Existing comment:
1:00pm -- The First Telegraph:
At 7:00am on May 31, 1889 the waters of Lake Conemaugh stood only 6 feet from the top of the dam. By 8:00am the water had risen another two feet. At 12:00pm, rain was pounding down as the first telegraph message warning Johnstown of the impending danger was being written. By this time, the water had reached the top of the dam.
The winds, rain and raging river rapids had taken down all the telegraph lines from Mineral Point tower to Johnstown. William Pickerill, the telegraph operator at Mineral Point, told Emma Ehrenfeld, the South Fork telegraph operator, that the only salvation "would be to take the message and try to dispatch it to Conemaugh by foot messenger." |