such a way that one empathizes. One is given enough personal details so one can do this. The danger is that when one reads about a calamity involving many people those who suffer become a mass with whom one cannot identify with. This does not happen here. One gets both the clear facts and one feels compassion.
I particularly liked that McCullough points out the inaccuracies of what has been told before. The calamity has become a legend and erroneous claims have been made.
I can very much recommend listening to the audiobook narrated by Edward Hermann. He simply reads the lines in a clear and factual manner with an excellent speed. No dramatization, which is fine by me. The facts and sequence of events are riveting in themselves. Hermann reads with a tone that shows his own interest. When one listens rather than reads one has no map, but such is easily accessible on internet. Here are two:
1.
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2.
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Another very good book by McCullough. I have no complaints. I thoroughly enjoy McCullough’s way of writing. He has a whole team of employees helping him with each book. This doesn’t bother me in the least. His name stands on the cover and he is responsible for the final result. I have given it four rather than five stars simply because I prefer biographies more than a book about an event.
John Adams 5 stars
Truman 5 stars
Mornings on Horseback 5 stars
The Wright Brothers 4 stars -
This book should be read by every American. Every human. I don't really say that often, but this book is incredibly important. McCullough is an absolute treasure. He tells this story with such detail and authenticity, and yet makes it compelling, harrowing even, and utterly human. He is objective and fair, and thorough without slipping into tedium. The parallels to the Katrina disaster are haunting, beyond just the natural disaster and flooding elements. The socio-economic disparities that marked the line between who died and who didn't, the regular warnings ignored by the populace because of their yearly repetition without any actual events, and the response of the nation of generosity and outrage. This book, written in 1968 about events in 1889, is proof that we are repeating the history we haven't learned.
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WOW - what a book. I really liked it though it was extremely difficult to read.
The Johnstown Flood (locally, the Great Flood of 1889) occurred on May 31, 1889, after the catastrophic failure of the South Fork Dam on the Little Conemaugh River 14 miles (23 km) upstream of the town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The dam broke after several days of extremely heavy rainfall, releasing 14.55 million cubic meters of water. With a volumetric flow rate that temporarily equaled the average flow rate of the Mississippi River, 2,209 people, according to one account, lost their lives, and the flood accounted for US$17 million of damage--about $463 million in 2017 dollars.
The American Red Cross, led by Clara Barton and with 50 volunteers, undertook a major disaster relief effort. Support for victims came from all over the United States and 18 foreign countries. After the flood, survivors suffered a series of legal defeats in their attempts to recover damages from the dam's owners. Public indignation at that failure prompted the development in American law changing a fault-based regime to strict liability.
On May 28, 1889, a low-pressure area formed over Nebraska and Kansas. By the time this weather pattern reached western Pennsylvania two days later, it had developed into what would be termed the heaviest rainfall event that had ever been recorded in that part of the United States. The U.S. Army Signal Corps estimated that 6 to 10 inches (150 to 250 mm) of rain fell in 24 hours over the region.[10] During the night, small creeks became roaring torrents, ripping out trees and debris. Telegraph lines were downed and rail lines were washed away. Before daybreak, the Conemaugh River that ran through Johnstown was about to overwhelm its banks.
On the morning of May 31, in a farmhouse on a hill just above the South Fork Dam, Elias Unger, president of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, awoke to the sight of Lake Conemaugh swollen after a night-long heavy rainfall. Unger ran outside in the still-pouring rain to assess the situation and saw that the water was nearly cresting the dam. He quickly assembled a group of men to save the face of the dam by trying to unclog the spillway; it was blocked by the broken fish trap and debris caused by the swollen waterline. Other men tried digging a ditch at the other end of the dam, on the western abutment which was lower than the dam crest. The idea was to let more water out of the lake to try to prevent overtopping of the crest, but without success. Most remained on top of the dam, some plowing earth to raise it, while others tried to pile mud and rock on the face to save the eroding wall.
John Parke, an engineer for the South Fork Club, briefly considered cutting through the dam's end, where the pressure would be less, but decided against it as that would have ensured failure of the dam. Twice, under orders from Unger, Parke rode on horseback to the nearby town of South Fork to the telegraph office to send warnings to Johnstown explaining the critical nature of the eroding dam. But the warnings were not passed to the authorities in town, as there had been many false alarms in the past of the South Fork Dam not holding against flooding. Unger, Parke, and the rest of the men continued working until exhausted to save the face of the dam; they abandoned their efforts at around 1:30 p.m., fearing that their efforts were futile and the dam was at risk of imminent collapse. Unger ordered all of his men to fall back to high ground on both sides of the dam where they could do nothing but wait. During the day in Johnstown, the situation worsened as water rose to as high as 10 feet (3.0 m) in the streets, trapping some people in their houses.
Between 2:50 and 2:55 p.m. the South Fork Dam breached.[13] A LiDAR analysis of the Conemaugh Lake basin reveals that it contained 14.55 million cubic meters (3.843 billion gallons) of water at the moment the dam collapsed. Modern dam-breach computer modeling reveals that it took approximately 65 minutes for most of the lake to empty after the dam began to fail. The first town to be hit by the flood was South Fork. The town was on high ground, and most of the people escaped by running up the nearby hills when they saw the dam spill over. Some 20 to 30 houses were destroyed or washed away, and four people were killed.
Continuing on its way downstream to Johnstown, 14 miles (23 km) west, the water picked up debris, such as trees, houses, and animals. At the Conemaugh Viaduct, a 78-foot (24 m) high railroad bridge, the flood was momentarily stemmed when this debris jammed against the stone bridge's arch. But within seven minutes, the viaduct collapsed, allowing the flood to resume its course. However, owing to the delay at the stone arch, the flood waters gained renewed hydraulic head, resulting in a stronger, more abrupt wave of water hitting places downstream than otherwise would have been expected. The small town of Mineral Point, one mile (1.6 km) below the Conemaugh Viaduct, was the first populated place to be hit with this renewed force. About 30 families lived on the village's single street. After the flood, there were no structures, no topsoil, no sub-soil – only the bedrock was left. The death toll here was approximately 16 people. In 2009, studies showed that the flood's flow rate through the narrow valley exceeded 420,000 cubic feet per second (12,000 m3/s), comparable to the flow rate of the Mississippi River at its delta, which varies between 250,000 and 710,000 cu ft/s (7,000 and 20,000 m3/s).
The village of East Conemaugh was next. One witness on high ground near the town described the water as almost obscured by debris, resembling "a huge hill rolling over and over".[14] From his idle locomotive in the town's railyard, the engineer John Hess heard and felt the rumbling of the approaching flood. Throwing his locomotive into reverse, Hess raced backward toward East Conemaugh, the whistle blowing constantly. His warning saved many people who reached high ground. When the flood hit, it picked up the locomotive and floated it aside; Hess himself survived, but at least 50 people died, including about 25 passengers stranded on trains in the town.
Before hitting the main part of Johnstown, the flood surge hit the Cambria Iron Works at the town of Woodvale, sweeping up railroad cars and barbed wire in its moil. Of Woodvale's 1,100 residents, 314 died in the flood. Boilers exploded when the flood hit the Gautier Wire Works, causing black smoke seen by the Johnstown residents. Miles of its barbed wire became entangled in the debris in the flood waters.
Some 57 minutes after the South Fork Dam collapsed, the flood hit Johnstown. The residents were caught by surprise as the wall of water and debris bore down, traveling at 40 miles per hour (64 km/h) and reaching a height of 60 feet (18 m) in places. Some people, realizing the danger, tried to escape by running towards high ground but most people were hit by the surging floodwater. Many people were crushed by pieces of debris, and others became caught in barbed wire from the wire factory upstream and/or drowned. Those who reached attics, or managed to stay afloat on pieces of floating debris, waited hours for help to arrive.
A contemporary rendition of the scene at the Stone Bridge (1890)
At Johnstown, the Stone Bridge, which was a substantial arched structure, carried the Pennsylvania Railroad across the Conemaugh River. The debris carried by the flood formed a temporary dam at the bridge, resulting in the flood surge rolling upstream along the Stoney Creek River. Eventually, gravity caused the surge to return to the dam, causing a second wave to hit the city, but from a different direction. Some people who had been washed downstream became trapped in an inferno as the debris piled up against the Stone Bridge caught fire; at least 80 people died there. The fire at the Stone Bridge burned for three days. After floodwaters receded, the pile of debris at the bridge was seen to cover 30 acres, and reached 70 feet (21 m) in height. It took workers three months to remove the mass of debris, the delay owing in part to the huge quantity of steel barbed wire from the ironworks. Dynamite was eventually used. Still standing and in use as a railroad bridge, the Stone Bridge is a landmark associated with survival and recovery from the flood. In 2008, it was restored in a project including new lighting as part of commemorative activities related to the flood.
The total death toll was calculated originally as 2,209 people, making the disaster the largest loss of civilian life in the United States at the time. This number of deaths was later surpassed by fatalities in the 1900 Galveston hurricane and the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. However, as pointed out by David McCullough in 1968 (pages 266 and 278), a man reported as presumed dead (not known to have been found) had survived. In 1900, Leroy Temple showed up in Johnstown to reveal he had not died but had extricated himself from the flood debris at the stone bridge below Johnstown and walked out of the valley. Until 1900, Temple had been living in Beverly, Massachusetts. Therefore, the official death toll should be at 2,208.
Ninety-nine entire families died in the flood, including 396 children. 124 women and 198 men were widowed, 98 children were orphaned. One third of the dead, 777 people, were never identified; their remains were buried in the "Plot of the Unknown" in Grandview Cemetery in Westmont.
It was the worst flood to hit the U.S. in the 19th century. Sixteen hundred homes were destroyed, $17 million in property damage levied (approx. $497 million in 2016), and 4 square miles (10 km2) of downtown Johnstown were completely destroyed. Clean-up operations continued for years. Although Cambria Iron and Steel's facilities were heavily damaged, they returned to full production within a year and a half.[1]
Working seven days and nights, workmen built a wooden trestle bridge to temporarily replace the huge stone railroad viaduct, which had been destroyed by the flood. The Pennsylvania Railroad restored service to Pittsburgh, 55 miles (89 km) away, by June 2. Food, clothing, medicine, and other provisions began arriving by rail. Morticians traveled by railroad. Johnstown's first call for help requested coffins and undertakers. The demolition expert "Dynamite Bill" Flinn and his 900-man crew cleared the wreckage at the Stone Bridge. They carted off debris, distributed food, and erected temporary housing. At its peak, the army of relief workers totaled about 7,000.
One of the first outsiders to arrive was Clara Barton, nurse, founder and president of the American Red Cross.[1] Barton arrived on June 5, 1889, to lead the group's first major disaster relief effort; she did not leave for more than 5 months. Donations for the relief effort came from all over the United States and overseas. $3,742,818.78 was collected for the Johnstown relief effort from within the U.S. and 18 foreign countries, including Russia, Turkey, France, Great Britain, Australia, and Germany.
Frank Shomo, the last known survivor of the 1889 flood, died March 20, 1997, at the age of 108.
My personal feeling is that McCullough is one of the very best historical literature writers ever. I went from a person that did terrible in my coursework of history to someone who likes it quite a lot.
There are quite a lot of places that one can do research for my review of this book.
A favorite book my family had when I was very young was called Heart Throbs, which was a compilation of poems, stories and quotes from many different people (like 500) then they were put into an issue every two years. My sister and I both remembered a story about Johnstown, called "One Mother in the Johnstown Flood." As I wipe the tears from my face from this book, they were one family of hundreds. Very moving.
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND! -
It's David McCullough non-fiction, which in my experience is written well, inclusive to elemental tangents, and also tries to have chronological and historical record in as accurate a measure as it is possible. Amid witness research and dating too. He gives chapter and verse for events and actions in a way that doesn't settle himself and his own interpretations, opinions as central or a larger sideshow. Or any more than a vague side leaning to practical causes and their effects. That's 5 star.
This particular tragedy in the way that it occurred was because the earthen dam was not built nor was it maintained to any safe engineering degree. And it was a sign of the times that the horrid outcomes were not held monetarily or in most other ways held accountable in aftermath.
It's hard for me, a flat lander, to understand the unconcern for living in a hole between mountains and river systems, to tell you the truth. That goes for some "pretty" places in Europe too.
Go high if you want to look at hills and water in combination. Or even for just water views alone.
It's a sad story- from all sides. And yet people build mansions and every mode of abode not 150 feet from oceans today in numerous hurricane alleys. Who lets them and allows it? $$$$ -
I picked up this, the first of McCullough's three "civil engineering" micro-histories, to scratch my itch of a notion that the flood was a seminal event in US history.
Turns out that notion was only half right. The Johnstown Flood was a seminal event. The cataract was terrible and awesome and one of a kind. But the story has mostly faded from history. Unlike other national disasters (eg, the attacks on Pearl Harbor and 9/11), this one didn't blossom into a nation-rallying justification for kicking ass. The deluge brought only suffering, death, and dislocation. (The people responsible never faced court damages or even apologized.) And as with the pain of a messy breakup, or a shot to the balls, we decided the best thing was to simply move on, put the event behind us, forget it ever happened. As we will now try to forget the inundation of New Orleans.
Long way of saying, thank you David McCullough, for interviewing the now-deceased survivors before they died, and reviewing the newspaper accounts, and packaging it into an entertaining and readable narrative for modern-day-armchair-disaster tourists like me. -
"If I were the biggest liar on earth, I could not tell you half."
Timely reading, this masterful and pleasing account of an unavoidable disaster that cost thousands of lives. In 1889, not now, people.
McCullough is such a joy to read, jargon-free, free of tiring analysis, he simply and sympathetically presents things as they are, rare for historical works these days. Having grown up in western Pennsylvania, his first book must have been close to his heart. Myself, I'd always heard about the Flood, my mother having grown up in Johnstown, but I never had a clear sense of just how fucking horrible it was! The sad part was, an entire town was destroyed and 2000+ people died in the flood (the descriptions here of the wall of water and debris as culled from eyewitnesses is worse than anything you'll read this week!) when the South Fork dam broke, but it didn't need to be. That's McCullough's main point in the end: if humans want to try and tame nature, go for it, but you better know what you're doing. Oh, and don't leave your fate in the hands of the wealthy either. The so-called "betters", which included, amazingly, Andrew Carnegie, who had a summer resort at the dam did almost nothing to make sure the dam, which had threatened to burst for decades, wouldn't burst.
McCullough neatly ties these heinous oversights and apathies to the trend at the time of a lashing back against the wealthy and American bastardy in general, the stirrings of labor unrest, and the then unimpeachable "rabble" making their voices heard. -
Published over 50 years ago, The Johnstown Flood was David McCullough’s first book, but it carries his storytelling charm and the detailed, exhaustive research that he has become known for and that has characterized all of his subsequent books.
On May 31, 1889, following days of unprecedented rainfall, the catastrophic failure of the South Fork Dam upstream of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, sent a wall of water thundering down the mountain, obliterating virtually everything in its path and enveloping the town. The flood took 2,209 lives and caused damages in excess of $17 million or about $534 million in 2022 money. McCullough methodically documents the events and circumstances occurring before, during and after the disaster, with details and human stories that are simply jaw-dropping at times.
The South Fork Dam was originally built to enhance the Western Division of the Main Line Canal, which was designed to provide a direct, nonstop link from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. Ironically, shortly after the dam was finished in 1852, the canal became obsolete when an all-rail route was completed. The dam sat unmaintained until it was purchased by a group of Pittsburgh’s wealthiest moguls to create a hunting and fishing resort. For years following the flood, people blamed the South Fork Hunting and Fishing Club for its negligence in rehabilitating the old dam and its cavalier attitude toward the people in the valley below. Still, the people of Johnstown themselves had grown numb to warnings about the dam over the years and most had become unbelieving and complacent.
The individual stories that McCullough relates during the flooding are compelling, with survival or death hinging on a single decision made such as grabbing onto a specific tree or choosing to remain on the third floor of a building. Following the flood, the whole panoply of human behaviors played out, everything from heroic rescues and humanitarian aid in staggering proportions to bogus news stories and charlatans attempting to capitalize on the tragedy. McCullough’s overarching theme as he painstakingly re-creates the tragedy in this very readable, nail-biting narrative is the lesson that there is danger in assuming “that because people are in positions of responsibility they are necessarily behaving responsibly.” -
Not every environmental catastrophe is the complete fault of nature. The greedy hand of mankind is usually involved as it was in the Great Johnstown Flood of 1889.
Most of the people in Johnstown never saw the water coming; they only heard it. And those who lived to tell about it would for years after try to describe the sound of the thing as it rushed on them.
The South Fork Dam in Pennsylvania was originally part of the cross-state canal system, which was so vital to commerce in the early 19th century. But once the railroads came along, the canals were no longer needed so the dam was sold to the railroad interests who in turn sold the dam to private interests. Sounds rather like today, doesn't it? These "private interests" were investors and speculators, mostly from the steel industry. They wanted a private reservoir for their vacations, where they could fish and boat without the intruding working class citizens bothering them. Since they didn't live near the area, they also didn't spend the money and the time to keep the dam in a safe condition. In the last days of May 1889, the largest rainfall event ever to hit the region caused the waters of the private lake to destroy the dam. Not to overflow it, but to simply "push it all out at once". That meant disaster for the little towns and communities down the hill.
The Town of Mineral Point was obliterated. Shaved off. Only bare rock was left. When the massive wave hit Johnstown, it was up to 75 feet high and was carrying houses, boulders, animals and everything else as it hit the first homes. The giant wave was so strong, it was actually rolling over itself, so that any living thing caught in the waters had no chance at all. In fact, when they eventually found some bodies, much later, they had been pounded deep down into the mud. Those were the lucky deaths. Others clung to debris or rolling homes, only to pile up against the town's bridge. There, despite the rain and water, fires broke out and survivors burnt to death.
Entire families, entire generations, were killed. Parents, grandparents, in-laws, children. And this was the age of large families, so six, seven, eight, nine children drowned or burnt to death. There were some survivors. A grandmother somehow survived, even though her scalp had been torn off from her forehead to the nape of her neck. A father and his son were swept downstream for four miles before they managed to leap to shore, only to later discover the mother and six other children had died. One man was swept from his home on to a spinning roof which carried him across the town where he was ejected headfirst...into his own office.
It was the worst death toll from a natural disaster in the United States until the Galveston Hurricane. Even after the waves died down, the rain continued to pour down upon survivors who had no shelter, no food, no fresh water, no dry clothes, and no medical supplies. In Pittsburgh, word came of the disaster and groups moved upstream to start the rescues. However, thousands ended up making the journey but did so without any sort of plan, which only created more of a burden for the few survivors.
You can imagine the outcome, regarding culpability. The bigwigs escaped with nary a hand slap. The Johnstown Flood did, however, lead to American law being changed from one of fault-based to one of strict liability. Little consolation to the thousands who died.
It is so easy to read a David McCullough book. He is a historian who writes for us, matter-of-factly without great histrionics or agendas. The reader already knows there is a disaster, no surprise, so the telling of it makes all the difference. After finishing the book, I realized that not much has changed. Today, one can make the correlation between an act of nature (Covid-19) and the lack of leadership worldwide resulting in hundreds of thousands of death. The bigshots don't care and they never will.
Book Season = Spring (always question authority) -
There is something about this book that completely captivated me. Perhaps it was my morbid curiosity, about the details of how the South Fork dam was improperly maintained, how it broke, and the ensuing rush of a wall of water down the valley. Although Johnstown was completely demolished, there were enough survivors to help recreate much of the chronology of events. There are plenty of stories from individuals about life and death decisions, sometimes successful rescues, and sometimes unsuccessful. The story is at times riveting, as people are trapped inside houses that are uprooted and swept to a position against a strong bridge. And then a fire broke out, threatening all the people trapped in the maelstrom.
The dam was earthen, meaning that it was primarily made of dirt. Originally it was well constructed, and could have survived if properly maintained. The dam was repaired at one point in time, but the work was not planned or overseen by any engineers at all. So, when torrential downpours raised the water level, it was an accident waiting to happen. The dam was owned by a sporting and fishing club, whose members were among the richest and most elite in the country (Andrew Mellon, Andrew Carnegie, and the like). It was very interesting how the media pinned much of the blame on these people. The media regarded the upper economic class to be irresponsible, and to have little regard for the well-being of the working class who populated Johnstown. But the truth is that everybody who had a connection to the dam assumed that somebody else, someone knowledgeable and responsible, had overseen the repairs. And, most of the townspeople thought that the chiefs of industry would have overseen the work on the dam. There were, of course, a few people who had inspected the dam and realized that it was dangerous. But these people were ignored.
David McCullough is a historian who has written a number of books; all the ones I have read so far are excellent. He not only recites the facts, but he also tells the stories of the people in a dramatic way, and he interprets the lessons that we can draw from the tragedy. The main lesson, as described by the author, is that we cannot always assume that people act responsibly.
I did not read this book. I listened to the audiobook. Edward Herrmann does a very good job as a narrator. -
Could be subtitled Everything You Wanted to Know About the Johnstown Flood but Were Afraid to Ask.
Audiotape read by actor Edward Herrmann.
Here are some of my takeaways:
1. David McCullough deserves all of the praise heaped upon him. He is truly a great nonfiction writer for our time.
2. One of the one-star reviews complained about the boring opening. I'm guessing that person never finished the book. Looking into the details of what happened beforehand is necessary to understand how it happened. Not everyone is cut out to read good nonfiction.
3. People become complacent. They have trouble caring about the future. They are more worried about the moment. Whoever says "Live in the moment" needs to remind people that the future does arrive eventually. I believe we are hardwired through evolution to worry about being attacked at this moment and avoid doing what we have to protect our future. Witness climate change or security.
4. Part of the reason why the dam broke is that no one believed it could really happen to them.
5. Security is important. I have been involved in poor security in Vietnam. I was poorly trained and totally ignorant of what I was doing. Training by knowledgeable people is important. I apply this to the dam itself.
6. Good government is critical. I am totally weary of the government haters, libertarians, conservatives, and so on who think we can live without a good government. Most of the improvements in life came as a result of good government.
7. Let's repair our bridges. What are we waiting for? Are Republicans more interested in tax cuts for the rich?
8. My image of a flood is lots and lots of rain. Pretty soon it's up to my neck, and I scream. Then I see my neighbor in a rowboat with his two cats, two dogs, two birdies, and two children. I swim over to him and he hits me with a paddle. I dog paddle for a few minutes and then drown. In other words, I imagine a Noah style flood. I call this a dam disaster. That's "dam" with no "N".
9. Some train conductors rescued their passengers by leading them out to safety. One conductor fled for his life. Leaders are responsible for those under them. As a teacher, I was always willing to protect my student if anything went wrong. Captains go down with their ships unless they can be the last ones out.
10. Perhaps the greatest blame for the flood rests with a "hunting and fishing" club for "gentlemen." That means rich people. They wanted the dam and cut down trees that allowed a greater runoff. There are consequences for environmental damage.
11. As I speak rising oceans are taking over the Florida everglades. What will it take for us to take steps to attack climate problems. -
The Johnstown Flood is an amazing read.
David McCullough has done a masterful job of giving both a history lesson with a compelling story. The flood is simple on its surface, but happened during complicated times of the Gilded Age period. This speaks of both the power of the elite, but also of the common man learning to live with impending disaster; becoming used it and ultimately ignoring it.
The Johnstown Flood does a remarkable job of explaining the paradox of the locals knowing the dam was not sound, yet the populace never really believing it would fail. This included the local elite also and they were men of power too.
David McCullough tells his narrative for the whole region by using a few local personal stories to illustrate the setting. Stories of who died or survived and how ridiculously lucky some of them truly were and how thin the line between luck and no luck could be. He talks of heroics of the day and the exhaustion that followed.
The Johnstown Flood is both
David McCullough's first book and a tour-de-force of a read. This is one of the great disaster stories told. -
The history of the flood was interesting to read. There's a lot of good information here and David McCullough must have spent a lot of time doing research. Everything in this book is meticulously researched.
Looking back, I think this is David McCullough's first book. It's very ambitious. This flood has been incredibly well researched. It couldn't have been easy to dig up some of these newspaper excerpts, the law documents, etc.
However, this book read dryly. It's names, lists, quotes (often repetitive). There are three sections: the building of the dam, the flood and the aftermath/rebuilding. In each of these sections, there are gems and points of true interest. These points make this book worth reading. But it's too long, too detailed with names, lists and quotes.
I've read a later book by David McCullough and it was wonderful. I suggest that this book could have been edited down, and that the inclusion of all the minutiae is because this is the author's first book and he was learning the ropes of writing.
Well told, interesting period of history. Just too wordy. -
Zzzzzz....Some background is necessary, but do we really need to know the entire history of the frigging dam? (including the names and physical descriptions of all the people who so much as *glanced* at tlhe damn dam) and the physical make up of its dirt? Maybe so. But I don't want to read it. ......zzzzzzz......
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A harrowing account of the infamous Johnstown Flood of 1889, when an earthen dam broke and wiped out a Pennsylvania town. 2209 people were killed, countless others injured and lives were devastated. Much blame is cast on a wealthy and exclusive resort club, The South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, which earlier had taken ownership of the dam (which had been built by the state) but didn’t maintain it properly.
The first couple of chapters give some background to the region and the people who lived there. A lot of information is presented about the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, the powerful men who ran it and how they acquired the dam. Although necessary, these chapters are a bit dry. Once the book gets into the start of the unprecedented storm that caused the disaster, the book becomes a compelling read. The details of what happened during the flood are horrific and difficult to read. There are a couple of maps in the front of the book which, although a bit crude, are very helpful. There are also photos which really show the devastation. (Of course there are more photos to be found on Google.)
As usual, David McCullough writes a powerful account of history. The book is a mere 268 pages, with a listing at the end of all the deceased and where they are buried. -
"It had been the 'horrible tempest,' with flood and fire 'come as a destruction from the Almighty.' It had been awful, but it had been God awful."
― David McCullough, The Johnstown Flood
I was wrapping a couple of my first edition, eBay book purchases with mylar and discovered my first edition 'The Johnstown Flood' had a bit of water damage to the spine. I took this as a positive portent (ex dīrīs diluvium?) it was time to read it. One couldn't find a better divination that it is time to read a book unless one stumbles upon a pressed butterfly in a Nabokov or dirty photo in a Henry Miller at the Library (which reminds me I need to start carrying butterflies and McGill postcards into public libraries regularly).
I'm not sure what if there is a specific word for the disaster history genre, but I've recently read
The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America, and now I've just finished a flood history, I've read about volcanoes (
Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded) and earthquakes (
A Crack in the Edge of the World), so now I just need plagues and pestilence histories and I'll be able to fill my disaster dance card (programme du décès?).
This is McCullough's first book, published in 1968. He was an early master of strong narrative histories. Having been trained at Yale in English and almost fumbled by grace, accident, talent or opportunity into historical writing. Once he started publishing, Mccullough has almost never been a disappointment to his publishers. He now reigns as one of the supreme masters of American popular biography, along with Walter Isaacson, Jon Meacham, Joseph Ellis and Doris Kearns Goodwin. These are the Costco historian set. They aren't always the 'best' or most rigorous historians, but there is a certain skill in being able to carry a story to the historically, unwashed masses. There are certainly better academic historians (Burlingame, etc), but McCullough's skill at telling a story and bringing his story-telling flair to the 1889 Johnstown Flood, makes the history of this very American disaster not just a moving story, but a very good social history. -
I think this book covered just about every known fact about the Johnstown flood. From the business innovations that built the town into a thriving metropolis, and the concerns that might have driven millionaires to vacation by a lake in the summer months to the exact change recovered from one corpse and the date of the last discovery of a corpse. Well, okay. It might have left out a few minor facts along the way, but I doubt that anything left out could materially add to the reader's understanding of the tragedy.
It starts out with an exhaustive history of the area and its settlement. Then follows a history of the dam is covered from its original purpose through its transition from a public utility to private property. Throughout those histories are sprinkled the business and personal histories of many different businessmen, engineers, politicians, farmers, and citizens. Finally, we get to the day of the tragedy. He chronicles that by drawing from numerous first-hand accounts as well as newspapers and official records. That is where it becomes intensely personal as we hear the accounts of survival and heroism. The aftermath is handled in much the same way. So it is filled with tidbits of human interest, such as the reunion of a father and daughter, the confusion, almost inability, of people to orient themselves in what were once familiar streets, and the strong purpose of the survivors to rebuild almost immediately.
I found it a very interesting read. Even the early parts had enough detail to give a complete picture yet moved quickly enough not to get bogged down.
Content warning.
Considering that it’s the story of 2,209 tragic deaths. It’s not really graphic. He manages to capture the horror of so many gruesome deaths by drowning, fire, and plague without being graphic just for shock value. It’s still hard to read, though, and may be too hard for some readers.
Early in the book, there is a brief discussion of the seamier side of town and the. -
At the confluence of Stonycreek and the Little Conemaugh rivers sits Johnstown, Pennsylvania. In the 1880s it was a thriving mining town, with over 30,000 residence.
The year 1889 was unnaturally rainy, not just in Pennsylvania but in much of the United States. On May 30th the dam above Johnstown broke, unleashing a force that would destroy the Conemaugh Valley and almost wipe out Johnstown. This was the worst natural disaster in American history up until that time, and it would be the first disaster the American Red Cross would take on.
In true McCullough fashion. He transports you to a place and time to feel, see, and live the experience. A brilliantly written book! -
A riveting telling of history. Once it gets going you can’t stop. You are there, reliving one of the greatest disasters of the 19th century. David McCullough expertly paints a picture of America entering the industrial age with its mix of ethnic backgrounds, emerging culture, farmers, shopkeepers, laborers and powerful elite. His vivid recounting of the flood and its impact is enthralling and heart-rending. Very highly recommended.
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Great book from a great author, did not like the format (too formal ) but the story is very well documented and very well told . If you are into early American history or into natural disasters then this might be the book for you .
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The super-rich show typical hubris, not allowing any payment for damages they caused.
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David McCullough is one of my favorite historians, and along with another dozen historians over the last forty years, they have literally corrected the "history" of the United States and the world and have made almost everything I learned back in school during the seventies and eighties absolute.
"The Johnstown Flood" is the first major book published by Mr. McCullough fifty years ago. It is the last of two books by this great author that I had not read... Mainly because the subject matter of which I knew very little about did not seem to interest me like his other books.
Naturally, my assumption was wrong and the subject of the great flood that literally destroyed the entire town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania and killed at least two thousand citizens very quickly became a subject of great interest to me. An old earth dam, miles above the town, that was hastily rebuilt to create a lake for fishing and sailing for an exclusive summer resort that catered to industrial tycoons like Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick.
Warnings about the safety of the dam had been circulating around the area and the nearby towns for years, but very little was done about it. They simply became rumors, until May 31, 1889, when torrential rains savaged the area and the dam broke and the destruction was a catastrophe, uplifting buildings and homes and hundred year old trees like paper machetes and smashing them to pieces... Along with the remains of thousands of people.
The tragedy made headlines throughout the country and there was an outpouring of help from people and organizations from all parts of the country and the world.
It was at the time of the industrial revolution in the United States, and as Mr. McCullough carefully details the dam, the clientele belonging to the resort, and the destruction of the natural barriers that would have prevented such a tragedy were all part of the revolution that would transform the United States and the world. It is a chilling reminder of the power of nature and man's disregard of such power and the deadly consequences of such neglect.
I highly recommend. -
On May 31, 1889, the city of Johnstown, Pennsylvania was all but obliterated by one of the most devastating floods in American history. There were over 2,000 fatalities. Just over one in every people who lived in the city or the surrounding area died. At the time, it was the worst natural disaster in American history, but the circumstances surrounding the disaster illuminate the particular nature of American class and culture.
I can't go any further without noting the particular situation I found myself in reading this book. I've been meaning to read this for years, and there I didn't have any conscious inclination to read this now due to the circumstances of where I live. Parts of Tuscaloosa, the town I've lived in for the past three years was completely devastated in late April. I don't have any cool stories about surviving the storms of '11, none of my friends were injured, my apartment was completely untouched. In fact, I was out of town at the time, so I wasn't prevented from watching the NBA playoffs. However, even two months after the fact, a couple of hundred yards from my house there are areas that are completely unrecognizable. I'm a Florida / Gulf Coast guy. Hurricanes are my storm of choice, I find them much more conducive to drinking. Tornadoes are a little to random for my liking. The fact that my neighborhood seemingly got by without a lost branch but within a mile there are blocks where not a house was still standing gives you a good understanding of the fragility and capriciousness of the man-made. Anyways, I'm not gonna go on and on, I just mention it because recent events added perhaps a particular resonance to this reading.
Anyways, the Johnstown Flood is, on a sociological level, a lot more interesting than most other 'natural' disasters. While the ultimate cause was a once in a century rain storm that had caused damage across the country on its path to the Atlantic the immediate cause was something more human. The flood was unleashed when a earthen dam holding back a man-made body of water broke. But this wasn't any particular dam. It was built to hold back a reservoir that would enable a nearby canal to operate in the dry months. Shortly after the dam's completion the canal, along with the need for the reservoir, was made obsolete by the rise of the Pennsylvania Railroad. The reservoir was neglected and the dam soon became somewhat decrepit.
Later, however, a group of Pittsburgh industrialists saw a hidden potential for the area, and purchased the dam and the surrounding property. They envisioned a mountain resort, away from the troubles of Pittsburgh. Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, Philander Knox, and Andrew Mellon were members of the South Fork Hunting and Fishing Club. When plans were made for the resort in the 1870s the original members realized that substantial repairs were required on the dam. This was done, but in an extremely negligent and reckless manner. The contractor put in charge had no engineering experience. The original emergency spillways at the base of the dam were not replaced. Adequate measures weren't taken in repairing the dam. Also, the center of the dam dipped slightly lower than the ends, which violates one of the basic rules of dam construction. Perhaps most infamously, several screens, which easily became clogged, were inserted in the spillway to prevent the club's imported fish from escaping down the dam.
David McCullough does an excellent job of relating the circumstances of the times and the results of the particular disaster. Before this I've only read his Truman and Adams biography, and I think his skills as a writer and a historian are much more well suited for a social history such as this. He does a great job weaving both individual stories and sociological background into the narrative. He can put on his historian hat and engagingly present historical background and then seamlessly alternate to his storyteller hat and cause the reader to be swept up in an individual survival tale. His ability as a writer, along with the unique circumstances of the event, elevates this from a standard disaster tale and makes it an informative and engaging snapshot of a particular period of American history. -
Excellent history of the flood of May 31, 1889. A dam supporting a lake for summer retreat for Pittsburgh’s finest (Frick, Phillips, Carnegie, Mellon) burst. The engineering is interesting. The dam was earthen, which is still very common. However, an earthen dam needs to be higher in the center (if a dam overflows, it should be at the edges), a spill way over rock (earth erodes under fast water), and a discharge system to maintain water level. In this case, the original Dam was properly built to support a trans-Pennsylvania canal in the early 1800s. However, that went into disrepair after the railroads started and the canal was abandoned. Then in the 1870s, Ruff sets up the South Fork fishing club and buys the property including dam from the Pennsylvania railroad and re-builds the dam sloppily. The Dam fails ten years later. The flood kills 2300 people (about 1 in 10 in the valley). The Dam broke at 3:10 and it took an hour to travel the 15 miles to Johnstown. Everyone in Johnstown had been saying the dam would break some spring and disregarded the few initial warnings. Johnstown was already flooded due to large spring rains, but up to 1-2 feet in the center of town. In the tight areas of the Valley, the wall of water was 70’ high. It would bounce off hillsides and come back to destroy small villages missed. There was a large railroad viaduct, then held for 10 minutes fill the valley behind it to the same level of water as what had been in the original lake prior to failing which strengthened the water as it collapsed all at once. The greatest calamity happened at a bridge in the lower part of town. The bridge held, but then had 45 acres of debris held up. This caught fire with hundreds of people still strapped. Many were rescued but many survived the flood only to be burned to death. While the members of the club were vilified in the press (not the individual members as the list was not know until a year later), none was held financial responsible or criminally negligent.
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Incredible historical detail. I listened to the audio book and had to really concentrate at times to not lose track of all the characters. David McCullough builds up to the flood so the reader has a thorough understanding of the economy, geography, transportation, and sociocultural make-up of Johnstown in 1889, before getting swept into the actual flood disaster. It made me think of our experiences with 1997 Red River flood and Hurricane Katrina.
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Such an incredibly horrific event that possibly could have been avoided. McCullough, does a great job in explaining events that preceded and followed this tragedy, while giving great eyewitness accounts of the flood. It was hard to read at times, as it was so horrifying. It was great to read how so many from our country, and even other country's, gave aid and comfort to the victims. So many incredible stories from within this late 19th century event. I highly recommend this.
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When I read a book like this, it's human nature to think what I'd do...and then I realize in a flood like this, it doesn't really matter. One out of nine Johnstown residents died when a earthen dam collasped in May 1889. Even if you were able to get on a rooftop, you might float to a stopping point where fire might break out or be smothered under debris after the crash.
I lived in the area and worked for the Ebensburg paper (the county seat of Johnstown, and had hoped to be in the 1850s). I don't think Johnstown ever recovered from the flood from the promising future it had in 1889 and there have been two other floods, the latest in 1977.
McCullough, of course, is an organized writer and goes through each step in this disaster so a reader doesn't really have any questions of "why" at the end. There's plenty of personal stories including one interviewed in the late 1960s.
This was the first emergency the American Red Cross participated.
All the family members escaped alive from the house below.
