McCullough, David G. The Johnstown Flood. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1968.
I have no idea what possessed me to read about two large scale disasters in the same month. The tragedy of September 11, 2001 cost the United States over 3,000 lives and was entirely a man-made nightmare, The tragedy of May 31, 1889 cost the town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania over 2,000 lives and was a combination of man and nature coming together to create a different kind of nightmare. I instantly thought of Hurricane Katrina descending on the levies of New Orleans.
In the case of the Johnstown Flood, it was the man-made dam that held back the waters of Lake Conemaugh. As long as the dam held, the bustling valley town of Johnstown below was safe. While the dam was surrounded in controversy – those who thought it was perfectly safe versus those who thought it needed a makeover – no one could have predicted the amount of water the heavy rainstorms of May 31st, 1889 would bring. By midday the dam was in serious trouble. Despite frantic efforts to bolster its walls, by late afternoon it was too late and the dam gave way. It was impossible stop the deluge of millions of tons of water rushing down the mountainside. In a matter of hours an entire town was demolished. McCullough does an amazing job tying personal stories with the facts of the events. His recreation of the chain of events is stunning and almost unbelievable.
For some reason, it’s the examples of innocence right before the disaster that touched me the most. “The distance between the two houses was only about five feet, so he [Horace Rose] had put some candy on the end of a broom and passed it over to her [Bessie]. That was so successful that he next passed across a tin cup of coffee to Bessie’s mother in the same way. She was just raising the cup to her lips when the first crash came” (p 145).
The truest line of the book: “All ordinary rules of decorum and differences of religion, politics and position were forgotten” (p 187). Isn’t that what happened after September 11, 2001?
BookLust Twist:From Book Lust in the chapter called, “What a (Natural) Disaster” (p 124).
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