BGuthrie Photos: PA -- Johnstown Flood Natl Memorial

PA -- Johnstown Flood Natl Memorial:

Bruce Guthrie Photos Home Page: [Click here] to go to Bruce Guthrie Photos home page.

Recognize anyone? If you recognize specific folks (or other stuff) and I haven't labeled them, please identify them for the world. Click the little pencil icon

underneath the file name (just above the picture). Spammers need not apply.

Slide Show: Want to see the pictures as a slide show? [Slideshow]

Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

Help? The Medium (Email) links are for screen viewing and emailing. You'll want bigger sizes for printing. [Click here for additional help]

[1]

FLOOD_031109_001_STITCH.JPG

Medium (Email) (Bigger?)

[2]

FLOOD_031109_005_STITCH.JPG

Medium (Email) (Bigger?)

[3] FLOOD_031109_011.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[4] FLOOD_031109_032.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[5] FLOOD_031109_039.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)
[6] FLOOD_031109_043.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[7] FLOOD_031109_048.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[8] FLOOD_031109_050.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)
[9] FLOOD_031109_057.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[10] FLOOD_031109_065.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[11] FLOOD_031109_081.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)
[12] FLOOD_031109_088.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)

Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. FLOOD_031109_001_STITCH.JPG: You're seeing a panoramic photograph taken from what would have been the far side of the South Fork Dam. In the shadows on the left is one side of the dam and you can see a platform on the opposite shore. The area between was, of course, where the dam itself disappeared to cause the flood. To the right of the dam, somewhere above where this picture was taken from, was Lake Conemaugh. On the opposite shore, the long stretch of handrails are where the spillway was supposed to be but it wasn't because the country club had turned it into a fish pond. The barn-like structure on the far shore is actually the visitor center. However, during the flood it was the farm of Colonel Elias J Unger, the last president of the South Fork Fishing & Hunting Club. The structure to the right of it was his house. On the morning of May 31 1889, he ran down to the dam from his house and his nightmare began.
2. FLOOD_031109_005_STITCH.JPG: This photo is taken from what would have been the bottom of Lake Conemaugh. The sidewalk in the middle of the opposite shore indicates where the spillway was. The club had stocked the lake with 1,000 black bass, transported from Lake Erie on a special railroad tank car at the cost of about $1 per fish. A wire mesh was attached to the spillway to keep the fish from escaping. When the flooding danger became obvious, Unger and his men found they couldn't unclog the mesh to let the water pass.
3. FLOOD_031109_011.JPG: Sign: May 31, 1889 The valley in front of you once cradled a scenic lake. Held back by an earthen dam just below here, Lake Conemaugh stretched more than two miles up the valley to your left. The lake was the heart of an exclusive resort where sailboats caught the mountain breezes, and anglers pursued trophy fish. Everything changed on May 31, 1889. At 3:15pm, after record rainfall, the South Fork Dam gave way. In minutes, the lake was gone, and in less than an hour a devastating wall of churning water and debris hit the city of Johnstown 14 miles downstream. The death toll exceeded 2,200. Johnstown Flood National Memorial, established by Congress in 1964, commemorates the tragic Johnstown Flood by preserving the remains of the South Fork Dam. Exhibits and programs in the Visitor Center describe the flood's origin and destructive power. A trail from the Visitor Center leads to viewpoints of the historic dam and lakebed. ... The breaching of the dam here launched a deadly flood wave 30-60 feet high down the valley of the Little Conemaugh River to Johnstown. The wave travelled the 14 miles in about 45 minutes.
4. FLOOD_031109_032.JPG: A view of the South Fork Dam from the visitor center. You can see platforms on either side of the extant dam; the area in the middle is what gave way. The water traveled to the left, toward Johnstown.
5. FLOOD_031109_039.JPG: Colonel Elias J Unger's house. The barn, which is now a visitor center, is in the background.
6. FLOOD_031109_043.JPG: The Spillway When properly designed and maintained, dams made of earth can hold back huge bodies of water. However, water must never be allowed to run over the top of an earth dam. Running water can rapidly erode an embankment, causing a dam to give way. It was this "overtopping" the doomed the South Fork Dam. The dry, rocky channel in front of you was the dam's spillway. Designed to prevent overtopping, it should have allowed excess water to escape during floods. Why didn't it save the dam?
  1. The spillway was not wide enough or deep enough to handle the flow which increased dramatically after the heavy rains.
  2. The spillway was the only outlet. Pipes and valves originally installed at the base of the dam to release water had been removed.
  3. Heavy metal screens had been fixed to the bottom of the spillway bridge to keep game fish from escaping. The screens impeded the water.
7. FLOOD_031109_048.JPG: You can see the Conemaugh River. This whole valley was under Lake Conemaugh until the flood destroyed the dam. The railroad tracks, obviously, were added afterward.
8. FLOOD_031109_050.JPG: The South Fork Dam. You are now standing on what remains of the South Fork Dam. Completed in 1853, the dam was made chiefly of earth. Layers of clay one-foot-thick or less were built up one by one. Each layer was covered with a skim of water, or "puddled", to help it settle and harden. Five large outlet pipes were installed under the dam to discharge water safely. Slopes were faced with stone. The dam's only inadequacy was its spillway (behind you) which was too small. Although well-engineered for its time, years of neglect and unsound alterations had made the dam unsafe. By 1889, the water control tower had burned down, and the iron outlet pipes had been removed, making it impossible to control the lake level. Earlier breaches in the dam had been improperly filled with stones, dirt, brush, and even manure. The dam had settled and sagged at the center, inviting a washout. In addition, fish screens had reduced the capacity of the spillway to handle overflow. On May 31 1889, under the force of rising floodwaters, the dam gave way, creating the gaping hole in front of you. From here the flood wave thundered 14 miles downstream to Johnstown, killing more than 2,200. ... Dimensions of South Fork Dam in 1853:
  - Length from end to end: 931 feet.
  - Width at base: 500 feet
  - Width at top: 40 feet
  - Height: 72 feet
9. FLOOD_031109_065.JPG: We're on the opposite shore looking back across where the dam had been
10. FLOOD_031109_081.JPG: From the brochure: The original dam, which was built by the State of Pennsylvania and completed in the 1850's, had a control mechanism consisting of a sluice gate with five very large cast iron pipes covered by a stone culvert extending 270 feet through the base of the dam. The foundation stones you see are all that remain of the culvert. A valve tower out in the lake regulated the flow of water out through the pipes. After a breach in 1862, the lake was completely drained, the valve tower burned down, and the cast iron pipes were sold. The property was purchased by the South Fork Fishing & Hunting Club in 1879. The dam was reconstructed by them, but this vital control system was never replaced. The only way left to get rid of the excess water was the spillway -- and on the morning of May 31 1889, it was clogged. The level of the lake continued to rise at an alarming rate. It was just a matter of time before the water would flow over the top, which would cause any earthen dam to break. Colonel Unger sent John Parke to South Fork to send a telegraph message to warn the people of Johnstown. The roads were in terrible shape because of the storm but Mr Parke made the two mile ride in just ten minutes!
11. FLOOD_031109_088.JPG: Looking up from where the culvert pipes had been. Sign: 20,000,000 Tons of Water In 1889, the watershed above this dam, covering 48 square miles, was hit with a phenomenal rainstorm. The night before the flood, a pail left outside near the dam collected eight inches of rainwater! Swelling streams poured into the lake, increasing its normal volume 33%. When the dam failed, an estimated 20,000,000 tons of water pushed through the gap in front of you. During the 45 minutes or so it took for the lake to drain, the volume of escaping water roughly equaled the flow over Niagara Falls. A 30-to-60-foot-high flood wave swept down the valley to your [left] toward Johnstown at speeds averaging 40 miles per hour. The churning water swept up earth, stones, trees, livestock, houses, and debris as it advanced, adding to its destructive power and horrifying appearance. Witnesses described a dark mist which hung over the wave, and an ominous sound like thunder. Seconds after the dam gave way, the wave smashed two farmhouses just below here, erasing even their foundations.
Multi Column: Number of columns of thumbnails to appear per page (normally defaults to 3): [1 col] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]
Wikipedia Description: Johnstown Flood
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Johnstown Flood disaster (or Great Flood of 1889 as it became known locally) occurred on May 31, 1889. It was the result of the failure of the South Fork Dam situated 14 miles (23 km) upstream of the town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, USA, made worse by several days of extremely heavy rainfall. The dam's failure unleashed a torrent of 20 million tons of water (18.1 million cubic meters/ 4.8 billion gallons). The flood killed over 2,200 people and produced US$17 million of damage. It was the first major disaster relief effort handled by the new American Red Cross, led by Clara Barton. Support for victims came from all over the United States and 18 foreign countries.

History:

Founded in 1793 by Swiss immigrant Joseph Johns, Johnstown began to prosper with the building of the Pennsylvania Main Line Canal in 1836 and the arrival of the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Cambria Iron Works in the 1850s. By 1889, Johnstown was a town of Welsh and German immigrants. With a population of 30,000, it was a growing industrial community known for the quality of its steel.

The high, steep hills of the narrow Conemaugh Valley and the Allegheny Mountains range to the east kept development close to the riverfront areas, and subjected the valley to large amounts of rain and snowfall. The area surrounding the town of Johnstown was prone to flooding due to its position at the confluence of the Stony Creek and Little Conemaugh River, forming the Conemaugh River, and to the artificial narrowing of the riverbed for the purposes of development.

South Fork Dam and Lake Conemaugh:

High in the mountains, near the small town of South Fork, the South Fork Dam was originally built between 1838 and 1853 by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as part of the canal system to be used as a reservoir for the canal basin in Johnstown. It was abandoned by the commonwealth, sold to the Pennsylvania Railroad, and sold again to private inte ...More...
Bigger photos? To save server space, the full-sized versions of these images have either not been loaded to the server or have been removed from the server. (Only some pages are loaded with full-sized images and those usually get removed after three months.) I still have them though. If you want me to email them to you, please send an email to guthrie.bruce@gmail.com and I can email them to you, or, depending on the number of images, just repost the page again will the full-sized images.
Directly Related Pages: Other pages with content (PA -- Johnstown Flood Natl Memorial) directly related to this one: [Display ALL photos on one page]:
- 2016_PA_Johnstown_FloodR: PA -- Johnstown Flood Natl Memorial -- Exhibit: 125 Years of Remembering the Johnstown Flood (37 photos from 2016)
- 2016_PA_Johnstown_FloodA: PA -- Johnstown Flood Natl Memorial -- 127th Anniversary (46 photos from 2016)
- 2016_PA_Johnstown_Flood: PA -- Johnstown Flood Natl Memorial (46 photos from 2016)
- 2012_PA_Johnstown_FloodC: PA -- Johnstown Flood Natl Memorial -- Club (36 photos from 2012)
- 2012_PA_Johnstown_FloodA: PA -- Johnstown Flood Natl Memorial -- 123rd Anniversary (53 photos from 2012)
- 2012_PA_Johnstown_Flood: PA -- Johnstown Flood Natl Memorial (95 photos from 2012)
- 2009_PA_Johnstown_Flood: PA -- Johnstown Flood Natl Memorial (44 photos from 2009)
- 2005_PA_Johnstown_Flood: PA -- Johnstown Flood Natl Memorial (4 photos from 2005)
- 2003_PA_Johnstown_FloodC: PA -- Johnstown Flood Natl Memorial -- Club (1 photo from 2003)
Same Subject: Click on this link to see coverage of items having the same subject: [History 1800s (excl wars)] [Park (National Park Service)]
2003 photos: Equipment this year: I decided my Epson digital camera wasn't quite enough for what I wanted. Since I already had Compact Flash chips for it, I had to find another camera which used CF chips. That brought me to buy the Fujifilm S602 Zoom in March 2003. A great digital camera, I used it exclusively for an entire year. Trips this year: Three-week trip this year out west, mostly in Utah. Number of photos taken this year: 68,000.
Connection Not Secure messages? Those warnings you get from your browser about this site not having secure connections worry some people. This means this site does not have SSL installed (the link is http:, not https:). That's bad if you're entering credit card numbers, passwords, or other personal information. But this site doesn't collect any personal information so SSL is not necessary. Life's good!
Limiting Text: You can turn off all of this text by clicking this link: [Thumbnails Only]
Photo Contact: [Email Bruce Guthrie].