Existing comment:
"It just seemed like a mountain coming."
At approximately 3:15 on the afternoon of May 31, 1889, the dam gave way. Twenty million tons of water rushed through the breach "roaring like a mighty battle," an eyewitness said. It was as though Niagara Falls thundered into the river valley for about thirty-five minutes.
Look downriver and imagine the unleashing of the destructive force that shaved wooded hillsides down to bare rock, snapped huge trees like toothpicks, moved 80-ton railroad locomotives about like toys, and lifted houses from their foundations tossing them about before crushing them. It took the water about an hour to travel the 14 miles of river channel to Johnstown and only 10 minutes to destroy the city. |