| May 31,
1889 
Johnstown,
PA June 1889
Main Street, Looking west.
The New York Times
Photo Archine.
|
The
Johnstown Flood has become a symbol
of the havoc created by the elements
gone wild. For days after the
disaster, The New York Times ran
articles spotlighting the flood
itself and the predicament of those
who survived it: members of a
community whose understanding of
disease and contamination was still
rudimentary. The news industry's
reliance on the telegraph made
accurate reporting a challenge. Only
long after the crisis did all the
details become clear: On May 31,
1889, after days of rain, the South
Fork Dam collapsed and unleashed 20
million tons of water from its
reservoir. A wall of water, reaching
up to 70 feet high, swept 14 miles
down the Little Conemaugh River
Valley, carrying away steel mills,
houses, livestock and people. At 4:07
p.m., the floodwaters rushed into the
industrial city of Johnstown,
crushing houses and downtown
businesses in a whirlpool that lasted
10 minutes.
The water
flowed through the arches of the
Pennsylvania Railroad's stone bridge.
The bridge stopped tons of wooden
debris, which accumulated in a huge
pile that trapped dozens of
survivors.
With aid from
various sources, Johnstown rebuilt
itself, and celebrated the hundredth
anniversary of the flood and its
people's resilience in 1989.
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June
1, 1889 The New York Times
Hundreds of
Lives Lost: A Waterspout's Dreadful Work
in Pennsylvania
The City of
Johnstown Swept Completely Away
A lake on the neighboring hills bursts
its barriers and sweeps everything before
it - men, women and children swallowed up
by angry flood - awful scenes witnessed
by survivors
Pittsburg, May 31 -
An appalling catastrophe is reported from
Johnstown, Cambria County, the meagre
details of which indicate that that city
of 25,000 inhabitants has been
practically wiped out of existence and
that hundreds if not thousands of lives
have been lost.
A dam at the foot
of a mountain lake eight miles long and
three miles wide, about nine miles up the
valley of the South Fork of the Conemaugh
River, broke at 4 o'clock this afternoon,
just as it was struck by a waterspout,
and the whole tremendous volume of water
swept in a resistless avalanche down the
mountain side, making its own channel
until it reached the South Fork of the
Conemaugh, swelling it to the proportions
of Niagara's rapids.
The flood swept
onward to the Conemaugh like a tidal
wave, over twenty feet in height, to
Johnstown, six or eight miles below,
gathering force as it tore along through
the wider channel, and quickly swept
everything before it. Houses, factories
and bridges were overwhelmed in the
twinkling of an eye and with their human
occupants were carried in a vast chaos
down the raging torrent.
The water began
flowing over the dam or abutment at the
weakest part of the mountain lake at
about 1 o'clock, when Johnstown and
people down the valley were warned by
messengers to to look out for a flood as
the result of a waterspout. Three hours
later the whole end of the lake gave way,
sweeping everything before it, railroads,
bridges and telegraph lines included.
The scene of the
disaster is cut off entirely from all
manner of communication and has been
since 6 o'clock this evening, and
fragmentary details of the character and
extent of the calamity only have come to
hand from various places in the valley.
About 6 o'clock
Superintendent Robert Pitcairn of the
Pennsylvania Rialroad telegraphed from
Sang Hollow, at the gap in the Laurel
Ridge mountains west of Johnstown, that
he he had seen about two hundred persons
afloat on gondola cars, shanties,
&c., and that the disaster was
appalling.
One telegraph
operator says he counted sixty-three
bodies in twenty minutes floating past
his office.
Copyright
1889 The New York Times Company
June 3,
1889
Johnstown, Pennsylvania,
1889
Photo from the
Johnstown Tribune-Democrat
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The Desolated
Valley Victims to be
Counted by Thousands
The Survivors Homeless and Starving
Terrible Scenes Among the Ruins of
Johnstown - Robbers of the Dead
Lynched and Shot to Death - Magnitude
of the Disaster Not Overstated
Telegraphic
communication with Johnstown has been
re-established, and the work of
succor to the living and of burial of
the dead is going forward under
direction of organized volunteer
crops of physicians and ministers
from Pittsburg and every other city
in the reach of the stricken and
desolate valley.
The latest
information confirms the last
appalling estimates of the numbers of
the dead, but even this is
unreliable, for nothing had yet been
heard of the four towns up the valley
from Johnstown, that were first
involved in the disdaster, Mute
testimony as to their probable fate
has been found in the identification
of the bodies of several of their
former citizens that have been taken
from the ruins of their cities down
the river.
A temporary
martial government has been
established over the ruined city of
Johnstown, under the Adjutant General
of Pennsylvania, assisted by military
companies from Pittsburg and by
volunteer officers. Attempts at
disorder and violence by small gangs
of tramps have been vigorously
suppressed, and several marauders
have been lynched and shot to death,
for the people in the solemn
earnestness of their work of succor
and rescue have not the patience to
wait the tedious process of law.
The area of
disaster from the floods is extended
considerably over what was originally
reported, and a sense of apprehension
will prevail until the cities in the
valley of the Cumberland, the
Shenandoah, the Juniata, and the
upper Potomac, that have been cut off
from communication with the outside
world since last Thursday shall be
heard from again.
Organized and
systematic efforts to provide food
and shelter for the homeless
thousands that are now exposed to the
elements in the desolated region are
earnestly called for. Meetings for
the purpose of responding to the call
have been ordered in several of the
larger cities. That in this city will
be held at the Mayor's office this
afternoon.
With the
partial restoration of telegraphic
communication fuller particulars of
the great disaster have come to hand
and are given below.
The cause of
the calamity, it is admitted by the
President of the South Fork Fishing
Club, the proprietor of the
artificial Conemaugh Lake, was the
weakness of the dam alone. No
cloudburst or waterspout occurred to
compel it - the frailty of the dam
and the tremendous pressure of water
behind it was the only cause of the
catastrophe.
Copyright
1889 The New York Times
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June
7, 1889 The New York Times
Peril After
the Flood
From
Johnstown Down to the Ohio Valley
Contaminated Water and Death-Bearing
Odors
The Sanitary Authorities Hampered by
People's Neglect, a Lack of
Disinfectants, and Too Few Skilled
Assistants - Rapid Work in Removing the
Wreckage - Still Finding and Burying
Bodies
Johnstown, June 6 -
The certainty of the towns along the
Conemaugh and Allegheny Valleys being
subjected to ravages of an epidemic of
typhus, or at least typhoid, fever this
summer has been doubly assured by the
course pursued by the persons who are now
engaged in clearing the debris in the
river at Johnstown.
Over an area of
nearly three acres, in the end of the
city and directly north of Main-street,
are pitched quite fifty tents, occupied
by relief corps from several cities in
Southwestern Pennsylvania. Curious to
record, there are a number of women and
children in this camp, while the
temporary town is occupied by a floating
population of quite twenty thousand. The
flood deprived the entire district of any
system of drainage, even the cesspools
being destroyed. The river now flows over
several hundreds of putrefying bodies,
besides acting as a sewer for the entire
district. The Conemaugh is a tributary of
the Allegheny River, which in turn
supplies most of the water used in
Pittsburg and Allegheny. In all, the
number of persons the river supplies with
water is nearly four hundred thousand.
With this great
district in which to spread contagion and
pestilence, the State Board of Health is
peculiarly indifferent to the condition
of affairs in Johnstown. The district
which is being cleared is part of the
most thickly-populated of the town which
was overflowed. There has been no effort
made to dig below the surface of the city
as it was left by the deluge, and from
the fact that, in the immediate vicinity,
bodies have been found in the debris at
the rate of five an hour, the logical
inference is that in all likelihood there
are scores of bodies mixed with the heavy
timbers and other wreckage which were
driven down upon the town by the flood
and then covered with a thick layer of
mud from the river bottom. Thus at a
distance of not more than two feet below
the surface there are corpses which will
be a continual menace to the health of
any person who remains in the vicinity.
This plot already is nothing more than a
neglected Potter's Field.
Dr. Lee of the
State Board of Health, assisted by a
number of volunteers, is working hard to
smother any awakening of pestilence, but
he needs a corps of physicians who are
experienced in epidemics caused by
infection. Such men may be readily
obtained in the force of the Board of
Health of the various large cities of the
country, and should be secured by the
State authorities. Dr. Lee and his
associates made a house-to-house
inspection of the upper part of the city
to-day and a woeful state of affairs was
discovered. In many houses thirteen and
fourteen persons were found living in a
single room. In many houses it was
discovered that the windows were tightly
closed to keep out the stench of decaying
bodies and animals.
The Need of
Disinfectants
To add to the
difficulties and to increase of danger,
the supply of disinfectants is
inadequate. The supply on hand has been
exhausted, and Dr. Lee has telegraphed to
the Surgeon General of the United States
to send some at once. He received a reply
that all the disinfectants available,
three carloads, had been sent and were
now on the way. This will not be
one-tenth part of the quantity which will
be required. Dr. Lee said that there were
two carloads at Ebensburg from
Philadelphia, and that they would arrive
to-morrow.
Another requisite
for disinfection is tar. There are many
bonfires ablaze now, but their smoke has
no quality for good. The odor which would
arise from the burning tar would,
according to Dr. Lee, be of incalculable
value to the hill dwellers, as well as to
the temporary residents of the destroyed
city.
That the danger of
the poisoned water is fully appreciated
in Pittsburg is evidenced this morning by
the distribution of a warning by the
President of the local Board of Health,
instructing the citizens that henceforth
they should filter and boil water needed
for household purposes before it is used.
The circular thus distributed says the
necessity for these precautions is
imperative, for already the Allegheny
River water is unfit to drink. The result
is that water is not so popular in the
prohibition-leavened city of Pittsburg as
it has been.
Copyright
1889 The New York Times
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