A Dam Shame

Welcome to Red Herrings!

This week, Brittany unpacks one of America’s deadliest disasters, with floodwaters, failed warnings, and a community forever changed.

We’re diving into the Johnstown Flood, a catastrophe where nature, negligence, and human error collided in a tragic, unforgettable way.

Hosted by: Brittany Warren & Joccoaa Gray

Sound Engineer & Co-host: Christopher Brown

Edited by: Joccoaa Gray

If you would like to get in touch, please contact us at redherringspod@gmail.com.

Sources:

1. Cambria County Court of Common Pleas from 1889 to 1891
2. The New York Times
3. The Pittsburgh Gazette
4. The Johnstown Tribune
5. The Johnstown Flood by David McCullough
6. The National Park Service
7. Pennsylvania Highlands Community College - The Johnstown Flood of 1889
8. Philanthropy at Johnstown - the firsthand account by Clara Barton
9. heritagejohnstown.org
10. history.com
11. The Great Johnstown Flood by Lindsay Stayer
12. explorepahistory.com
13. The Book of the Unknown Dead by Dr. Beale
14. Pennsylvania Historical Commission
15. Historicpittsburgh.org
16. Pennsylvania Highlands Community College the Klahre Collection
17. Alleghany Portage Railroad

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:01

Welcome to Red Herrings. I'm Jakwa, Master's student in Law and Human Rights, host of True Crime Club Newcastle, and creator of True Crime Forum Newcastle.

SPEAKER_03 0:12

Hi, I'm Brittany. I have two degrees in history and 15 years experience in genealogy. We're the red herrings.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Well, well, well. What do we have here? Two red herrings and the catch of the day. Don't forget about me.

SPEAKER_03 0:26

Hi, Chris! We're the red herrings.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

And Chris.

SPEAKER_03 0:32

Right, so this is a very long one. Okay. I'm so happy about the call. Okay. It's a bit sad. It's a bit sadder than my usual stuff. Alright. But I have to preface by saying I had no idea until I actually deep dived.

SPEAKER_02 0:46

How sad it was. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 0:48

The South Fork Dam was an earth-filled structure.

SPEAKER_02 0:52

Approximately you're so many people gonna die. I did ask if any dogs were harmed as well, and I feel like you lied to me. No, genuinely.

SPEAKER_03 1:01

On my research, there's been no dogs. But okay. No animals. Except maybe fish.

SPEAKER_02 1:07

Oh okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:09

Okay, okay, okay. Sorry. No, it's okay. The South Fork Dam was an earth-filled structure, approximately 900 feet long and 60 feet high, located 14 miles upstream from Johnstown, Pennsylvania.

SPEAKER_02 1:23

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:24

In 1889, it held the waters of Lake Connema, which was used for private recreation by the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club. On May 31st of that year, the dam collapsed.

SPEAKER_02 1:41

Wow. Like I said, it's a good job here.

SPEAKER_03 1:46

Yeah. Johnstown was founded in 1800 by Swiss immigrants and prospered when the Pennsylvania Mainline Canal was built in 1836. The railroad and the Cambria Works brought more industry to the region, and by the late 1800s, Johnstown had a population of 30,000 people.

unknown 2:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

So what's that the size of?

SPEAKER_03 2:08

I have no idea. A city.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

Hope whistle.

SPEAKER_02 2:12

No. There's only like 10,000 people in Hexham. There's nothing. What? What? Because I didn't look this up that long ago. There's not that it's huge. Hexham's quite big, no?

SPEAKER_03 2:22

Oh no. Nah. Well, I'd say maybe for a country boy like you.

SPEAKER_00 2:27

Ridiculous.

SPEAKER_02 2:30

Yeah, it's 11,000 in hexam. Hexams.

SPEAKER_00 2:32

Wild. So three hexams.

SPEAKER_02 2:34

Three hexams.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

That's a lot of fam.

SPEAKER_02 2:39

I thought that was a tiny town. I think it is, I'm playing. Alright, it would be Gated. No, wait. Okay, never mind.

SPEAKER_00 2:46

Somewhere between Hexham and Gates.

SPEAKER_02 2:48

Okay. There's a lot to go on there. London. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 2:52

Okay. At the time of the disaster, Johnstown was one of the largest steel-producing cities in the United States. It sat at the convergence of the Little Connuma and the Stony Creek Rivers, very low-lying and densely built. Okay. It was extremely prone to flooding from melting snow to normal rainstorms. Slag from the steel mill iron. Slag. Sorry, we don't have that.

SPEAKER_00 3:20

You don't have slags in America? I beg to defend it.

SPEAKER_02 3:23

Go into that bathroom and look in the mirror.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

The waveform on that.

SPEAKER_04 3:34

I don't know another word for slag, so you're gonna have to deal with it. Slut. No, I mean the material. Is it like wet concrete or something?

SPEAKER_02 3:50

Sure.

SPEAKER_04 3:50

Okay. Wet concrete from the steel.

SPEAKER_03 3:53

No, it's like flag. It's just slag. Slag. Okay. Slag from the steel mill iron furnaces was dumped in the river to create more land for buildings. Oh. But unknowingly, this made the rivers narrower and more likely to flood. Unknowingly?

SPEAKER_00 4:11

Right. That's pretty good.

SPEAKER_04 4:12

I don't really know. Like when I wrote them, like they had to have known something, but like. Just typical men. Men.

SPEAKER_00 4:20

Well, you made the river narrow. We had no idea that would make the river narrower.

SPEAKER_03 4:26

The South Fork Dam was not originally built for recreational reasons. Constructed in the 1850s, it was part of the mainline system intended to regulate water flow for canal traffic.

SPEAKER_02 4:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 4:39

After the system declined, the dam was eventually bought by members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club in 1879. So basically, a dam was used for canal traffic. It went into disuse. It was bought by this club. There were other things in between, but I deemed it not important enough. Some of the most influential industrialists of the time, such as Andrew Carnegie, Andrew Mellon, and Henry Frick, were a part of this club, and many used it as their private land. They wanted to create a lake suitable for boating, fishing, and seasonal living, and so they adapted the dam to fit their needs.

SPEAKER_02 5:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 5:17

The dam's height was lowered so the road across the top could be widened. Dischar discharge pipes and drainage mechanisms were either removed or left to rot. Oh dear. These were originally added to control the water levels. By removing these, it meant the lake could no longer be lowered in advance of storms. Screens were installed across the spillway to prevent fish from escaping, but this reduced the spillway's effectiveness. I bet it did. It's worth mentioning that none of these alterations were approved by engineers. Maintenance was almost non existent, but when it was conducted, it was with local labor and materials instead of systematic reconstruction. Leaks were packed with earth and straw.

SPEAKER_00 6:05

Ooh, classic waterproofing techniques.

SPEAKER_03 6:08

Yeah. You can now see an image on your phones. Um, this is just the first one. Please don't go any further because there's a lot, a lot of images. So I'm gonna be really strict on like what you can look at. Be strict. The first image is what the lake and the dam looked like.

SPEAKER_00 6:24

Did you send it to me? Uh uh. Yes today.

SPEAKER_03 6:27

Yesterday. You get that on many emails, but I'm not top of your list.

SPEAKER_00 6:30

From all my slags.

SPEAKER_03 6:37

Trying not to see the other images. So that's what the lake and the dam looked like in the late 1880s. Okay, so it looks like Kilda Water.

SPEAKER_02 6:44

It looks like any other reservoir you've ever seen. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:47

We can't keep comparing this to places in Northumberland.

SPEAKER_02 6:51

Yes, you can.

SPEAKER_00 6:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 6:53

Do you not realize by now, Chris? I don't know where any any other places except for Northumberland. I have nothing else to draw from, no other references.

SPEAKER_00 7:01

I'm getting that. Oh right, okay. Right, okay. Got it? Yeah, lovely. Beautiful. Perfect. Talk and talk.

SPEAKER_03 7:05

Great. No.

SPEAKER_00 7:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 7:08

Bigger. So in late May 1889, a massive, low pressure storm rolled through the central U.S., making its way eastward. Upon reaching western Pennsylvania, it dropped record rainfall within a 24 hour period. Over 18 inches fell on the area. Streets began to flood, but it wasn't anything to cause alarm. This area had seen its fair share of flooding and overrun rivers.

SPEAKER_02 7:37

Yeah, but before they did all that shit to the dumb.

SPEAKER_03 7:41

By May 30th, small rivers and creeks were already beginning to overflow. Water spread into fields that had never before seen such flooding, and the rain continued without pause through the day and into the night. Before daybreak on May 31st, the Little Conduma and Stony Creek rivers were nearing their banks. Trees had been torn from the ground and carried downstream. In Johnstown and the surrounding communities, residents began moving furniture and belongings to upper floors, uncertain how high the water might rise, but aware that the situation was worsening by the hour. Oh my god, this is terrifying.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

Oh God.

unknown 8:25

Sorry.

SPEAKER_03 8:30

As the morning went on, the rain showed no sign of stopping. The land, already saturated, could absorb no more. Runoff poured into tributaries and rivers. Fourteen miles upstream, Lake Connuma was rising rapidly behind the South Fork Dam. In Adams Township, farmers reported that springs had transformed into roaring currents. Auto Run, usually little more than a trickle, stood four feet deep in places. Okay. So it's getting pretty bad deep. It's getting pretty bad. Compared to a trickle. Across the region, waterways that were ordinarily manageable had become unpredictable as the pressure on the dam continued to build.

unknown 9:15

Oh God.

SPEAKER_03 9:16

Elias Unger was a South Fork club president and lived in a farmhouse on a hill right above the dam.

SPEAKER_00 9:23

I bet he did live on a hill. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:31

I never put that together. Knowing what I know, it wouldn't be Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:38

Oh, interesting. We cracked the case.

SPEAKER_03 9:40

I don't know. Unger woke on the morning of the 31st to Lake Connuma overflowing, and he went outside in the still pouring rain to assess the situation. He assembled a group of men to help unclog the spillway that had become obstructed with a fish trap and debris. Some men began to dig a ditch at the other end of the dam to relieve the water. These efforts were unsuccessful. It's way too late. It's way too late. Should just run now. John Park was an engineer for the South Fork Club, and he considered cutting through the dam's end where the pressure wouldn't be as strong, so he could create another spillway. This was decided against as it would mean the immediate failure of the dam.

SPEAKER_00 10:31

Could we cut a hole in the dam?

SPEAKER_03 10:33

No.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

Could that stop it collapsing? Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 10:37

Under orders from Unger, Park rode on horseback to a telegraph office in nearby South Fork to send warnings to Johnstown. There's confusion on whether or not Park actually went, sent someone in his place, or didn't send anybody at all. But ultimately the warnings never made it to Johnstown.

SPEAKER_02 10:58

He he just He just didn't go. He knew it was too late. He just went and had himself a whiskey and let what happened let the inevitable inevitably Yeah Yes. I'm not okay.

SPEAKER_04 11:13

Let the inevitably You haven't even had alcohol. I know. Do you need another coffee?

SPEAKER_02 11:19

Yeah, probably. No, I'm okay.

SPEAKER_04 11:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 11:22

I just yeah, don't have words today.

SPEAKER_03 11:25

In the past, there had been false alarms of the dam breaking, and many people never thought anything would happen. Oh no. So this could be another reason as to why the message just wasn't passed to Johnstown. The men continued working until 1.30 in the afternoon when they realized their efforts had become futile, and Unger ordered the men to higher ground. A little after 3 p.m., the dam began to fail. Oh God, how's that look? What's that look like? Just wait.

SPEAKER_00 11:53

They took an hour and a half off and then the dam failed. What do you mean took an hour and a half?

SPEAKER_03 11:58

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. At 1 30, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:59

So what were they doing just watching the the the other?

SPEAKER_03 12:02

What else were you supposed to do, mate?

SPEAKER_00 12:04

I guess.

SPEAKER_03 12:05

Like Yeah. It's like a car crash, like you can't look away.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

I think you could get some way to evacuating a town in an hour and a half, no? Do you think I don't know?

SPEAKER_03 12:13

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, sure. I agree.

SPEAKER_02 12:16

I agree.

SPEAKER_03 12:16

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 12:17

Yeah. Um what does a dam starting to feel look like? Is it like, does it so glad you asked?

SPEAKER_03 12:23

Oh, we're getting into that.

SPEAKER_02 12:25

Sorry.

SPEAKER_03 12:25

Those standing near the crest would struggle to identify the exact moment it happened, since the dam did not collapse all at once, but the center section slowly began to sag. Oh. It had been weakened by years of alterations and neglect. The dam did not explode outwards, but instead fell inwards into the lake, releasing the water with unimaginable force. Oh my god, yeah. Oh yeah. More than 20 million tons rushed into the narrow valley below, the same amount of water that goes over Niagara Falls within 36 minutes.

SPEAKER_00 13:01

Wow. Niagara Falls is pretty big.

SPEAKER_03 13:04

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

But that's a lot of water.

SPEAKER_03 13:08

Yeah. Mm-hmm. The flood wave was estimated to be between 35 and 45 feet high, filling the valley instantly. And you now can look at it. The second photo, just the second one, is an artist's interpretation of the dam breaking.

SPEAKER_02 13:25

This is great podcast material to silence silence.

SPEAKER_00 13:30

They've put in the little stream that they dug to try and divert it.

SPEAKER_03 13:36

Witnesses described it as a moving cliff, solid, black, and completely packed with debris. The town of South Fork was struck first, the wave leaving nothing in its aftermath. Residents had no warning, only seeing the water seconds before it crashed into the town. People and houses were swept away with such force that survivors later said it felt as though the town had simply ceased to exist. Despite the destruction, only four people were killed at South Fork.

SPEAKER_00 14:06

What? Out of ten thousand?

SPEAKER_03 14:08

No, so Johnstown's 30,000. Right. I don't know how many people live at South Fork. It's probably just a very small town.

SPEAKER_00 14:16

Four people.

SPEAKER_03 14:17

Probably four people. Yeah. It's a hamlet.

SPEAKER_02 14:21

Bet uh lots of horses though. I bet more horses than people.

SPEAKER_03 14:25

Uh yeah. I actually everything I read and I read a lot, there was no mention of animals at all. Livestock, pets, and I think you'll probably see why. Like it's crazy. Trains at the Pennsylvania railroad yards were thrown off their tracks and twisted and mangled beyond recognition. One engine was carried a mile downstream before it finally came to a rest, embedded in mud. Yeah, I'm not surprised. A train engineer named John Hess heard the rumbling of the flood and felt it approaching. He began to reverse his train and headed east, blowing the train whistle and telling people to run.

SPEAKER_02 15:02

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 15:03

Eventually his car was overtaken by the water, but he survived along with the countless others he saved. The water was briefly held at the Connema Viaduct, a 78-foot-high railroad bridge, but within seven minutes, the entire bridge collapsed. You can see two images, two photos. The first one is the Connema Viaduct about 1886. And the second one, the Morse one, I don't have an exact year, but it's definitely prior to 1889.

SPEAKER_00 15:35

How do we know it's prior to 1889?

SPEAKER_03 15:37

I don't know. That's the one you found, so I really hope you had a source on that.

SPEAKER_00 15:41

I mean, I guess because it's still standing.

SPEAKER_03 15:43

Probably because it's still standing. But yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:46

That's interesting that held back the water, because obviously there's a big hole in the middle.

SPEAKER_03 15:50

I think because of all the debris.

SPEAKER_00 15:51

Ah, okay.

SPEAKER_03 15:52

All the debris. It held back the water for seven minutes and then the whole thing came down.

SPEAKER_01 15:58

Damn.

SPEAKER_03 15:59

At the town of Mineral Point, the wave split around the hills and rejoined itself, compressing into an even more violent force. The noise was described as something never heard before. Oh. A continuous, overwhelming roar filled with snapping timber and screaming metal.

SPEAKER_02 16:17

It'll have sounded like the world was ending.

SPEAKER_03 16:20

Funny you say that. One witness said it sounded as if the world itself was breaking apart.

SPEAKER_00 16:26

There you go.

SPEAKER_03 16:27

That's crazy. Approximately 16 people died in Mineral Point. That's it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:34

Thank God. No, in it isn't real. Um yay. Yay, God.

SPEAKER_03 16:44

The flood hit the Gautier? Gautier? Gautier? Gautier? The flood hit the Gautier wireworks, causing black smoke to be seen from Johnstown and dislodging the barbed wire surrounding the site. This was also swept downstream. Oh no. I just Telegraph operators attempted to send warnings down the line, but the wires were torn away almost immediately. Johnstown, just miles away, received no alert. But it was too late. The flood reached Johnstown 57 minutes after the dam collapsed.

SPEAKER_02 17:23

So that's two and a half hours after they downed tools.

SPEAKER_03 17:28

They could have saved them.

SPEAKER_02 17:29

They could have saved every chance.

SPEAKER_03 17:32

Yeah. And it makes you wonder like what efforts did they go to? None. That weren't recorded. What did they do that maybe we just don't know? I don't think they did. I don't think they did anything, but we we don't know.

SPEAKER_02 17:48

Yeah, Tom Schmidt.

SPEAKER_00 17:54

Yeah, using it for recreational purposes. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 18:02

The wave hit just after 4 p.m. with the accumulated force of everything it had destroyed upstream with an estimated speed of 40 miles an hour. Witnesses said the water suddenly appeared. Entire streets vanished, houses collided and snapped in half. Those who ran for high ground mostly didn't make it. People were trapped as buildings were lifted off their foundations and rolled around. It was said that houses passed by with the curtains still hanging in the windows. Others were caught in rocks and barbed wire.

SPEAKER_02 18:38

Ugh, the barbed wire. Sorry about that. Hate barbed wire. Whoever invented barbed wire, I hope again doesn't exist. I hope they're rotten in hell. It is the worst invention. I hate it. It's gross. It's kind of gross when you think about it. Yeah. It's just like it is literally.

SPEAKER_00 18:59

It's pretty useful.

SPEAKER_02 19:00

It's literally made to catch on you. Yeah. And animals. I don't like it. It's made to pierce and cause pain. Mm-hmm. I hate it. Some man invented it. Oh, it probably was a man. Probably was.

SPEAKER_00 19:21

Most useful inventions are.

SPEAKER_02 19:23

Yeah. Oh wow. Or they a woman said it and a man went. Oh, okay. I can make that. Um I'll take credit for that. There's exactly there's there's no way there weren't pets. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:38

No, I I'm sure there were. I'm sure there were.

SPEAKER_02 19:43

I am getting visuals of like the horsies.

SPEAKER_00 19:48

Well the horse's probably ran away, do you not think? I think I don't think there was any animal specialties.

SPEAKER_03 19:53

Is it like the things? Like, you know, pets can like sometimes like they know when things are gonna happen.

SPEAKER_02 19:59

Yeah, but if you're a horse in a stable, you can't get out of here. Can't really go anywhere, can you? And if it's like appearing, the water is going at 40 miles an hour.

SPEAKER_03 20:08

Yes, but the train driver heard it coming.

SPEAKER_02 20:11

Yeah, okay. So maybe horses did.

SPEAKER_03 20:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:13

And I mean I mean yeah. I'm even th I'm thinking about the deer, the rabbit. Oh, yeah, we have a lot of deer. Badges. You know, the birds might be fine. I think the birds are okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

But probably the ducks.

SPEAKER_02 20:28

No. No, it's ducks love that kind of thing. It's just riding the waves. Water.

SPEAKER_00 20:33

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:34

Yeah. Can I just can you give me the ducks? I need the ducks to be having a good time. No one else can. Oh, this is yeah. Cause yeah. Sorry, carrying around. No, no, no, no, no, it's okay.

SPEAKER_03 20:47

I like your input.

SPEAKER_00 20:49

Always so helpful.

SPEAKER_03 20:51

Some survivors clung to floating debris, such as roofs, and others were carried for miles or pinned underwater. Some climbed into their attics or hacked holes through the tops of their houses. Six-year-old Gertrude Quinn Slattery would later recall being carried through the torrent on what she described as a raft with a wet, muddy mattress and bedding. Swept along by the current, she drifted past a large roof crowded with people. She cried out for help, but no one could reach her. Aww. One man broke from the group, while others tried to restrain him, he crawled to the edge and plunged into the water. He reached Gertrude and the two clung to the mattress as they were carried downstream together.

SPEAKER_02 21:37

Fucking hell.

SPEAKER_03 21:38

They were swept toward a small white building at the edge of the flood where people were pulling survivors inside, but it was too far for her to reach alone. As she later wrote, So Maxwell McAron threw me across the water. Whoa. Some say 20 feet, others fifteen. I could never find out, so I leave it to your imagination. It was considered a great feat in the town, I know. Jeez. And I'm guessing this guy died. I don't know. I I haven't found anything about him. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 22:10

That's a long way to throw it.

SPEAKER_03 22:12

It's a long way.

SPEAKER_02 22:12

And I think I don't know. I can't I guess there was a whole dialogue. So a story is seven foot. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:21

Story?

SPEAKER_03 22:22

I thought it was like ten, like a building story.

SPEAKER_00 22:24

Oh, okay. It's like three feet and a meter, right?

SPEAKER_03 22:27

Yeah, three feet and a meter.

SPEAKER_00 22:28

Okay. So it's like six and a bit meters. That's a long way.

SPEAKER_02 22:32

I have no frame of reference.

SPEAKER_03 22:34

Six meters?

SPEAKER_00 22:35

That is not six meters.

SPEAKER_03 22:36

That's what I'm trying to tell you. You just said six meters.

SPEAKER_00 22:39

Three feet is six meters.

SPEAKER_02 22:40

Twenty feet.

SPEAKER_03 22:41

Oh I thought you said a story.

SPEAKER_02 22:43

I was like I thought we were still talking about stories.

SPEAKER_03 22:45

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. I see.

SPEAKER_00 22:47

Well, obviously I'm six foot, so what's that?

SPEAKER_03 22:49

What's the uh he lied to me?

SPEAKER_02 22:51

I think a story is eight foot. I think I misspoke.

SPEAKER_03 22:54

No, I think you're right. I think you're like that. I don't know. Oh, you think I'm right about eight.

SPEAKER_02 22:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 23:00

Let us know, readers. Let us know in the comments.

SPEAKER_03 23:02

There was more dialogue that I read that she wrote down that I couldn't quite like fit in, but essentially when her and this Maxwell Maxwell McAkron like came across the house, there was people, it was in the they were on the bank, and then also people were like hanging out of the windows saying like throw her, throw her, and he's like, Well, can you catch her? And they said, Yes, we'll try, and then he throws her, and she obviously survives because she writes this account, but I don't know whatever happened to him. At the Stone Bridge, the destruction came to a halt. Debris piled against the arches and formed a dam of its own. Behind it, the water was still rising and people were trapped amongst the wreckage. Due to this blockage, a second wave hit the city from a different direction. To this day, it's not known how the fire started at the Stone Bridge, but it soon spread.

SPEAKER_02 23:56

Oh my god. It gets worse.

SPEAKER_00 24:00

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 24:02

Yeah, I had no idea about any of this because I grew up just like, oh yeah, I heard of the Johnstown flood. I was like, oh, actually, I'll look into it. Like, I don't know much about it. And I was like, oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god, it's insane.

SPEAKER_02 24:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 24:17

Buckle up. Okay. I am buckled. The fire is thought to have potentially come from oil spilling from a railroad car. Oh shit. Survivor spoke of hearing screams from every direction, of seeing people forced to choose between burning and drowning.

SPEAKER_02 24:37

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 24:39

Some people jumped.

SPEAKER_02 24:42

So wait, can you set the picture the set the scene of this a little bit more for me? What how is this way? You'll have pictures in a minute.

SPEAKER_03 24:48

Okay. Not of the disaster.

SPEAKER_02 24:50

No.

SPEAKER_03 24:51

At least 80 people died at the Stone Bridge as the fire burned for three days. So now you have two photos. They're from approximately 1905. So like 16 years after the disaster. But that's what the Stone Bridge looked like. So you can see the arches. It was a railroad bridge, and water and debris just got dammed up at the bridge. And a fire started, and people were screaming, people were dying, either drowning, burning, forced to jump.

SPEAKER_02 25:22

On the bridge.

SPEAKER_03 25:23

No, well, maybe on the bridge, but also like up against it. So imagine like a wave of water with debris just getting stuck at this bridge. So where are the people on the debris, clinging to the debris? There was so also.

SPEAKER_00 25:37

Oh I see they're clinging to the debris and they eat. Because they can't get out because the water's going through the bridge. Yeah. So they have to choose whether to dive under the water or burn to death.

SPEAKER_03 25:50

I'll have yeah, and I'll have pictures of the debris like as we go on, and you'll see kind of the destruction.

SPEAKER_02 25:56

And this is a really large bridge, just for anybody imagining sort of a small bridge. It's a it's a very big railway bridge.

SPEAKER_00 26:04

It's like a viaduct, right?

SPEAKER_02 26:05

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 26:06

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 26:06

Or do you call it if it's over a bridge, do you call it an aqueduct, or is that something different?

SPEAKER_03 26:12

No, that moves the water.

SPEAKER_02 26:13

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_03 26:14

At least in Roman times.

SPEAKER_00 26:15

Viaducts move water. What do viaducts do?

SPEAKER_03 26:18

Talking about Rome. I I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 26:20

You're talking about Rome.

SPEAKER_03 26:21

Talking about Roman times. Please come back to us about that.

SPEAKER_02 26:26

No one cares.

SPEAKER_03 26:27

Yeah. I really don't. It's one of them. Well, it's an aqueduct because it's like it moves the water.

SPEAKER_00 26:34

So what's a viaduct? Oh, it's whey, isn't it? So it's like a bridge here.

SPEAKER_02 26:38

A viaduct was a bridge over land and an aqueduct was a bridge over water.

SPEAKER_00 26:42

Oh.

SPEAKER_02 26:43

Oh. That's imagine if I'm right.

SPEAKER_00 26:52

Jacoma suddenly cares now. She could be right. No one cares. Unless I'm right.

SPEAKER_04 26:58

Christopher, look it up, look it up. I am, I am. Jacoma, look it up, look it up.

SPEAKER_00 27:03

What is the difference between Now I have to know how it's spelled aqueduct, okay.

SPEAKER_02 27:09

Okay, so I am wrong, but I felt right. Okay. Aqueducts carry water.

SPEAKER_00 27:17

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_02 27:17

Often for supply or canals, while viaducts carry road or railway traffic. There you go. There we go.

SPEAKER_00 27:25

So when I said it's like a viaduct.

SPEAKER_02 27:27

He was beautiful. Nice. How does something carry water then? I don't understand. Um, through pipes.

SPEAKER_00 27:35

Or a bucket.

SPEAKER_03 27:36

Or a or or the water just goes.

SPEAKER_00 27:39

Yeah, he's just like a a water, like a waterway on a bridge.

SPEAKER_03 27:43

It's just a water.

SPEAKER_00 27:44

You get canals with with five.

SPEAKER_03 27:46

Yeah, look up an image of an aqueduct because I'm not very good at explaining it right now.

SPEAKER_00 27:50

I think we've derailed here.

SPEAKER_04 27:52

Derailed.

SPEAKER_02 27:54

Wait, so it's a bridge that moves water. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 27:58

So okay. Yeah. What is wrong with you? She's trying to learn.

SPEAKER_02 28:05

I just have never seen this. Oh my god, it's like a canal on a bridge with a yes. Sorry. That is crazy to me. Yeah. Yeah. It reminds me of like, I don't know, like a ride. You know where you like the log. Like a log ride. Yeah. Real life.

SPEAKER_00 28:30

So what happened here was it was like a log. Sorry. No, no, no. It's okay.

SPEAKER_03 28:35

So basically, all the water, all the debris got dammed up at the Stone Bridge. The bridge did not collapse. Um, but that's where the fire started, and a lot of people died, 80 people approximately. Um, it's not known for certain. And yeah, that's what happened at the Stone Bridge.

SPEAKER_02 28:51

Great. Great. It's just a terrible story, Brittany.

SPEAKER_03 28:55

Oh, it gets worse. By nighttime, the water began to recede. In the end, how many people died?

SPEAKER_00 29:04

Oh well, we've got four in the first town. Sixty in the next town. So at least a hundred.

SPEAKER_02 29:11

Well.

SPEAKER_00 29:12

And then probably a few more. Two hundred.

SPEAKER_02 29:14

All in all, five hundred and fifty-three.

SPEAKER_03 29:18

Okay. In the end, two thousand two hundred and eight people were declared dead.

SPEAKER_02 29:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 29:25

This included ninety-nine families and three hundred and ninety-six children.

SPEAKER_01 29:31

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 29:31

124 women and 198 men were left widowed. Over 750 victims have never been identified. How many? 750. I think it was like something like 777 or 76, it was something like that. Never been identified. Never been identified. Like how? How's that happened?

SPEAKER_00 29:52

Well, it just went as good records back then, right? Yeah. We didn't know who was missing and who just didn't.

SPEAKER_03 29:58

Not to get into too gruesome detail and I get into it later. Oh. A lot of it were just remains.

SPEAKER_00 30:03

Yeah. Pulp.

SPEAKER_03 30:05

Literally. It was disgusting what I read, and don't worry, I didn't put it in. At the time, this was the largest loss of civilian life in the United States, only later being surpassed by the 1900 Galveston hurricane and the September 11 attacks. Jeez. The dead would be found for months. One body was even found in 1911 in Cincinnati, about 260 miles away. I've provided you with a map. Excuse me? Yeah, so it floated down the rivers and then decomposed, and then they found the body. So you see Johnstown on the right and Cincinnati on the left, and there's 260 miles between them, and a body was found years later.

SPEAKER_00 30:47

So how do they know it was?

SPEAKER_03 30:48

I don't know, my dude. Don't ask me details, but that was in almost everything I read.

SPEAKER_00 30:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 30:55

Okay. I believe it. Thank you. I believe it too. Interestingly, the death toll was originally 2,209, but 11 years after the disaster, a man named Leroy Temple made his way back to Johnstown, where he had been presumed dead. After being overtaken by the waters, he picked himself out of the debris, walked out of the valley, and moved to Beverly, Massachusetts without telling anyone.

SPEAKER_00 31:22

Love it. He literally left I am done.

SPEAKER_02 31:26

In 1800 Snayhead Phillip. What? Oh, neither of you were at the Snahair Phillip meetup. Oh yes, I was. I wasn't. Were you? Sorry. But I didn't what? Snayhead what because Oh my god, you're right.

SPEAKER_03 31:40

Yeah. Sorry, that took me a minute.

SPEAKER_02 31:42

Did didn't it?

SPEAKER_03 31:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:44

It was your table that thought she did that as well.

SPEAKER_03 31:47

Yeah. Basically everyone, including me, we're just like, yeah, she's run off with a gay lover and is living her life on a farm. Maybe this guy did the same. Maybe this guy did the same.

SPEAKER_00 31:55

Basically what Britney did.

SPEAKER_03 31:57

Yeah. Yeah. Did he ever tell anyone why he did that? I don't know. I don't know anything else. Unfortunately, nothing amazing.

SPEAKER_00 32:04

Make his own decisions to go.

SPEAKER_03 32:06

We don't need to don't own explanation to act. Right.

SPEAKER_00 32:09

Especially not someone a hundred years later questioning his every motive.

SPEAKER_03 32:14

As if though. Yeah. Alright, I'm done. We've had one too many floods. I'm out of here moving like wreckage.

SPEAKER_00 32:22

Fuck this.

SPEAKER_03 32:23

Mm-hmm. Five states away. Oh my god. Interesting. Insane. Survivors desperately searched for their loved ones among makeshift morgues. Notices were posted describing what the missing looked like. No. It was reported that a baby survived in a house as it floated 75 miles away from Johnstown. I don't know if I believe that one, but I'd like to believe that.

SPEAKER_02 32:49

No, I can believe it. I mean, if you think about um like Newcastle's only Newcastle is 36 miles from my house.

SPEAKER_00 32:57

It's about 50 miles from here.

SPEAKER_02 32:58

Okay, so like imagine a dam like that broke in Newcastle. It would so reach here.

SPEAKER_00 33:06

Yeah. Yeah. Well, the source of the South Tyne is just like about 20 miles up the road. Mm-hmm. So it's like if you stuck a a twig in there, it'd eventually get to Newcastle.

SPEAKER_03 33:16

Yeah, true.

SPEAKER_00 33:17

So a a house is just a really big twig.

SPEAKER_03 33:21

Oh yeah. There are hundreds of testimonies online from telephone operators, brakemen, firemen, train drivers, residents, etc. You should go and read these. They're all on the National Park Service website. I tried to read as much as I could in the time that I was doing this. It's insane. Like there's hundreds of testimonies. Crazy, like word for word about what these people said.

SPEAKER_02 33:46

What kind of things did they say?

SPEAKER_03 33:48

The main gist was that, like I said earlier, it just came out of nowhere. People weren't expecting it. They said, you know, and these were people not just from Johnstown, the surrounding towns, South Fork, Mineral Point, Woodvale was one. I don't mention Woodvale in here, I don't think. But just saying, oh, I've lived here for my whole life, I've lived here for 60 years, I've never seen anything like this. It came out of nowhere. People I know are dead. It's it's it's insane. Yeah. So I would, it's on the National Park Service website. I think there must be a tab or something about the Johnstown National Memorial. I I'll link it and we can put it in the show notes or something. But it's crazy how much is out there.

SPEAKER_02 34:30

Can you imagine if just like one day a Kilda broke?

SPEAKER_00 34:34

Right. It's on that level, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 34:36

Yes. And you just hear this huge roar. Wave coming towards you. And then this huge wave coming like and then it kills 2,000 people in the valley. Yeah. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_03 34:49

Like. And the thing is, like, I keep thinking back doing all this research. I like I said, I'd heard of this growing up. Right. And I think it's solely because I'm from Pennsylvania. I just heard, oh yeah, the Johnstown flood. The Johnstown flood. I did not know the level to which this like I had no idea about the details. Like, what do you mean? It was the largest loss of life, only surpassed by the 1900 Galveston hurricane, which I know more about than the Johnstown flood and the September 11 attacks. And I didn't learn about this in school. I've never known the details. I've only just known the name, and I think it's just I'm not from the area of Johnstown. It's like a couple hours away from me, but I've I know the name.

SPEAKER_02 35:30

I know of it. It could we will get to the story, but it could be whose pockets were those owners in.

SPEAKER_03 35:37

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:38

Sorry to interrupt. The hurricane, obviously, that wouldn't have been caused by humans at all. That's just horrible. So this was the biggest man-made disaster until 9-11.

SPEAKER_03 35:49

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 35:50

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 35:51

Johnstown was unrecognizable. Streets were buried beneath feet of mud, and over sixteen hundred homes and two hundred and eighty businesses were destroyed with seventeen million dollars in property damage, which is approximately sixteen hundred million dollars today. I did not convert that for you guys, sorry. But it's a lot of money. Yeah, man. Where these structures once stood, there was only the wreckage of twisted iron, splintered wood, and dead bodies.

SPEAKER_02 36:20

Uh it might like don't imagine, please, but like that because not fair enough. Like after a tornado or something, like fair enough you've got like all that cleanup, but the bodies on top. Mm-hmm. Like just all over the place.

SPEAKER_00 36:37

Pretty grim.

SPEAKER_02 36:38

Yeah, I can't even imagine. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 36:41

So your next three photos are diagrams because when I was researching this, I was struggling to imagine where the dam was in comparison to the towns. The first one is my own that I made on Google Maps. I highlighted the memorial for the dam. And then my little line, my arrows, is like it basically followed the river. It hit South Fork, it hit East Condoma, and then other towns, and then Johnstown. And then the second two photos are from the National Park Service website. So they give you kind of different aerial views of the flood and the towns and the landscape. Did it change the landscape at all? I'm sure it did. Yeah, I'm sure. It must have.

SPEAKER_00 37:22

I think it's really interesting that bridge, it looks like in Johnstown, it's still there and there's still a train station there. Despite all the devastation, they still built the railroad back exactly where it was.

SPEAKER_03 37:33

You mean on the first photo?

SPEAKER_00 37:35

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:36

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 37:37

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 37:38

Okay. So the next handful of photos, you can look at them, but you must stop at the photo of the house with the tree sticking out.

SPEAKER_02 37:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 37:48

There's a lot you can go through. So essentially these are just images of debris fields. Oh. The first three photos are debris fields.

SPEAKER_02 37:56

So it's funny actually because it is it is just debris. Like imagine like how you would imagine a very large landfill to look. So there's no scale. But when you get to the second image, you can see the people. And you get an understanding. Yeah, they're so tiny.

SPEAKER_03 38:13

I didn't even know there were people in that one.

SPEAKER_02 38:16

So this is like imagine like the biggest landfill you've ever seen that goes on for like miles and miles and miles, and these little people in the middle.

SPEAKER_01 38:24

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 38:25

It looks like a load of wooden planks, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:28

Just splintered and 'cause I guess every everything was made out of wood, right? All the houses. Mostly.

SPEAKER_01 38:34

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 38:35

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_03 38:36

In that area at least.

SPEAKER_00 38:37

And imagine all that's getting washed along with this flood. So this is obviously after it's receded a bit.

SPEAKER_03 38:42

So you can see in the third photo, you can see the stone bridge. So that's how much debris was just packed against it, and that's what caused the dam.

SPEAKER_02 38:51

This has actually made me feel a little bit better because initially I was imagining just the water and thinking about how the horses, thinking about how when the water gets to them and sweeps them, I was imagining like, would you drown, or like would you just get hit by stuff? But actually, when you see this debris like this, you're you're gone the second that hits you, right? Like you are just like you're done. Evaporated almost.

SPEAKER_03 39:18

Like Yeah, it's insane.

SPEAKER_02 39:20

Like you wouldn't eat try for the listeners, try not to even imagine water anymore. Like it is wood w like a wave of wood and debris. That's all it is.

SPEAKER_03 39:30

There's no water.

SPEAKER_02 39:32

Yeah, like yeah, that's what it would feel and look like, right?

SPEAKER_03 39:35

Yeah, exactly. The fourth photo is kind of a clear image of the stone bridge and the debris, so well the fourth, fifth, sixth are on the stone bridge.

SPEAKER_00 39:45

I love the one of the um the the group of men standing in their best outfits looking at the camera.

SPEAKER_02 39:51

Yeah. How do you even start to clear that?

SPEAKER_00 39:54

Right?

SPEAKER_02 39:55

I d I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 39:56

With no like diggers.

SPEAKER_03 39:58

Yeah. You know? You just have to s just you just have to start somewhere. Start pulling things out. The image of something exploding. Yeah. Um, officials use dynamite to clear away some of the debris on June 29th, 1889. So we're now about a month after the flood. And then the images of the factory in the building, that's the Cambria Ironworks and the Cambria Clubhouse. And then you have the last two photos, which do have blurbs underneath. Feel free to read them. The first one says many people who survived the flood waters were killed in the fire that broke out in debris trapped at the Stone Bridge. The Schultz house is one of the most famous images of the flood. Incredibly, all six people in the house survived.

SPEAKER_02 40:43

So you've just got a house on its side with the root end of a tree that is almost as long as the house, just sticking out of it.

SPEAKER_00 40:56

That's a huge tree as well. It is. Can you Google the Schultz house and see that?

SPEAKER_02 41:01

I'm sure.

SPEAKER_00 41:02

Listeners, Google Schultz House.

SPEAKER_02 41:04

Schultz House, Johnstown.

SPEAKER_00 41:06

Because that's incredible.

SPEAKER_02 41:08

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 41:08

Just the amount of power that must have been behind that water to firstly pick up a house, but secondly, shove a tree through it.

SPEAKER_02 41:14

Oh, like that's incredible. I can't even imagine that force, can you really?

SPEAKER_03 41:19

Instantly, help came from multiple US states and 18 foreign countries, including Russia, France, Germany, Great Britain, Australia, and the Ottoman Empire.

SPEAKER_02 41:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 41:30

With a staggering total of$3.7 million being raised for Johnstown and the surrounding areas.

SPEAKER_00 41:38

That's really interesting because I kind of think of foreign aid as like a new thing. But in 1889 they were still like Yeah, interesting.

SPEAKER_03 41:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:46

That's really cool.

SPEAKER_03 41:47

The following day, a relief train from Pittsburgh arrived with provisions, including an entire boxcar filled with coffins. I do have to say I didn't include it, but that was one thing that Johnstown asked for because people were saying, What do you need? What can we do? And they said we need coffins.

SPEAKER_02 42:04

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 42:06

Inmates of the Western Penitentiary provided over a thousand loaves of bread. Cincinnati sent 20,000 pounds of ham. Wait.

SPEAKER_02 42:14

Inmates at the penitentiary provided so they made them in the kitchens. I see. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:20

I was like, so are they just stealing the bread? No, no, no, no. So they made and provided over a thousand loaves of bread.

SPEAKER_02 42:26

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 42:27

Cincinnati sent 20,000 pounds of ham. Detroit sent 25 dozen. I knew that would make you laugh. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 42:36

Oh my god, there's been a flood. Quick, get them some ham.

SPEAKER_04 42:40

It's probably what you it's probably just what they had on hand. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 42:44

They had 200 pounds of ham on hand. 20,000 pounds of ham.

SPEAKER_04 42:51

Maybe they just sent the pigs.

SPEAKER_00 42:55

Quick, get them to Johnstown.

SPEAKER_02 42:58

Ham sandwiches are a great comfort food though. I get it. I get it. I get it.

SPEAKER_00 43:02

Soaking up water, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 43:04

Yeah. Okay, sorry. Love a ham sandwich. I'm hungry, sorry.

SPEAKER_03 43:11

Detroit sent 25 dozen chairs. With the houses they don't have.

SPEAKER_00 43:22

Were they trying to be as as unhelpful as possible? Oh my god, now what are we gonna do with all these fucking chairs? Put them with a half.

SPEAKER_02 43:37

Oh man. What were they for then? Silly Yes. Sorry, how silly of me.

SPEAKER_03 43:46

Oh my gosh. The people of Savannah sent groceries, fish, cigars, disinfect now the cigars I get.

SPEAKER_02 43:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:54

I mean okay, let me should go again.

SPEAKER_02 43:59

Groceries.

SPEAKER_03 44:00

Fish, cigars, disinfectants, whiskey, amongst other items. Financial contributions came in from Pittsburgh businessmen, New York policemen, a Baptist church in Georgia, baseball players in Missouri, the Sultan of Turkey, and more. Queen Victoria sent her condolences to President Benjamin Harrison. I don't see her sending 25 dozen chairs. No. What's condolences gonna do, Victoria?

SPEAKER_00 44:27

Can't sit on condolences. Nothing.

SPEAKER_03 44:28

Okay. I read that. I was like, alright. Yeah. Banned. Clara Barton arrived with the American Red Cross, establishing relief camps and coordinating care for the injured and homeless. This was the first major peacetime disaster relief effort for the Red Cross. She wrote a diary entry about her time in Johnstown, describing the survivors as bewildered wrecks of human beings.

SPEAKER_02 44:57

Oh god. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:58

And that it became a literal survival of the fittest. Oh, did it?

unknown 45:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:04

Oh no. We don't know much more about that, but it just, I mean, the the effects of it all.

SPEAKER_02 45:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:10

Oh, just people going like feral. I'm sure. I I yeah. I don't have more details. How interesting, yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's a real test of the human condition, right?

SPEAKER_03 45:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:23

She described the few houses left being mainly upside down were not inhabitable. Like, obviously. Yeah. Every time I read that, I'm like, yeah, I know they're not inhabitable, but I need to include this. Be reasonable.

SPEAKER_02 45:35

Um, how many people were displaced then? Probably tens of thousands. Where do you put those people? Because everywhere you would put them is is also wrecked. So yes. How I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 45:48

Or maybe that's why that that is why that guy just moved to a different state. Oh yeah, he was like, alright, I see the wreckage. Nothing for me here.

SPEAKER_03 45:56

Goodbye, Pennsylvania. Hello, Massachusetts.

SPEAKER_00 45:59

Right? If you see your house in wreckage and that's all you own, you might as well just move on. Start over. Mm-hmm. That's all you can do, really, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 46:06

She said there was no money since all the banks had flooded and safes were sitting at the bottom of rivers.

unknown 46:13

Jeez.

SPEAKER_03 46:14

Families wrote in from around the country asking to help the orphan children, whether through adopting them or taking care of them while in transit to their new homes.

SPEAKER_02 46:23

That is predators looking for vulnerable children. Absolutely not.

SPEAKER_03 46:26

I don't know about in the eight well, I don't know about in the 1800s.

SPEAKER_00 46:30

Bad people didn't exist in the 1800s.

SPEAKER_03 46:32

No, I'm just saying I didn't see it that way. I think I'm just too joking. Do you think they were genuinely maybe trying to help?

SPEAKER_02 46:39

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_03 46:40

But you never know, there could have been some of those thrown in.

SPEAKER_02 46:42

Yeah, I think I'm just damaged. It's okay.

SPEAKER_03 46:45

Didn't mean for it to sound like no, no, no, no. There were a thousand workmen from Pittsburgh, police officers and doctors who arrived to help with relief and recovery. There was a demolition expert named Dynamite Bill Flynn. Love him.

SPEAKER_02 47:01

Love him, love him, love him.

SPEAKER_03 47:02

With his 900-man crew who cleared all the wreckage at the Stone Bridge. Hey, I'm Dynamite Bill Flynn.

SPEAKER_00 47:11

I mean, that's a case of nominative determinism. Do you think his parents named him that?

SPEAKER_03 47:16

Well, I looked further into this because I was like, I need to know more about Dynamite Bill. And I didn't include it because it literally just became too much. Like, there's so much out there about him, and like it's just not worth me putting in. His brother, I think, was like a mayor or a governor or something high up in Johnstown or wherever, and then brought him in. Um, and he did not have this nickname before the Stone Bridge incident. So he was the one that, like, in the photo of like dynamite exploding, that was him.

SPEAKER_00 47:46

What a guy.

SPEAKER_03 47:47

What a guy. What a guy.

SPEAKER_00 47:49

Let us know if you want the full episode on Dynamite Bell.

SPEAKER_03 47:53

For seven days, men worked day and night to build a trestle bridge to replace the Condama Viaduct, and that's your next photo. So just the next one, the sepia colored one. So that is the view from the trestle bridge overlooking the little Connama River.

SPEAKER_00 48:08

Got it.

SPEAKER_03 48:09

Got it. The dead were lined in makeshift morgues throughout the city, one of these places being the Presbyterian Church on Main Street. A journalist described the scene. The first floor has been washed out completely, and the second, while submerged, was badly damaged but not ruined. The walls, floors, and pews were drenched, and the mud has collected on the mattings and carpets an inch deep. Walking is attended with much difficulty, and the undertakers and attendants, with arms bared, slide about the slippery surface at a tremendous rate. The chancel is filled with coffins, strips of muslin, boards, and all undertaking accessories. Lying across the top of the pews are a dozen pine boxes, each containing a victim of the flood. Printed cards are tacked to each. Upon them, the sex and full description of the enclosed body is written with the name of the known. The next image you see is a telegraph that still exists. It says, Will you kindly see if Mr. and Mrs. J. M. Rosensteel or Ray Halstead of Woodvale are among the dead or living and advise. I did not write down who it was from. I believe the man's name, first name was William, could be wrong, but his surname was also Halstead. So I'm assuming he's inquiring after relatives. Interesting. And sad.

SPEAKER_00 49:37

I love the handwriting. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 49:39

Oh yeah. It says W, I don't know where I got William, because it just says W something, Halstead. J or L or I. Dr. Beale was named co-chairman of a committee in charge of recovering the dead. He created a handwritten master record of the victims compiled from the records of different morgues to assist those looking for loved ones. You can find this online. It's approximately 200 pages. The things he wrote were absolutely insane. I skipped around, I read different entries. He wrote about those he knew. He wrote about partial remains of bodies. I'm not uh I mean, it was it was really gross. It was like, you know, trunk of a male found, bottom half of leg missing, and that's it. Um he tried to identify any week anyone he could. There were like instances when he was originally writing it saying, you know, this is thought to be Mrs. So and so, and then later it's crossed out and it says, This was identified as not this person, or this was identified as so-and-so. It's crazy. He received national praise for his work and he was actually offered a book deal to write about the disaster. I know nothing more about him. I don't know if he ever took that book deal. Oh, we should have.

SPEAKER_00 50:59

He's probably out of copyright by now.

unknown 51:01

Hmm?

SPEAKER_00 51:02

It's probably out of copyright by now. We could do a dramatic reading, audiobook.

unknown 51:05

Probably.

SPEAKER_03 51:07

No, thank you. I don't need to read about the trunks of human beings. I already read about it mentally, and I went, all right, that's enough. Because I thought, okay, I'll include some of these entries, but some of them, it was like young boy, five to seven years old, dark hair, wearing this. That was it. Uh, never identified. Crazy. Newspapers and journalists were reporting on the situation, with the same questions lingering in everyone's minds. How did this happen? Why were there no warnings? And who was to blame? Let's get into it. Many people began to blame the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club. It was known that the men were making alterations to the dam. They'd even been warned it could collapse, but made no move to fix anything. An investigation was immediately launched, and four prominent engineers from the American Society of Civil Engineers, the ASCE, were sent to assess the damage. This committee was led by James B. Francis, who was renowned for his work related to canals, flood control, turbine design, dam construction, and hydraulic calculations. So this man seemingly knows what he's talking about. The committee not only looked at the damage, but the original design of the dam and all modifications that were made. They reviewed the repairs, interviewed witnesses, and commissioned a topographic survey of the remains. It took until January of 1890, almost a year later, for the ASCE to complete their investigation, but the report was sealed and not shared with any other members or the public. Okay, yeah. Yeah. Uh-huh. That following June, at the ASCE's annual convention, one of the committee members was asked why the report had been sealed. His response was, we hardly publish our investigation report this sess this session unless pressed to do so, as we do not want to become involved in any litigation. The report was not made public until two years after the disaster, where it concluded the dam would have failed even without the alterations made. This claim is now challenged, and in a 2016 report, it was found that the modifications made by the club severely reduced the dam's ability to withstand major storms. John Fulton, an engineer, resurfaced his report from 1880. It says, I hold in my possession today my own report made years ago in which I told these people that their dam was dangerous. I told them that the dam would break some time and cause just such a disaster as this. A Harrisburg news journalist wrote, 50,000 lives in Pennsylvania were jeopardized for eight years so that a club of rich pleasure seekers might fish and sail and revel in luxurious ease during the heated term. Before the disaster, another engineer was sent to check on the dam and came back reporting a small break that hadn't been properly repaired. This report was sent to the owners of the South Fork Club, who later responded, You and your people are in no danger from our enterprise. It was clear to many that the blame lay with the members of the club. Yeah. There was even a poem written by Isaac G. Reed reflecting this feeling. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 54:37

You gonna read it to us? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 54:39

Many thousand human lives, butchered husbands, slaughtered wives, mangled daughters, bleeding sons, hosts of martyred little ones, worse than Herod's awful crime, sent to heaven before their time. Lovers burnt and sweethearts drowned, darlings lost but never found. All the horrors that hell could wish, such was the price that was paid for fish. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:06

Yeah, that's that's sorry, damning. Oh, so now you don't have to quite damn joke.

SPEAKER_01 55:13

It's been done before, you know.

SPEAKER_02 55:16

Wow. I mean, yeah. That's exactly what will happen what's happening. And they they didn't care about nobody's lives they were putting in danger. No.

SPEAKER_00 55:25

But they got held to account for it, right?

SPEAKER_03 55:28

Now we get into the law part of it. Now we get into the law part. Please don't ask me law questions. I don't know the answers. I only know what I've researched and what I've written. So if if you have questions, um look them up. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 55:40

Keep them to yourself.

SPEAKER_03 55:41

Yeah. No, you can ask them in maybe our uh listeners, not viewers. Yeah, right in guys.

SPEAKER_02 55:47

You know more than us, literally.

SPEAKER_03 55:49

Yeah. This is not my area of expertise, but I tried. At the time, American law required plaintiffs to prove negligence. It was not enough to show that damage had occurred. Claimants had to demonstrate that the club failed to exercise reasonable care and that this failure directly caused the collapse of the dam.

SPEAKER_02 56:10

Makes sense so far?

SPEAKER_03 56:12

Good. The club was defended in court by the law firm Knox and Reed, both of the firm's partners, Philander Knox and James Hay Reed.

SPEAKER_00 56:22

Philander Knox.

SPEAKER_03 56:25

Philander.

SPEAKER_00 56:26

Fuck off.

SPEAKER_03 56:26

That was his name. Do you want me to spell it for you?

SPEAKER_00 56:29

I'd rather you didn't.

SPEAKER_03 56:31

P-H-I-L-A-N-D-E-R.

SPEAKER_00 56:34

Yeah, that's what I thought it was.

SPEAKER_03 56:35

Philander Knox.

SPEAKER_00 56:36

His parents looked at him and thought, you look like a Philander.

unknown 56:40

Yup.

SPEAKER_00 56:42

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 56:43

So both of them, unsurprisingly, were members of the Southboard Fishing and Hunting Club.

SPEAKER_02 56:51

Is this a civil case? This is not a criminal case. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 56:56

Were they suing them for damages or were they trying to put them in prison?

SPEAKER_03 56:59

I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 57:00

Oh my god. You just dumbed down my closet.

SPEAKER_01 57:05

Well I'm just going to do it.

SPEAKER_04 57:10

I don't know. I don't know, my dude. Okay. Basically, people were like doing you.

SPEAKER_00 57:23

I'm used to dumbing things down for Brittany. She is American.

SPEAKER_04 57:27

I mean that. I get it.

SPEAKER_03 57:30

They were brought to court because people are like, okay, the alterations you made caused the collapse of the dam and you killed all these people. Does that answer your question?

SPEAKER_02 57:40

I mean, no, but it's fine. We don't know. It's okay. We're not sure if they want money from them. Um doing. Oh, yeah, they want money from them. Right. Right. And no, but it in that yeah, so and that's purely, you're okay. That's purely why they're in court right now is because, yeah, so this is a civil case. Okay. No, you're fine.

SPEAKER_03 58:00

No, that makes sense. Thank you. Please explain what I'm talking about.

unknown 58:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 58:05

The defense argued that the rainfall preceding the disaster was unprecedented and unforeseeable. They called the dam's failure an act of God, saying that the volume of water entering Lake Conduma would have overwhelmed any structure, regardless of its condition. In the immediate aftermath of the flood, more than a dozen civil lawsuits were filed by survivors and families of victims. These suits alleged wrongful death, property loss, and negligence in the maintenance and alteration of the dam. Plaintiffs pointed to documented changes made by the club and argued that these modifications weakened the structure and limited its ability to manage heavy rainfall. Defense attorneys countered, stating that the storm exceeded any previously recorded rainfall in the region.

SPEAKER_02 59:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 59:01

According to their argument, the extraordinary volume of water alone caused the failure.

SPEAKER_02 59:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 59:10

Even if alterations had been made, plaintiffs could not conclusively prove that those changes were the direct cause of the collapse under such extreme conditions. The courts ultimately accepted the defense's reasoning. No member of the club was ever found liable. The civil lawsuits were dismissed. The outcome caused widespread criticism. Newspapers and legal commentators questioned whether existing liability laws were adequate to address the risks created by large-scale, privately controlled infrastructure.

SPEAKER_02 59:45

I mean, they obviously weren't. But the problem is if there isn't already laws setting a standard, then yeah, then you can you can get away with it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:56

And honestly, maybe they had a point if this was a once in a hundred years rainstorm. How can you how can you predict that?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:03

Predict that.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:03

And do we know that Well, you know, they wanted to fish, you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:07

They bought the dam.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:11

It's a pleasure like, as they called it. Take from that what you will. Public frustration centered not only on the verdicts, but on the broader legal framework that made recovery so difficult. Comparisons were frequently drawn to developments in the United Kingdom, particularly the rule established in Ryland's wristfletcher. In that case, British courts articulated a doctrine of strict strict liability. It said a person who, for their own purposes, brings onto their land and keeps anything likely to cause harm, if it escapes, must keep it at their peril.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:53

Liability did not depend on proof of negligence. It required only proof that the dangerous substance escaped and caused damage.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:02

Wow. Mm-hmm. Under Yeah, I love that.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:05

Yeah. It's crazy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:08

If you've got something dangerous, you're responsible for it. Every uh yeah, no matter what. No matter what. Even if it wasn't your negligence to let it out.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:14

Yeah, you're responsible for it.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:16

Because you didn't need to keep all that water hanging around, did you? Exactly. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:20

Huh. Under this reasoning, water accumulated behind a dam could qualify as such a hazardous condition. Yep. Legal scholars noted that Lake Connuma, a large artificial accumulation of water held above a populate populated valley for private recreation, fit within this framework.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:38

I would agree. I think a lot of people may not, though. Oh, I'd agree. I think you could argue that because it's water, you know, it's not like technically a dangerous substance.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:52

No, but like making alterations and letting it overflow.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:58

But yeah, I would agree with the Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:00

Although American courts did not immediately adopt the British rule, the Johnstown flood became a frequently cited example in legal education and debates over liability reform. Over time, U.S. jurisdictions began to recognize forms of strict liability for what came to be termed abnormally dangerous activities. These included dam and reservoir operation, blasting and explosives, and certain hazardous industrial processes. This shift was gradual and varied across states. By the early 20th century, many courts had adopted principles resembling those in Rylands versus Fletcher.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:39

Ah. Uh-huh. So they, yeah. They eventually they took that seriously, that that UK stuff.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:45

Okay, interesting. In addition to influencing legal theory, the flood contributed to reforms in dam safety regulation, engineering standards, and emergency planning across the country. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania did not take any actions after the Johnstown flood to provide state inspections of privately owned dams. It wasn't until 1913, after another deadly flood that killed dozens of people, that the first state dam inspection law was passed.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:14

Wow, it took two. It took two.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:19

Well, the first one was just an accident.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:22

It was an act of God. We couldn't stop that one. The South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club quietly disbanded in the years after the flood. It's worth noting that some members of the club contributed to the recovery of Johnstown and Andrew Carney. Andrew Carnegie built the new library that still stands today. Like whatever. The South Fork Dam was never rebuilt, and the remains still sit above the valley. You can see two photos of it. I actually found it very difficult to get photos of this, but the first one is a train going through where the dam would have sat, and then the second is just another angle.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:02

Oh, that's interesting though.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:04

It was so difficult. I think it's just weird angles. I mean, I spent like a whopping 15 minutes on Google images trying to find pictures and the remains of this dam. And it's not in my head, I thought, oh, there's still concrete, there's still pieces of the dam, but it's just kind of the earth that's left. Yeah, it's the two mounds at either side where the dam was, it there's nothing there.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:27

Well, it's a train track now.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:29

Yeah, it's a train track now.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:30

So that suggests if they built a train track there, they probably got rid of all the rubble and stuff when they were digging the foundations for it, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:04:36

The victims of Johnstown never received compensation through the courts. David McCullough, an historian, said not a nickel was ever collected through damage suits from the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club or from any of its members. Within six months of the disaster, Johnstown was once again a bustling city. But it would take five years in total to fully rebuild.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:59

Wow, that just considering the images that we've seen, I'm right.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:04

It seems like it'd take longer than that without sort of, you know, diggers to dig up the debris. I mean, if there was that level of devastation now, you'd think it would take at least five years to sort of get everything back to being a bit of a Cambria iron and steel facilities returned to production within 18 months.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:22

There were subsequent floods in 1894, 1907, 1924, 1936, and 1977. After the 1936 flood, the United States Army Corps of Engineers dredged the Condama River within the city and built concrete river walls, creating a channel about 20 feet deep. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:44

So that got rid of all the slags.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:00

And 78 people died. Oh my god. There is an eternal flame in Point Park, Johnstown, at the confluence of the Stony Creek and Little Connuma Rivers that burns in memory of the flood victims. The Johnstown flood remains one of the deadliest disasters in American history and the worst flood to ever strike Pennsylvania. An event that tested the limits of 19th century engineering and revealed the shortcomings of the US legal system.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:28

Wow. I would be interested to know if another very similar dam has had more rain than that and has not broken.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:37

Yeah. That's a good question.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:39

Because I bet they have. I don't know, because I think that was down to negligence.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:44

A hundred percent.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:45

It was solely their fault. Just could not prove it. Uh-uh. Uh-uh.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:49

That's what it comes down to, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 1:06:51

Yeah. Yep. It's the law at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:53

The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a damn is a good guy with a damn.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:59

Is that a saying?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:00

Oh yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:01

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:02

Anyway, my sources are the Cambria County Court of Common Pleas from 1889 to 1891. The New York Times, the Pittsburgh Gazette, The Johnstown Tribune, The Johnstown Flood by David McCullough, The National Park Service, specifically regarding the Johnstown Flood National Memorial, Pennsylvania Highlands Community College, The Johnstown Flood of 1889, Philanthropy at Johnstown, The First Hand Account by Clara Barton, HeritageJonstown.org, History.com, The Great Johnstown Flood by Lindsay Stayer, ExplorePA History.com. Sorry, we're still going. There's a lot. The Book of the Unknown Dead by Dr. Beale. Pennsylvania Historical Commission.org. Pennsylvania Highlands Community College, The Clare Collection, and The Allegheny Portrait Railroad.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:54

Amazing. Love that. That was really good.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:56

Thank you. Really interesting story, Brittany. Thank you. I'm glad.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:00

So at what point did you realize this was a lot deeper than you'd um day one?

SPEAKER_03 1:08:03

Oh no, oh shit. I'm in it now. I'm committed. And I I want to know more about it. I think really when I started reading all the firsthand accounts, when I'm not I'm not kidding you, there's hundreds out there. And this huge book of like the the Book of the Dead is insane.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:22

What a shame. A damn shame. What a damn shame.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:26

That was your episode title.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:27

Yes. Tune it in next week for a real good tale.