Existing comment:
1:52pm -- The Second Telegraph:
At 12:30pm, water was rushing through the spillway at nine feet per second and was starting to go over the top of the dam. Spectators to this scene could only image what would happen next. One of them was Col. Elias J. Unger, who had recently retired as a hotel manager in Pittsburgh and become the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club's president and manager. He later recalled, "I saw the way it was rising, it wouldn't be very long until it would get full. I couldn't tell how much water was coming; I came to the conclusion that I would cut an extra waste way, and sent for the Italians (13 Italian workers who were working at the club at the time) and the tools and went right to work." On the west-side of the dam, "the face of the embankment there was solid ground, and I knew it couldn't wash that out right away. The people there protested against it, they said 'If you cut that waste weir there, you will ruin the whole business,' and I said, 'it won't matter much; it will be ruined anyhow if I can't get rid of this water.' "
Another telegraph message was clearly necessary. This time it was a Pennsylvania Railroad ticket agent at South Fork who would get a message to be sent to the Mineral Point telegraph tower. Like the first message, in order to get the telegraph to Johnstown and then on to Pittsburgh, someone would have to traverse a terrible storm, carrying the message the soon would bring death. |