Recent reads: The Johnstown Flood, by David G. McCullough

The events described here are almost eerily reminiscent of the recent situation in New Orleans, except that they happened over a century ago. Proof of the Eternal Return of human negligence, perhaps?

Engineers had stated for years that the dam at Lake Conemaugh, 15 miles upstream from the steel-milling town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, was in need of competent repair. Those with control over the dam insisted otherwise, and performed such repairs as they did see fit to perform in a cheap, desultory and incompetent fashion. The rains came. The dam failed. And on May 31, 1889, a city died.

Some excerpts from McCullough's description of the aftermath of the flood:

Along the Frankstown Road on Green Hill some 3000 people had gathered. On the rim of Prospect Hill and on the slopes above Kernville, Woodvale, and Cambria City the crowds were nearly as big. Chilled to the bone, hungry, many of them badly injured, hundreds without shoes or only partly clothed against the biting air, they huddled under dripping trees or stood along narrow footpaths ankle-deep in mud, straining their eyes and trying hard to understand.
Spread out before them was a vast sea of muck and rubble and filthy water. Nearly all of Johnstown had been destroyed.... (p. 184)

The problems to be faced immediately were enormous and critical. People were ravenously hungry, most everyone having gone twenty-four hours or more without anything to eat, and now there was virtually no food anywhere.... Moreover, there was no water that anyone felt was safe to drink.... There was almost no dry clothing to be had and no medicines.... (p. 188

But by noon things had begun to happen, if only in a small way. Rafts had been built to cross the rivers and to get over to those buildings still surrounded by water. People on the hillsides whose houses had escaped harm and farmers from miles out in the country began coming into town bringing food, water, and clothing.... (p. 188)

That afternoon, at three, a meeting was called in Johnstown to decide what ought to be done there. Every able-bodied man who could be rounded up crowded into the Adams Street schoolhouse. The first step, it was quickly agreed, was to elect a 'dictator'.... (p. 189)

[Arthur J.] Moxham was a fortunate choice. He took charge immediately and organized citizens' committees to look after the most pressing and obvious problems. Morgues were to be established under the direction of the Reverends Beale and Chapman. Charles Zimmerman and Tom Johnson were put in charge of removing dead animals and wreckage....

Dr. Lowman and Dr. Matthews were responsible for establishing temporary hospitals. Captain Hart was to organize a police force. There was a committee for supplies and one for finance....

Captain Hart deputized some seventy-five men, most of whom were employees ofthe Johnson Company sent down from Moxham. They cut tin stars from tomato cans found in the wreckage....

As dusk gathered, the search for the living as well as the dead went on in earnest." (pp. 190-191))

A compelling story told by a skillful storyteller, with enough detail that a reader can understand how the disaster occurred, what created the danger in the first place, and how people worked together to salvage their lives afterward. Highly recommended.