The Johnstown Flood

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At the end of the last century, Johnstown,.Pennsylvania, was a booming coal-and-steel town filled with hard-working families striving for a piece of the nation's burgeoning industrial prosperity. In the mountains above Johnstown, an old earth dam had been hastily rebuilt to create a lake for an exclusive summer resort patronized by the tycoons of that same industrial prosperity: among them Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and Andrew Mellon. Despite repeated warnings of possible danger, nothing was done about the dam. Then came May 31, 1889, when the dam burst, sending a wall of water thundering down the mountain, smashing through Johnstown, and killing more than 2,000 townspeople. It was a tragedy that became a national scandal.

From research in the voluminous records, diaries, letters, interviews with numbers of survivors, and a rare, previously unknown transcript of a private investigation conducted by the Pennsylvania Railroad, David McCullough vividly re-creates the chain of events that led to the catastrophe, and then unfolds the incredible story of the flood itself and its aftermath.

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 19th-century America, of overweening confidence, energy, and 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.

What Customers Say About The Johnstown Flood:

The 777 unidentified bodies are buried together in a semi-circle of modest markers overlooked by a marble figure of a watchful angel. And both are simply wonderful reads.Among the crucial differences between them, of course, is that History lovers can actually visit Johnstown relatively easily and see for themselves the setting of the calamity and the efforts that have been made to memorialize it. Then go to a restaurant at the top of a hill overlooking the town and accessible by a funicular. Then there is a fine museum downtown which very innovatively displays the course and ferocity of the watery onslaught in pictures and interactive models.

I have just re-read `The Johnstown Flood,' and it brought to mind how similar in structure and narrative methodology it is to Walter Lord's classic account of the Titanic disaster, `A Night to Remember.' Both treat with relatively brief periods of time which are dissected hour by hour. My wife and I visited several years ago in early June and there remained at the site a beautiful standing flower arrangement with a ribbon saying, "You are not forgotten." Indeed, they are not. The location provides a perfect view up the valley and I guarantee will send chills down your spine as you picture the flood cascading down and destroying just about every living and standing thing in its path.Finally, travel to the Grandview Cemetery where most if not all of the victims are interred. Both recount the respective disasters by carefully setting the stage with principal actors and pivotal occurrences.

The highlight is a solid wall of the museum space covered with the kind of debris that would have accumulated at the bridge and elsewhere throughout the town, uniformly colored the inevitable, doleful brown of earth-and civilization itself-disrupted. And both are even similar in the number of lives lost in the events. First, the site of the erstwhile lake is readily accessible and the trip gives some sense of the changes in elevations between it and the town, although the long-gone body of water is difficult to visualize.

Well, you are in for a treat. David McCullough is simply one of the best story tellers of all time. You are in for an exciting adventure and enjoy. Great structure to the story and very complete. This story gets a hold of you and doesn't let you go. If you are like me, you've never even heard of this flood and you simply love reading McCullough.

Having lived through and witnessed the aftermath of Hurricane Camille in 1969 -- and its devastation from torrential rains and flooding in Nelson County, Virginia -- and living on the north fork of the Shenandoah River now myself -- I am drawn to these flood stories. David McCullough is the master of dramatic history story-telling, and this book is no exception. It depicts an interesting slice of Americana at the time of industrial growth and the power and influence of the railroads and the corporate barons. This one is clearly well researched and masterfully told, with a great balance of first-person drama, period history and culture, and a bit of detective work in making the case for culpability for the safety and soundness of the South Fork Dam that broke and caused the devastation. I have read -- and loved -- The Path Between the Seas (about the building of the Panama Canal), but I was unaware of this one until I happened on a grouping of his books recently. I've always had a morbid fascination for this kind of story, and certainly the Johnstown Flood was still evoking whispers of horror when I was a child in the 1950s -- still does, I guess.

McCullough does an excellent job educating the reader about the Flood, the events that led up to the flood and the aftermath, while also bringing the human aspect, the loss and pain that many people went through as a result of this disaster.

It can be disputed whether this could really be called a natural disaster as one chapter is aptly named "our misery is the work of man" , but having seen today the devestating effects that water can have when uncontrolled (Hurricanes, Tsunamis) makes you appreciate living on higher ground.A very good book - highly recommended to others. A little known event (at least to me) in a little known place (at least to me) that happened well over 100 years ago.who would have thought that it could be the basis for a very fascinating and riveting story.Being somewhat of a history buff, especially of 19th century United States, I was drawn to this book of course by it's famous author. The story reads very well, eyewitness accounts can only begin to describe the horrible event that took place at that time.