National Park After Dark - The Great Flood of 1889: Johnstown Flood National Memorial

Episode Date: July 14, 2025

Editors Note and Content Warning: This episode was recorded in June before the devastating floods that took place in Texas on July 4th. Listeners should be aware that this episode includes descriptions of mass death, including children. Please take care while listening. Our hearts are with the families and communities affected by the floods. For more information about how to help the survivors and families impacted by the Texas floods please see:  The American Red Cross Kerr County Flood Relief Fund TEXSAR Additional organizations can be found here. If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Text or call 988 or chat 988lifeline.org. On May 31, 1889, a wall of water tore through the valley town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, killing more than 2,000 people in minutes. It was the deadliest single-day loss of civilian life in U.S. history — until 9/11. This is the story of how the South Fork Dam failed, how the flood devastated an entire city, and how the American Red Cross stepped in.Grab some Merch!Listen to Watch Her Cook on Apple and Spotify! Follow us on InstagramFor a full list of our sources, visit npadpodcast.com/episodesFor the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials at:Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page!Thank you to the week’s partners!Quince: Use our link to get free shipping and 365-day returns.Rocket Money: Use our link to get started saving.IQBAR: Text PARK to 64000 to get 20% off all IQBAR products and free shipping.Ollie: Take the online quiz and introduce Ollie to your pet. Visit https://ollie.com/npad today for 60% off your first box of meals! #ToKnowThemIsToLoveThem Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Monday AI agents took over my work. And I absolutely love it. Chasing deadlines, writing status reports, updating stakeholders. Agents handle the daily grind now. They live inside Monday.com. So they see the full picture, my work, my team, the whole company. And I don't have to worry about the data. It's safe, which means I'm free to focus on the big stuff,

knowing everything runs smoothly in the background. It's completely shifted the way we work. Create your own AI agent in minutes on Monday.com. Girl, winter is so last season. And now spring's got you looking at pictures of tank tops with hungry eyes. Your algorithm is feeding you cutoffs. You're thirsty for the sun on your shoulders. That perfect hang on the patio sundress.

Those sandals you can wear all day and all night. And you've had enough of shopping from your couch. Done hoping it looks anything like the picture when you tear up on that envelope. It's time for a little in-person spring treat. It's time for a trip to Ross. Work your magic. We're used to thinking of the devastation caused by natural disasters as uncontrollable. A hurricane makes landfall.

The ground shakes. A river swells past its banks. There's nothing to do but brace for impact. It's terrifying, but also comforting in a way. The idea that some tragedies are simply beyond human control. That there's no one to blame. In fact, some natural disasters are even referred to as, quote, acts of God in legal and insurance context in order to signal that,

no person or company can be held responsible for their destruction. But not every weather-related disaster is natural. Sometimes the warnings come early. The danger is known. The responsibility is clear, and still nothing is done. Corners are cut, profits are prioritized, and when the worst happens, it isn't just a tragedy, it's a failure. One that could have been prevented. But what happens when private power overrides public safety. Who bears the blame when inaction costs lives? And how do we make sure it doesn't happen again? Welcome to National Park After Dark.

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another thrilling, exciting week of gruesome stories. Yeah, this is certainly a gruesome story. Welcome, everyone. I hope you are ready and prepared for today's story because it is not by any means a lighthearted one. but it is one that has been suggested and recommended to us for probably years now. So this has been a long time coming. I'm super thrilled because I know the topic. And my knowledge goes as far back as like when I learned about it in high school, like very briefly as a footnote in something. So I don't know the gory details that you're about to get into. But based on your introduction and just knowing the topic, it kind of gives. me, what was it the St. Francis damn disaster that I did years ago. Like it kind of gives similar vibes to that and I don't know if I'm right. But that's just where I'm starting off today in my

mind. Yeah. I would say definitely something it can be reminiscent of that or in the same realm because one, it is a flood that we're talking about today. But also we'll get into it. A lot of this could have been prevented and money and greed kind of overshadowed that and unfortunately people lost lives because of it. Okay. Way to start off our more, we're recording so early in the morning. Usually we don't record this early. So it just kind of feels weird to start off a beautiful, sunny, warm summer day like this. But horror and death. We chose this path. So I'm not. We did. And I feel like a lot of people listen on their commutes to work. So you also chose this path if you're listening. at six in the morning right now.

Well, let's get into it. Yes. So as a little bit of a background today, I'm going to be telling the story of Pennsylvania's Johnstown Flood, a flood that was so momentous that the site of the wreckage has since been deemed a national memorial under the National Park Service. It was the deadliest single day of civilian loss

in U.S. history for more than 112 years until the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Oh, wow. To this day, the Johnstown Flood remains one of the deadliest weather related disasters in American history. And while this is a weather related disaster story, and I mentioned this a little bit a moment ago, it's a lot more complicated than that because the flood was technically triggered by rain, but the reason it was as catastrophic as it was stem back to years of neglect

by a private company owned by millionaires. And if something had been done earlier, it could have been prevented. Also, before we jump into this, I need to offer a trigger warning for this because this story is gruesome. It's filled with death, including those of children, and there are some very gory details that will be involved in the story. So keep that in mind before you continue listening. I know that some people's bread and butter and you're here for the dark stuff, but just so you know, this one gets pretty dark. So let's get into this horrific story. I'm ready. I say with a smile on my face. It had been raining for days. By the morning of Friday, May 31st, 1889, the town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania was drenched in water. Rain had been falling for days, cellars were flooded,

streets had turned to mud, and the Little Connemah River, which ran through the heart of the town, was dangerously high. Still, life carried on. The 30,000 residents of Johnstown were used to high waters. The town had been built in a river valley where the Little Connemah and the Stony Creek rivers met, surrounded by the steep ridges of the Allegheny Mountains. It was a location that made flooding frequent, but also made the town thrive. founded in 1800 and incorporated as a city just months before the historic flood would happen, Johnstown had become an industrial powerhouse. Its rivers powered mills, its hills yielded iron ore and coal, and its furnaces produced structural steel that fueled America's rapid growth. The Pennsylvania Railroad

ran right through it, helping transport goods to the region. Immigrant laborers, largely from Germany, Ireland, Wales, and Eastern Europe filled the mills and factories, living in small, crowded homes near the rail lines. The work was tough and the pay was low, but it kept the city alive. Yet for all of its industrial strength, the town lived under a hidden threat, the South Fork Dam. High above Johnstown, nestled in the hills and out of sight, the dam held back the Lake Connemah, a man-made reservoir containing 20 million tons of water. And when I saw that number, I was like, I can't even envision what 20 million tons of water looks like. So I wanted to understand. So I wanted to understand the scale and I wanted to put it in a way that you would also understand the scale.

So I wanted to know how many Titanic ships are 20 million tons of water. Thank you so much for using this measurement. Please tell me. Have you seen that meme where it's like Americans will use anything but the metric systems? And here we go. And here we go. This is the amount of Titanic ships that is 20 million tens of water. Can I guess? It's, yeah. Okay, so a ton is 2,000 pounds and there's 20 million, you said, tons. Mm-hmm. So, I don't know. Like, I kind of set this up like I was going to give a confident answer, but I do not have that. I'm going to say, I'm going to say 17 Titanic's.

Not even close. Oh, am I waste. But I appreciate your guess. Okay. Because I've been there and I understand. It's the equivalent of about 382 fully loaded, like passengers, everything in it, Titanic ships. Whoa. All right. Well, I get the scale now. Who needs the metric system? I understand this.

The scene has been set. We understand math. We get math. Okay. It's just great that I was able to Google that, too. It was like, wow, the Titanic was 58,000 pounds. And if you, 20 million. And then it like showed me all the math that went into it because I just Googled it.

Well, I really appreciate that. How can we understand this? It's one of my favorite things you've ever done. Yeah, I felt like it was very thoughtful. So I appreciate. I'm glad you liked it. Thank you for your active service. Anytime, really. That will actually be all of our future measurements in the show. Yeah, how many Titanic?

How many Titanic? Yeah. So this reservoir is the three, going back, the reason for this is the reservoir is 382 Titanic ships worth of water. And from a distance, the dam looked pretty solid. Most people didn't give it a second thought, but those who understood its history knew that it wasn't as strong as it appeared to be. The dam had been neglected, altered, and repeatedly pushed past its limits. And for years, some locals had feared what might happen if it ever gave away.

The dam had been constructed by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania between 1838 and 1853. It was part of a public infrastructure project known as the main line of public works, which was an ambitious canal system designed to connect Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, which are about 270 miles apart. The dam's purpose was to create a reservoir, which was Lake Connemah, which would supply water to a network of canals at lower elevations. It was one of the largest dams ever constructed in the United States at the time. It was 72 feet high, nearly 900 feet wide, and built from compacted earth and stone. The lake it contained was over two miles long, a mile wide, and 60 feet deep. So huge. By the time construction of the dam was finished in 1853, the canal system it was meant to support

was already becoming this forgotten idea. Railroads were proving to be a faster and cheaper and more efficient way to transport goods and people across large distances. This resulted in the state selling the dam to the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1857. And a few years later, in 1862, it actually failed partially, mildly flooding the local area. It washed away a small sawmill. a house, a section of track, but thankfully no one was killed in this. After that happened, the Pennsylvania Railroad patched it up, but it was never fully rebuilt to its original specifications and was never like never structurally sound again. For years, it remained compromised. It was leaking, unstable, and it went largely ignored.

Eventually, the railroad sold the property to a congressman named John Riley, and under his ownership, the reservoir was drained, and the dam was left unused for nearly two decades. But in 1879, a group of wealthy industrialists from Pittsburgh purchased the dam and the surrounding land. They refilled the lake and turned the area into a private mountain retreat called the South Fork Fishing and hunting club. The membership list included some very powerful names of the Gilded Age, Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, Andrew Mellon, among a lot of other people. But these were men who had made their fortunes in steel coal and banking. And they made it because they wanted this secluded escape where they could fish, sail, and socialize away from like the peasants of the city. They're like,

we want our own elite location where just we can go. And this is, this is perfect. We'll build our own. We'll build our own lake for it. To make the lake suitable for recreation, the club made a number of modifications to the old dam. But the changes they made weren't focused on great engineering aspects or safety, they prioritize getting it done very quickly so they could open it up for everyone, which meant it wasn't constructed as well as it previously was, and they really cut corners when they were doing it. The dam's original cast iron discharge pipes, which had allowed water to be safely drained from the reservoir, were removed and never replaced. In their place, club workers carved a shallow channel meant to direct overflow from the dam during heavy rain,

but it was poorly designed and easily overwhelmed. To make matters worse, the top of of the dam was lowered to allow a carriage road to be built across it, which reduced its ability to hold more water. So it actually made it less effective just for rain purposes. They also added a fish screen across the spillway so they could keep all their prized fish inside the river, or inside this lake reservoir that they were creating. But the problem with that is that it frequently logged with debris and then wouldn't allow the water to go over the spill, spillway so then the water would raise and be trapped even more. So another problem. And all of these alterations ultimately made it a lot more prone to failure in the future. And they didn't unknowingly

do this. It wasn't like, we just thought we were doing it right. The club was very, very well informed that what they were doing could potentially cause problems. This episode is brought to you by Prime. Obsession is in session. And this summer, Prime Originals have everything you want. steamy romances, irresistible love stories, and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice. Off campus, L, every year after, the love hypothesis, Sterling Point, and more. Slow burns, second chances, chemistry you can feel through the screen. Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime.

Long before the 1889 collapse, those living downstream were already sounding alarms. Daniel Morrill, owner of the Cambria Ironworks and a member of the club, repeatedly urged the dam's overseers to address these issues. But his concerns were largely brushed aside. Other local observers, including engineers and railroad officials, noticed leaks and seepage after heavy storms, yet the club's leadership dismissed their warnings. As early as the mid-1880s, the dam had begun to sprout cracks and springs in it.

But again, they ignored all the warnings. The South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club was this private entity, and it was a very powerful one. The dam was on private land. And there was no meaningful inspections, no oversight, and no legal mechanisms in place to force them to repair it. It's like, it's our property. We'll do what we want with it, essentially, is what it was. God, give me so much anxiety. I mean, retrospect is everything in hindsight, like you know, especially when it's all laid out like you are in just like a bullet point form of this, this, this, and this.

wrong, but I don't know, feels like it was pretty obvious even back then. Right above, yeah, it's sitting right above a whole town with 30,000 people in it. Yeah, but they have some regard. They want to fish. They want to sail. They want to be away from the grime. That is the city. They want their own private place, which is obviously going to cost a lot of lives. And part of their argument was that they didn't need to fix it because the damn held. And that was true. It held through storms in 1881, again in 1888. And each time the rain poured in the lake swelled and the town braced for the worst because they were worried that this was going to happen, that there was flooding that was going to happen. Nothing ever did. And eventually, it became easier to be like,

okay, it hasn't broken yet. It's not going to. Like maybe our fears are unwarranted. It's holding just fine. But those thoughts changed very quickly in the spring of 1889. That May, the rains came hard. Day after day, storms swept across western Pennsylvania, soaking the steep hills and swelling the rivers that coursed through the valleys below. Despite the steady rain, May 30th had been Decoration Day, the holiday now known as Memorial Day, and in Johnstown, residents and visitors turned out for a grand parade that wound through the streets, featuring civic groups and local civil war veterans in uniform. The celebration offered a brief sense of normalcy, even as they saw, the rivers continued to rise. It's like, this is happening. We're a little worried, but we're a little worried. we're still going to celebrate. Let's put our blinders on. Focus over here. Don't worry about that.

Yeah. Don't worry about that. This is a day of celebration. By the next day, the morning of May 31st, over six inches of rain had fallen in just 24 hours. The little Conema River, already prone to flash flooding, had overflowed its banks in several places. Homes along the waterfront were flooded, trains were stalled, roads were washed out, and again, people in Johnstown were used to high water and this kind of mild flooding at this point, but this storm felt different. And upstream, it was causing even more trouble. At the South Fork Dam, water had been rising steadily for days. The dam spillway, the only mechanism for relieving pressure from the lake, was almost completely blocked by debris, thanks to that fish screen that we talked about earlier, and it had never been

cleared since they had installed it. And now, as logs, branches, and brush piled up against it, it stopped the overflow dead in its tracks. And there was no emergency relief valves because, again, the original discharge pipes that had been removed from the dam when it was repurposed for this private lake was never replaced. So they didn't have a secondary option either. One person who had an eye on these problems was John Park. He was a young civil engineer who had been hired by the club to oversee the installation of a large sewer system at the lake, which cost about the same amount of money as the entire South. for dam reconstruction. Park was just 22 years old and he had studied civil engineering at the

University of Pennsylvania, um, though not through a formal degree program, but via apprenticeships and coursework, which was enough at the time to qualify him for the job. After the decoration day festivities, he had spent the night of May 30th watching storms gather and by dawn on May 31st, he was really alarmed by the reports of the rising water, so he rode his horse up to the dam to check it out for himself. And he also went with another man named Elizis Unger. And they discovered by mid-morning that the water was flowing over the top of the dam. They knew that earth and dams like this one, and I mentioned before, it was constructed primarily of soil and other natural materials like clay and rock. They aren't designed to be overtopped. When water begins flowing over the crest, it rapidly erodes the structure from the

front side down, and this can result in a collapse of the entire dam. And remember, it's holding 382 Titanic ships. I haven't forgotten. Recognizing the severe danger they were in, they recruited several men from the South Fork fishing and hunting club to make a last ditch effort to prevent the dam from failing. With water already overtopping the structure, workers used shovels to try and clear the spillway. Others attempted to dig a secondary channel to divert the overflow. They tried their best, but it was useless, and the problems with the dam should have been addressed long before these rains had come, and now they were out of time. They were working with hand tools and limited manpower as the rain kept coming and the lake kept rising.

John Park decided to ride down to the South Fork Telegraph office and urged the operator, a woman named Emma Enfield, to send word of the danger downstream. Despite her initial frustration at yet another flood warning, they're like, yeah, we get these all the time and doesn't really matter. She sent out the telegraph and she wrote, South Fork Dam is liable to break, notify the people of Johnstown to prepare for the worst. But after years of false alarms, the local people hardly reacted to the news. In Johnstown, messages like this had circulated before. There had been heavy rains in 1881, again in 1883, and again in 1888. And each time the dam had held, and each time they had these warnings.

So when they got it, it was just kind of like, oh, okay, whatever, noted. No change in anything that they were going to do. I mean, it's so frustrating hearing it now and you kind of like want to shake people and be like, you're about to die potentially. But I can totally understand the like false alarm boy who cried wolf type of thing, especially after so many years. It's just like I totally understand because it's just human nature. You're desensitized. You know, you're just unfazed after so many like hurry up and okay, never mind. Yeah.

You know? Yeah. I don't know. It kind of reminded me of when you're in school and you do the fire alarms constantly. Like every time you do a fire alarm, every time you know it's not real, you get in line, you walk outside, you're slow moving, maybe you can sit for a minute, you're joking around. Yeah. And then you go outside and you line up with your, you find your buddy and you stand there.

Because every time it's a drill, it's always a false alarm. So I just, I've never experienced a real fire in my school or anything, but I imagine when it would come to a real fire, I would do the exact same thing and be like, I have to go to the bathroom real quick or like, I'll be there in a minute. Yeah. I'm going to finish drawing this or, you know, and it just kind of reminded me of that that there's no sense of urgency. But by 2.30 p.m., it was clear that the dam wouldn't survive. Water was gushing over the top and the center of the structure was beginning to erode. The engineer, John Park, only gave up his. efforts at the very end, reportedly riding on horseback to escape the water in the nicotine. He later described the sound of the dam as it failed, like the roar of distant thunder. And then, just after 3 p.m., it happened. The South Fork Dam collapsed completely.

20 million tons of water, enough to briefly match the flow rate of the Mississippi River, exploded into the narrow valley below. The lake that had once been a playground for Pittsburgh elite was now a weapon, roaring through the Kuntima Valley, in a massive wave of water and mud, dragging trees, buildings, rail cars, livestock, and entire homes with it as it was heading straight for Johnstown. The wave was at least 40 feet high and moving an estimated 40 miles per hour, fast enough to reach Johnstown in just under an hour. But the devastation began long before it arrived. The first town in its path was South Fork, a coal mining town with approximately 1,500 residents, just a mile and a half downstream. Residents who had

seen John Park's warning telegraph a few hours earlier, scrambled to flee up the hillside. Some made it, others didn't. Entire houses were lifted from their foundations and carried away. 20 to 30 homes were totally destroyed and at least four lives were lost in the South Fork alone. Next downstream was Mineral Point. A tiny town perched low on the valley floor. It was home to about 30 families who lived on a single street with a total population of around 200 people. The flood hit here with almost no warning, and it obliterated the village in seconds. Not a single structure was left standing, and it wasn't just buildings. The water was so forceful that it stripped all the topsoil and subsoil from the land where

mineral point had stood, leaving only bedrock. Holy crap. As the wave tore through the narrow gorge, it gathered more than speed. It gathered mass. The floodwaters swept up everything in their path, trees, barbed wire, iron rails, freight cars, livestock, furniture, and human bodies. It rolled down the valley accumulating debris as it went until it became a churning black wall of wreckage, dense and forceful enough to tear through solid structures. A witness said the water by now was almost obscured by the debris resembling,

quote, a huge hill rolling over and over, tossing up logs high above the surface. I can just imagine looking up and seeing this coming at you. It feels like a monster. I feel like I'm envisioning a monster right now. Like a huge, angry, just devastating, like, everything in its path being. I don't know how else to describe it. Like, I'm kind of, I know it's floodwaters with debris, but in my mind, I just am imagining this giant creature that's just like hell bent on destruction. There's no stopping it. Yeah. And it's just gaining power. Like, it's getting stronger and its ability to create, like, wreak havoc is just getting stronger as it's moving forward. Mm-hmm. That's exactly what's happening. It's surged through the towns of East Conema and Woodville,

two working-class communities near the outskirts of Johnstown. And East Conema, a Pennsylvania railroad engineer named John Hess, spotted the approaching flood. Acting quickly, he tied down his train whistle and drove the locomotive towards town, hoping the sound would warn residents to flee. His effort helped save lives, but not all. Around 50,000. people were killed in East Connemah, including roughly 25 passengers stranded on trains that had been halted earlier by flooding. The town of Woodvale had no warning. 314 of the 1,100 residents died. That's nearly 29% of the community. There, the wave encountered a major barbed wire manufacturing plant called the Cambria Ironworks, and as it smashed through the factory buildings, it ripped loose

massive quantities of barbed wire stored on its site and took it with it. That's one of the worst things that could be tangled up in there now. Just as serrated. This is truly a weapon. Yeah. Water and now you have serrated barbed wire coming at you. That's entwined, jumbled, rambled, rambled, wrapping itself around things. By the time the flood reached Johnstown at approximately 407 p.m. on May 31st, 1889, it had been

traveling for over an hour, and it had grown into a black debris-filled tsunami. The valley narrowed just before Johnstown, funneling the water into an even higher, faster surge. Residents heard it before they saw it, a deep, thunderous roar like an oncoming train with no tracks in sight, and then came the wave. It hit the town with a force unmatched by anything in American disaster history up to that point. Entire rows of homes vanished in seconds, a stone bridge just downstream of the city center, ironically, thought to be a place of safety, became a death trap. Debris jammed against the arches and created a natural dam, backing up the water and sending it slamming back into the city like a ricochet. Worse, the debris in Johnstown caught fire. Witnesses described

walls of flames rising from the floating wreckage, with people still trapped inside the remains of homes and trained cars unable to escape. Unlike the smaller towns upstream, which had populations in the hundreds or low thousands, Johnstown, as I mentioned earlier, had been designated as a city just months prior, with a bustling population of more than 30,000 people.

That density meant that the potential for destruction was far greater. Thousands of residents were killed, many not by drowning, but by a blunt force, crushing, entanglement, or even fire. Some were dragged more than 70 miles downstream before their bodies were recovered.

Others were never found at all. And yet, some survived. One girl was carried for miles on the roof of a barn before she was rescued from a tree. One man saved himself by grabbing hold of a mattress and floated past. Entire families were pulled from second-story windows or clung to telegraph poles until the water receded. Most people barely had time to react before the water hit. Anne Fen Maxwell had been at her home with her seven children when the flood struck. Her husband, John, was outside helping nearby neighbors move their furniture to higher ground, and he was washed away

immediately. Inside, Anne Fenn gathered her children close, clutching her baby in her arms, while the others clung desperately to her. But one by one, she could do nothing but watch as the house filled with water and her children drowned beside her. She later described it saying, the water rose and floated us until our heads nearly touched the ceiling. It was dark and the house was tossing every way. The air was stifling, and I could not tell just the moment the rest of the children had to give up and drown. What I suffered, with the bodies of my seven children, floating around me in the gloom can never be told. In the darkness and chaos, she lost the grip on her baby.

The house collapsed. Anna somehow survived, but her husband and all seven of her children were gone. To add to the tragedy, I should also note that Anna was actually in her third trimester of pregnancy at the time, and she gave birth to a baby girl a few weeks after the flood, but that baby also didn't survive. What a life journey. I mean, like, just to endure. that sheer amount of loss in such a tragic way.

Like, it's just stories like this are just so serve as such reminders of just how much pain and suffering people have gone through. And in a myriad of ways, of course. But I mean, her entire family, her entire life, her entire world is just gone. And she witnessed most of it. She witnessed it. And then she had to. She survived in the aftermath.

but had to have the realization of why. Why did I survive when I watched my whole family die around me? Yeah. Another Johnstown resident named Victor Heiser, who was just 16 years old, looked up from working in his family's barn to see a wall of water crashing towards his home. His father from the second floor window was gesturing wildly for Victor to climb onto the barn roof. He scrambled up there just as the barn was ripped from the ground.

He watched in horror as his home was crushed, clinging to the wall. clinging to the wooden beams, Victor was swept downstream, leaping from one roof shop to another, dodging debris until he finally passed a two-story brick house that was still standing. He spent the night huddled in its attic with 19 other survivors, all of them praying that the structure would hold. The next day, when the water receded, he found that both of his parents were dead. He was his family's only survivor. Victor would eventually become a physician and global public health leader, crediting was saving two million lives for, developing the first effective treatment against leprosy, but he never forgot what it felt like to be orphaned in just an instant. These are just a few of the thousands of tragic stories that surfaced

in the days following the flood. Each one a reminder that behind every statistic were real people, real families, and lives that had been shattered in the span of only 10 minutes. Johnstown was unrecognizable. More than 1,600 homes were destroyed. The entire downtown business district had been swept away, and the pile of debris at the stone bridge covered 30 acres. A city that had taken decades to built had been dismantled in less than half an hour. By early evening of May 31st, the flood wave had passed and it was eerily quiet after such a loud wave of destruction. Survivors emerged from upper floors, from attics, and from the branches of trees. Many were barefoot, bloodied, or half-dressed, their clothes torn by debris. They stepped out into a landscape stripped bare, building,

flatten, streets erased, bodies entangled in fences, and wreckage piles 10 feet high. Fires still burned in the heap against Stonebridge, where thousands of tons of debris had jammed together and ignited. Many of the floods victims had survived the wave only to be trapped in this wreckage and burned alive. Oh my God. You don't think of fire and floods together, but here we are. But they happen. Some said they heard screams coming from this pile of debris, but they couldn't do anything. The flames were just too intense and they couldn't run in there. They had no way to put it out. So they had to just sit idly by while they heard people burn to death. Those who did survive the catastrophe moved through the streets calling out the names of loved ones that they had been

separated from in hopes of finding them alive. Some wandered for hours, unable to find their homes, or even identified the lots where their homes had once stood. Others picked their way through the sludge looking to dig out survivors. Make-shift rafts and doors were used as stretchers and empty buildings became triage centers. As night fell, the temperatures dropped. There was no electricity. There was no gas, no clean water. Some huddled in the ruins of train cars, others in the few brick structures still standing. For the wounded and the displaced, there was little food and almost no medical care. Doctors, priests, and undertakers worked by candlelight, while the stench of oil, mud, and death clung to everything. In those first few hours,

it wasn't clear just how many people had died, and it wouldn't be for days. The official death toll would ultimately rise to 2,209 people. This included 99 entire families, and 396 children died that day. More than 750 victims were never even identified. Johnstown wasn't just a town in mourning, it was a town in shock, and it was cut completely off from the outside world. They had no way to call for help and weren't sure that anyone even knew what had. happened there. The telegraph lines had been washed away. The rail lines were twisted or gone all together and the roads were impassable. But what happened there did get out to the public. First in nearby

towns, then across Pennsylvania, and then before long across the country. One of the first outsiders to arrive on the scene was a Pittsburgh Gazette reporter who arrived by foot on June 1st, 1889, just one day after the flood, after hiking for hours through mud and debris. He wrote of his experience under the headline, quote, Johnstown, a watery wreck, the most appalling calamity of modern times. The same day, newspapers in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New York, and Chicago began to run front-page stories and illustrations of the destruction. And once the word was out, relief trains were organized almost immediately, loaded with supplies, coffins, medical equipment, and rescue personnel. But getting into Johnstown was nearly impossible. Like I said, the rail lines were destroyed for miles,

Bridges were washed away. Tunnels had completely collapsed. Crews had to lay temporary rail tracks as they advanced to get through the Allegheny Mountains. In some areas, rescuers had to abandon trains and walk the final stretch on foot, carrying what they could on their backs. The first wave of outside help arrived on June 2nd and 3rd. So the two and three days, they were alone with no help. Yeah. And I'm sure, you know, even people who survived the initial onslaught were, had died in those days because they probably sustained some pretty life-threatening injuries and really needed help and help fast. And if it didn't come, you know, within a certain window,

they probably died. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. That was a big cause too. And like I mentioned before, there were people burning to death in the wreckage, but there was no, no one could come to put it out. There were no firemen who could reach them or even knew that it was happening. When rescuers did arrived, they couldn't believe their eyes. As horrific as the news reports were, nothing could have prepared them for what they experienced and saw when they arrived. Bodies had to be pulled from trees, fields, and river banks as far as 70 miles downstream. Horses and livestock lay bloated in the streets. Entire neighborhoods had been reduced to mud, and they saw children wandering alone through the ruins unable to find their parents or their families. Rescue workers began clearing debris and digging mass

graves. Temporary morgues were established in churches and schools. Many of the bodies recovered were so disfigured a lot of times because of that barbed wire that was literally wrapping around people and cutting through them that they could only be identified by clothing, jewelry, or household keys. Others were never identified at all. Entire families were buried in single coffins. Their names listed together in town registries with a single annotation that just said all lost. The stone bridge I mentioned earlier became one of the most infamous sights of the disaster. The fire there continued to smolder for days

and by the time workers managed to extinguish it, hundreds of bodies were recovered from the pile. Burned beyond recognition, fused with wire, metal, and wood. As you can imagine, the town's government was in disarray due to this disaster. For one, most of the police force

itself was dead or missing. Marshall Law was declared on June 4th and the Pennsylvania National Guard was sent in to maintain order, protects supply lines and prevent looting, which had already begun in some areas because of the desperation of the survivors. Soldiers patrolled the ruins with rifles and a curfew was imposed. Meanwhile, towns and cities across continued to organize relief efforts. Fundraisers were held, donations even poured in from abroad, including $100,000 from England and smaller sums from Australia and even Russia.

In total, nearly $4 million in aid would eventually be raised, which was an enormous sum at the time, because that amount of money sounds like a lot, but in today's money, it's equivalent to $140 million. But money wasn't enough. What Johnstown needed most in those early days after the catastrophe was structure. They needed leadership, coordination, and care. And that came in the form of a woman who had already spent decades responding to emergencies across the globe. And her name was Clara Barton. And she was the founding president of the American Red Cross.

When Clara Barton arrived in Johnstown on June 5th, five days after the flood, she was 67 years old. She was small in stature, soft-spoken, and she was already legendary. Born in Massachusetts in 1821, Barton was the youngest of five children. Though shy as a child, she had a fierce sense of responsibility. She worked as a teacher, founded one of New Jersey's first free public schools, and later became one of the first women to hold a federal position in Washington, D.C. When the Civil War began, Barton Spring into action. While most women served far from the front, she brought supplies and cared directly for the men in the battlefield. She worked in chaotic field

hospitals, often under fire, arriving with wagons of bandages, food, lanterns, and clothing as the wounded came in. She dressed wounds, ease fevers, and sat with the dying, becoming known as the angel of the battlefield. After the war, she led the office of missing soldiers, answering tens of thousands of letters and helping families find loved ones. A trip to Europe introduced her to the International Red Cross and inspired, she returned determined to bring the organization to America, not just for wartime, but for civilian disaster relief. In 1881, after years of lobbying Congress, she founded the American Red Cross, nearly 40 years before women could vote. She led the organization through early relief efforts, including floods and fires, but the Johnstown flood would become its first

large-scale peacetime response and a defining moment in history. When Clara Barton arrived on the scene on June 5th, she didn't come alone. She came with a team of trained nurses and volunteers, thousands of pounds of supplies, and a system. While local rescue efforts had been heroic, they were very overwhelmed. Things were becoming chaotic. People were grieving, sick, injured, and hungry. The Red Cross began establishing shelters, food stations, medical posts, and distribution hubs. Claire insisted that a'd be given without any red tape. There was no applications that were needed, no waitless, no barriers for the poor. They were there to help everyone no matter what.

As more donations rolled in, the Red Cross organized warehouses full of clothing, blankets, mattresses, and food. In one corner of town, they constructed three large Red Cross hotels, which were long wooden buildings to house people who had lost everything. Barton oversaw it all, refusing to leave until the work was done. This meant that she ultimately stayed in Johnstown for more than five. five months. Under her direction, the Red Cross helped bury the dead, feed the living, rebuild homes, and reunite families. She visited orphan children over the course of five months, met daily with city officials, and wrote thousands of letters to families trying to relocate lost relatives. She also faced resistance, especially from upper class men who questioned her

authority, her methods, or even her presence, but she ignored them all. I've heard a lot about her growing up. Me too. She was involved in so many things. Yeah. She's just someone who was like, I found my purpose and I'm going to like do it until I die. Like it's not just like, oh, I'm good at this and I can lend some of my expertise here and there but like gets busy with other things. She's like, no, this is my calling and I'm sticking to it and I'm going to make waves doing it. And I mean, she changed the world, you know. She really did. Yeah. Her is a story that. That's just, I felt, I hesitate to even bring this up because I don't remember all the details, but I remember seeing a video either online, it, well, of course, it must have been online, but whether it was like a short reel or a YouTube video, I don't quite remember. But it was something about like one of the first original Red Cross headquarters or something

was about to be, like kind of got lost to time. And it was about to be either demolished or. renovated and done something. It was like a, it looked like a storefront and they were going to do something with it. It was kind of just like boarded up and forgotten about. And they were there like about to renovate it into something else. And somebody found like in the rafters all of these ledgers and letters and handwritten accounts and notes and stuff and very quickly realized that it was significant and it was all her Clara Barton. And then they put it together and started like peeling off of like the boards and stuff in the structure.

And they quickly found that it was like one of the Red Cross's original headquarters and how historically significant it was. And now it's completely restored and like available for tours and stuff. Is it part of the National Park Service? I don't know. I feel like that would be. I don't know. I have to get the details. And I feel like I do feel bad even saying that because I don't remember everything completely.

But when I think of her, I think of that. And just how many like places are probably similar. to that, like, the humble beginnings of something that is such like a global entity. Not like everyone is recognizing of it and how many small spots like that are kind of lost to time that are just either have been obliterated and or completely redone to be something else or just like laying in wait for someone to pay attention and discover them. And yeah. When I think of Clara Barton, I think of Gettysburg because she was. Okay. Yes. Iconic in Gettysburg just. I mean, I mentioned it a little bit. She was out on the fields and she was, she's literally in battle when people didn't even want her there because she was a woman. And she's like, no, I'm here. I have expertise and I'm going to help. And so I think of her in that. And I also think part of her story that's really interesting is that one, she did this forever. I mean, in this story in particular, she's 67 years old at the front lines of this, the biggest disaster in American history at the time. But also, she founded the first free public school in New Jersey.

she started the school. There were only six students. She rose it to be hundreds of students. And she was passed up for a promotion as the principal of the school. And to a man, they said a man was more capable of that position. So they passed her up on it. So she left completely and started this. And I think of that moment as, you know, sometimes the path that you think you're supposed to be on, isn't it? And for her, if she had gotten, if she had become a principal, would she had ever founded the Red Cross? or done all of these amazing things. Who knows? Maybe not. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, to answer your question, of course, the National Park Service. This isn't the location I was thinking of, but Clara Barton, Home and Red Cross headquarters is managed by the National Park Service, of course. It's a historic site. It's a national historic landmark. I don't even know how to search for what I'm trying to explain, so I'll move on, but I'll send it to you later and everyone.

else is going to have to do their own own research. But anyway, yeah, not to get hung up on her. I know there's more good story, but. So going back a little bit to Clara Barton herself, when she left Johnstown in October of 1889, so five months later, the Red Cross had been transformed because previously it was this huge power front for wartime efforts, but now it was significantly known to be used in time of disaster. And she made sure that its mission was to come to places and work fast to be politically neutral, no matter what was happening. She was going to help whoever was injured, no matter what. She wanted to bring compassionate aid wherever it was needed.

In the months that followed, Johnstown slowly rebuilt. Families returned. Homes were rebuilt where ruins had been. Mills reopened and life resumed. But it was forever changed. The flood, the worst civilian disaster in U.S. history at the time, exposed the dangers of unchecked development and private infrastructure. Despite clear negligence by the elite South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, no one was ever held accountable. Of course they weren't. Why am I not

surprised? Yeah. The disaster was legally deemed an act of God and the wealthy members like Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick paid nothing not to the victims, not to the town. They virtually had no repercussions for what they did. Which is so upsetting because they are the wealthiest men in the world. To this day, their names are known, you know, and the Carnegie's are everywhere. I can't even believe. So you said they weren't found liable, da, da, da, but do you know if they like actually just out of the goodness of their hearts donated any sort of monetary relief? Do you know? I mean, not to put you on the spot, but just because they weren't like in the court of law ordered to pay, I just wasn't sure if they ended up doing that for any other reason.

So he did, he wasn't legally obligated to donate, but he did donate $10,000 to rebuild the public library that was in town. And he did another $45,000 in addition to that to help restore parts of the town. So he did do stuff. He did something. Mm-hmm. But in the scheme of things, I mean, what is $45,000 when 2000 people's lives were lost? I hate to bring this up. I actually don't hate to bring it up. I'm going to. But because it's relevant for we're recording a couple weeks ahead of time because we're busy as all hell be bopping around the American West when this releases. But as of right now, what's hot in the news kind of is the Jeff Bezos wedding in Italy. Oh, yeah, in Italy, where they protested him being there.

Yep. So that's kind of my algorithm right now. And there was this woman, she did like, she stitched together a video of, because like as of today, the guests are arriving and it's kind of all over the news. And this woman stitched together a video and she's a financial expert. And she basically broke down, what's her name? What's the fiance's name? Do you know? I don't know. Okay. I don't either. Jeff Bezos. I'm not in this. world usually. But anyway, Jeff Bezos's fiance had a bachelorette weekend and it cost $670,000. And she's like, you know how we're like, how many Titanic's is that? She basically was like, what does that mean? Like that number is so large. Like, how does that equate to the average American? And she broke down this entire video of like doing a bunch of comparisons and whatever. But she essentially was like in simple terms, this $670,000 bachelor's at weekend was the equivalent of spending a dollar in 40 cents for the average American.

Like in her, like in her, like $670,000 to her and to her is a dollar in 40 cents. Must be nice. So it's kind of like, I think of that and being like, okay, so what is $10,000 to Carnegie? Like can you do a little more? Like, yes, there's a huge amount of money for us, to us. But to him and in his world, it's not that. It leaves such a little of a dent. He probably wouldn't have even noticed it was gone.

And I don't know. It just very, very wealthy people bother a lot of us. And I think it's because of reasons like this where it's like you have such a sheer amount of money. And so little of it is put towards any sort of cause that's going to make a difference. You know, you just see this kind of like disgusting display of. wealth and it's like instead of buying a private jet and flying 15 minute flights, you know, you could. Like help the homeless population in your area. Yeah, I don't know. And I'm not saying that the ultra wealthy don't do any sort of, you know, humanitarian work or whatever. And I,

I know and I am aware that they do. But when you see things like that, it's just kind of like, God, it's so disturbing. But when one person has the amount of money to end world hunger and they don't. It's like, what the fuck are you doing? It's like why? Yeah, it's just, I don't know. I think that I'm all for it's your hard-earned money that you get. It's your right to spend what you earn. But when you have more money than the world, you have an obligation to the people around you to take care of the plan. I feel like you have an obligation to take care of the planet. If you are in the position where you have more money than most people on the entire planet, you have an obligation to take care of people.

Yeah. And I think that that's just a burden that you have to carry. If you are going to be worth billions and billions of dollars, then you need to make sure that the state you live in doesn't have a housing crisis. Doesn't, you know, I don't know. You need to get more involved and take care of people. Like the emotional and like ethical and moral strife that I would undergo if I was in that position and didn't do that. And I drove down the street and saw people in need or animals in need

or issues with the environment. And I just had all of the money and resources in the world to essentially just wave a magic wand and fix that issue. Yeah. And did it and chose not to do that. Like, who the, I don't know. Sorry, I'm getting way off track. I don't even know what we were talking about. We were talking about that Carnegie barely put it. I barely put it. I don't know. I don't even know what we were talking about. Carnegie barely put any money, basically, into after being the cause of over 2,000 people's deaths. Like I saw a meme today. Sorry, here I am again. I saw a meme today.

It's like 20-something private jets are flying into Venice today, and I recycled my yogurt lids. Yeah, it's like, what are we, how are we helping? If you have other people doing stuff like that. But anyway, okay, go on. And I thought I was being extra for my wedding. You are not. You just don't be apologetic. I handmaid my invitations because I didn't want to spend the money.

There you go. You're fine. You're doing great. Yeah. Thank you. So going back into this story, no one was held responsible. It was legally deemed an act of God, which meant that it was legally deemed unpreventable and that it was just something that happened in nature.

But because of the devastation that happened here, today the site is presentable. preserved as the Johnstown Flood National Memorial and visitors can see the remains of the dam, the dry lake bed, and the club's historic lodge, which is now a museum that tells, it houses all these photographs and the National Park Service even made a video that you can watch when you go there. There's books. There's so much information there about this flood. And there's pictures from this day and the aftermath. And it really shows the carnage that happened here. And the museum really honors the people whose lives were lost that day. The narrow valley that is there still shows the path that the flood carved.

It's now green, still and hard to reconcile the horror that once tore through it, but you can stand in the very location that it did. And each year on May 31st, 2,209 candles are lit at the site, one for every life lost, keeping the memory of that day alive. And that is my story of the Johnstown flood. Wow. Great job. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning to us. Wow. I don't even know what to do in my day now. Yeah, that was a rough one. And I understand why it was so heavily requested. It has, you know, dark elements, of course, but also frustrating elements of, you know, human error or negligence and not wanting to take accountability and other people suffer for that. And it just has all the themes of a story that make it really interesting. and frustrating and unbelievable and it's sad that it happened, but hopefully we've learned a little bit from it. I don't think we're perfect. But yeah. I mean, the St. Francis damn disaster happened after that, I think. And it had similar things of like ignoring things that started to go wrong, like little cracks or like. I think it'll be fine. It'll be good. And it's been fine up until this point. Like, why should we worry? And it's just, yeah. It just reminded me a lot of that story.

Yeah, for sure. And I just, just researching and learning about this story, I just felt kind of close to it too, just because Vermont has experienced such bad flooding. And people here have really been struggling. And there's been this big argument that's going around that the government isn't doing enough to provide safety from these floods. And there have been different environmental goals. groups that have come forward and been like there are ways that we can help mitigate this flood. Like even though we can't stop the rain, there are ways that we can reshape the landscape to make sure that people's homes are protected and we can put in marshlands and we can do things that are

going to mitigate these floods when they happen. And there's been, to my knowledge, nothing's really been done about it. And as this episode is coming out, we will be right around the anniversary of the flood from last year, which was also the same day as the flood from the year prior. In Vermont. So I know when this episode is coming out that it's going to be the time of year where everyone here is kind of holding their breaths to be like, is this going to be the third year in a row that we flood on this day in July? Yeah. Oh, scary. And you were with me last year. I happened. I sure as hell was. And I mean, we were lucky, but we saw the devastation of just my road being. It was impassable. Yeah. We got trapped at me.

my house because my road was just completely washed out with like these 10 foot craters. Yeah, bridges were collapsed. It was like, it was not a no small thing. And it's like, yeah, to know, it's kind of the opposite, right, of like, oh, nothing's happening. We're good. We're good. There's warnings, but we're, we're all right. And now with you guys, it's like, we know what can happen and what has happened year after year after year. Is it going to happen again? And that's like on a, you know, a smaller scale than of course what you just explained, but it's still devastating to people's businesses, their homes. Didn't you say like one of your, was it one of your friends who had just bought a house? And it completely flooded the first.

Yeah, they just rebuilt it. And there's even people are around here. They're taking their houses, people who either don't want to move or don't have the means to move, but they've gotten insurance money to help restore their houses are just building their foundations up really high. There's one town that has this house that's on a foundation that is the height of their original house. And they plopped their house on top of it. Oh, my God. Okay. And they're right next to a river. So, and they have historically flooded for the past few years. So I like, I get it. But looking at it is like, oh, my God, you have to take an elevator or stare just to get inside your house now. Yeah. They're like, we ain't leaving. It's not done construction. So maybe they're doing something. But we're not leaving. We're just going to move this 30 feet. in the air and we'll be good. It's actually really funny to go by, but I feel bad because even I go on Zillow and if you look around Vermont, there are a ton of people who are selling their homes that are on and I see the street names and I'm like, that's a street that flooded. And you see

pictures and before when I was looking at homes to buy, I would be like, I would love a house on some water like a little brook or something. And now I look at those same houses. I'm like, I would never. Absolutely not. And I see them. I just like to explore Zillow because it's fun. But I see all of these houses now that pop up in my area and a lot of them have rivers or brooks on them. And I know people are selling them because their house flooded or because they came very close to flooding. And they know that the weather is just getting kind of more unpredictable as climate change continues. And they know that it's like get out now before before it's too late. Well, thank you for sharing.

And I guess that's it. Yeah. I never know how to end, like, especially sad. Horific episodes. Okay, let's end. We've done this a couple times on something. What did I ask last time? Like something you're doing or you're grateful for or, and you said something about your garden was taking off and whatever.

Yeah. So tell me something good. My garden is taking off still. Okay, you can't use the same one. Actually, I can go into my garden and talk. Yes, I can. Please let me talk about my garden. Okay.

I had a little squash because I'm mainly because I want to ask for help from people who are listening who are gardeners. I had one of my little squashes fall off and it was only like this big and I was like, I mean, it was like three inches long and I'm like, Al, can we please cook this? I made this. He's like I spent $300 on this three inch squash. Like we're eating it. But I'm just curious what people do to help their zucchini's and squash and stuff. stuff get really big because I have a bunch that are growing right now, which is exciting. And it's very early. So I don't know how big they're going to get. But I'm just curious. But all of my tomatoes,

I have a ton of cherry tomatoes that are going. My gardens looking big. I have lots of cucumbers. My lettuce is out of control, which is very exciting. My carrots are popping up. I have my first sign of pepper. Life is exciting. And it's just so funny. You're like, I have all this going on and I'm going to leave her a month tomorrow. I'm so scared. Thankfully, my mom is coming and she's house sitting. So she's going to be here and she's going to take care of my garden and watch over the house and stuff. So I'm happy about that. But I'm also just like, I put so much work into it. I was like, and she's going to be the one eating my vegetables before they go bad because I'm not even going to be back in time to eat them. Yeah, she's reaping the benefits. But that's okay. You're feeding your

family. And next year, I'm going nowhere. Sure. All right. From May to September. You're not allowed to not, you're not allowed to do that, but you can dream. We'll talk about this off air. Okay, great. All right. Well, that was Tell Me Something Good. And let's get out of here.

All right. Well, thank you, everyone for tuning in. Talk to you soon. Enjoy the view. But watch you back. Bye, everyone. Bye. Thank you for joining us again this week.

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