The Johnstown Flood: A 19th Century American Nightmare



Discover the story of the Johnstown Flood, a man-made disaster that shocked America. The South Fork Dam, once built for irrigation, caused the deadliest flood in US history. Learn about Steel City and how nature and human error led to the deaths of over 2,000 people.

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27 thoughts on “The Johnstown Flood: A 19th Century American Nightmare”

  1. Born, raised, and still living here in Johnstown. It's so cool to see you covering our history. It is sad, though we never recovered from the collapse of the American Steel industry like other cities. Still love my town

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  2. My dad went back into the house for something.. The only thing I can recall is in the 30 or less seconds he was in there the water went from his knees to his navel.. Now, I was very young, but that sight never left me, and I respect the power of water..

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  3. Just another example of how rich people are the worst. They are the downfall of every civilization. Not just the 1%, but greedy small business owners, landlords, and people in real estate.

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  4. I had a client in Johnstown for a summer back in the early 1990s – spent weeks there. I cannot even imagine what it's like now, and there's no real reason to ever go there. FACTS.

    It was a drug haven pretty much back then so there was a lot of federal law enforcement activity. I was shocked when I learned how much the area was impacted by the illegal drug market. Old parts consisted of a lot of seedy buildings, many precariously perched on steep inclines, some of which were boarded up and vacant. There was no dearth of sketchy looking people who could have come from nearly any major urban slum – N. Or W. Philly comes to mind, but for the distict Appalachian twist that is easily recognised but hard to describe. The better neighborhood were up the Incline. And ya, the Incline was a lot of fun to ride.

    It was also a medical hub – there were so many hospitals.

    Johnstown had practically no children, and frankly the town had nearly no inhabitants under the age of 40 – most left to find work and careers anywhere else, but there were a lot of seniors there. I mean a lot.

    Basically Philadelphia financially supports the entire rest of the state of Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh excluded, which made a near miraculous comeback and did not suffer the post modern industrial fate of Johnstown. Sad to hear it has still not recovered. Floods, steel manufacturing shipped overseas and the decline of the canals, nearby waterways, railroads and thankfully the near death of the coal industry… honestly, the best word to describe Johnstown was SAD. 😢

    I was quite happy when the project ended for the summer, tho I did love those donuts at the Krispy Kreme or whatever it was. Outside of Johnstown, it is geographically beautiful, as is all of Western Pa.

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  5. Fun fact…Clara Barton helped start what’s now Conemaugh hospital. Their original logo, and the school of nursing’s pins are a pink cross identical to the well known Red Cross logo.

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  6. Johnstown made it further down the list than Centralia? At least there are SOME jobs, utilities, mail service and you don't have to worry about suffocating to death if a stray breeze happens to swallow you in a cubic mile of carbon monoxide.

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  7. Back in the late 90s my family was in that part of PA for a vacation and we stumbled upon Johnstown. We had no idea the history but we saw a sign for the flood museum and wanted to know what that was all about. It was really interesting to learn about. After we went down to the dam and to look at the club house. We also took the funicular up the mountain later that night. Now when ever I see a video about Johnstown I watch it immediately

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  8. This is very interesting. My girlfriend's dad is currently working on a screenplay with this particular event as the backdrop of the story, and has done a bunch of research into the flood. I read it myself, and he's definitely done a bunch of research for it.

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  9. I remember going to the flood museum as a kid, My family is from the area but that museum really left an impression as a kid that always stuck with me

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