Reprinted in conjunction with the screening of The Johnstown Flood at SFSFF 2023
From 2 o’clock until 4 o’clock the water seemed to rise slowly; in fact, it was slightly falling, when at 10 minutes after 4, a great avalanche rushed upon us. I had been in my study, on the first floor, preparing for the Sabbath services, when, contrary to my own judgment of the necessity of the case, I was induced to go into my parlor to assist in taking up the carpet. In a moment after I heard a sound as of an approaching railroad train, when all at once the mighty torrent struck our residence. I cried “up-stairs! up-stairs!” and when I saw all my family and Mr. Lloyd and his sister—neighbors who were present at the time—safely in advance of me, I followed, with the family Bible in my hand, pushed upward by the incoming water. Mrs. Beale, with great presence of mind, had turned off the natural gas, and one of my daughters had seized the canary cage and carried it above stairs. The water was on the second story sooner than I was, and carried the hat-rack with such force as to strike me on the back, just as I reached the head of the stairs, up to my waist in water. In a moment the family had rushed to the attic, when a man was washed through a window beside me as if shot out of a catapult. I said in one breath, “Who are you? Where are you from?” He did not give his name (although I recognized him as one whom I had frequently seen near the woolen mill), but struggling for breath, he merely replied, “Woodvale.” He had been carried on a roof a mile and a quarter, and was dashed through the window into my second story as the roof on which he had been borne, with a great shock, struck the parsonage.
Soon we were altogether on the third floor, and for several minutes after, scores, aye, hundreds of houses and parts of houses, wrecked and ruined structures, were dashing, rocking, grinding, tipping and tumbling past our shattered, broken and twisted parsonage on the right of us, and on the left of us; for, superadded to the water already on our streets, from 16 to 40 feet more, dependent on the width of the valley, rushed down upon us, bearing on its bosom houses, barns, freight cars, city passenger cars, locomotives, tenders, iron bridges, the Gautier plant, trees, lumber, animals, and human beings, dead and alive, and all kinds of wreckage, pitching, tossing, banging and smashing to pieces in one indiscriminate mass. We were in the midst of an angry, raging sea.
I recognized J.Q.A. Benshoff, our leading bookseller; Mrs. John Fulton and daughter, Charles Barnes, Mrs. Young of Park Place, and scores of others as they were dashed past our residence. I saw two little children alone, and almost nude, clinging to the comb of one roof as it floated by, and three or four young ladies, on another roof, clinging to each other in agonized embrace amidst the swirl and swash of the sweeping waves. I observed that for several squares west and north and south of us nearly every house had been torn from its foundations, and we all were in momentary expectation of a similar disaster. But it now appeared that the waters flowed less rapidly and in a different direction, for the immense stone bridge on the Pennsylvania Railroad had become the breast of a turbulent sea, which submerged our fair city and hurled the waters back again.
The houses which first passed ours were now completely crushed together, with trucks of cars, tons of steel and piles of lumber at the railroad bridge; but those which came last were returned to near my locality by the back water. At this moment, seeing Captain A.N. Hart, his wife, sister and two children struggling among wreckage which had drifted near the parsonage, I descended into the water in the second story and succeeded in getting them into my house through a window. Now our company numbered 15 in the parsonage garret.
Some of the wreckage to the west of us began to move off, and our house, which is a large, new frame building, began to shake and rock and sag in the middle, Captain Hart and Mr. Lloyd insisted that we were in immediate peril, as in their judgment, the house was giving way. Finally, after an unsuccessful attempt to get upon our own roof, we gained egress from the highest window upon a floating roof below. This was, indeed, a hazardous alternative. Seizing a rope at hand, I let Captain Hart out first. He assured me that the roof was worthy; and then, in quick succession, all the occupants of the attic were passed out the window. Just as I was about to pass David and Wilson, our youngest boys, out of the window, they expressed the desire that their dog, which stood by, mutely pleading for its life, should be saved, and accordingly “Guess” was let down upon the roof.
We began a perilous journey to Alma Hall, the largest, strongest building in the city, walking and jumping from one moving house or roof, or box-car to another; and sometimes we were on opposite sides of roofs, and therefore out of sight of each other; then again, we were compelled to bridge over deep watery spaces with loose boards or planks. One of the young ladies, when walking on a piece of scantling, fell into the watery chasm, so that we could see nothing but her hair floating on the surface. She was rescued by being pulled upon some floating timbers. Just before dark we succeeded in reaching the Hall. We found that very many from different parts of the city had sought refuge there. A meeting of the men in the Hall was held on the second staircase and on motion, being requested, I offered a prayer. This was, indeed, a solemn and impressive occasion. In this service, Jews and Gentiles, Catholics and Protestants, Africans and Chinese united.
Excerpted from Reverend David J. Beale’s book-length account of the catastrophic failure of the South Fork dam on May 31, 1889, in Pennsylvania’s Conemaugh Valley. Their travails were only beginning. After having to find even higher ground, they spent ten days in the rough waiting for the water to recede. All told, 2,209 people died, including ninety-nine entire families. The dam was privately owned by a nearby sportsmen’s club, which counted as members Andrew Carnegie, Andrew Mellon, and Henry Clay Frick.