 It is June 1889 and a country is in shop. An entire community has been washed away and 2,209 people are feared dead. A dam has failed sending a deluge downstream. The event would become one of the country's worst disasters and would be the measuring stick in which all future tragedies would be compared against. The event would permeate itself into the American psyche and leave behind haunting images of death, destruction and the thought that at any moment everything you know and love could come to an end. Today we're looking at the Johnstown Flood. Our story starts with a construction project, the main line of public works. The plan was to provide the best commercial means of transportation between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh via railways, canals and roads. Part of this project was to create a reservoir for the canal system to supply water during low flow periods and in order to make this happen a dam was needed. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania set out to build a new dam, which would be later known as the South Fork, starting construction in 1838. The design was to make use of an earth and rock fill arrangement. It was around 72 feet high, 918 feet long, 220 feet wide at its base and tapering off to 10 feet wide at its crest. The South Fork Dam had two means of controlling the reservoir's water level. Although one had a greater level of control than the other, the arrangement was pretty standard for such a construction of its time. A control tower was provided for the outlet works and consisted of five cast iron pipes, each with a valve for releasing varying amounts of flow of water, which ran into a stone culvert with a discharge chamber, which in itself led to the downstream face of the South Fork Dam. The second method of level control was the good old fashioned spillway. This was cut into the rock along the east abutment and was 70 feet wide, although the original plans had actually specified for a minimum of 150 feet. The shiny new dam was completed around 1852 and 1853, but the canal network would become a victim of one of the industrial revolution's greatest achievements, the railway. Just about five years after its completion, the dam became abandoned and was sold off to the Pennsylvania Railroad. Needless to say, the PRR wasn't that bothered with owning a dam and as such this led to the maintenance of the South Fork falling pretty low on the company's priorities list. In July 1862, just a decade after completion, the South Fork would experience its first failure. The outlet works, stone culvert collapsed and a portion of the dam breached gradually, draining the lake in half a day. Now even as I edit this video I'm surprised at just how quickly things fell apart. No longer needing the area in which the dam now semi-collapsed lived, the PRR set about selling it off as a parcel incorporating the dam and lake in 1875 to John Riley, a former congressman. This now rather large property prospect once again changed hands in 1879 when Benjamin Ruff took over control. He wanted to create a resort for the rich and successful, making use of the lake and surrounding area for fishing and hunting. In doing so he created the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, but for this new elite playground to be a success, the old and partially failed South Fork Dam needed to be rebuilt. Ruff set about reconstructing the South Fork Dam, but some of the changes to the design would prove to be fatal. The five cast iron discharge pipes were no more as before the sale to Ruff, John Riley who was making a loss in his deal with Benjamin had removed the metal to sell it off a scrap, although I should say this accusation has been disputed over the years. The new and so called improved South Fork Dam sported a lower crest by two feet, no discharged pipes and the failed portion being replaced by fill that consisted of clay, brush, mining wastes and strangely hay. To add further structural issues, the dress stone originally placed on the upstream face was not replaced, leading to the water to come into direct contact with the main structural material, hiding the risk of erosion and seepage. With no outlet works, the only method of reservoir control was by means of the spillway, which if you remember from earlier was already too small for its application on the South Fork. To protect fishing profits, the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club decided to use netting over the entrance to the spillway to prevent any valuable fish being lost to the flow of water. But it would not only stop the fish and allow for a buildup of debris, reducing the spillway's efficiency, all of this made the dam not very resistant to storms and flooding. Eventually the material used to repair the embankment settled, creating a low point on the dam's crest, increasing the potential for over topping, which would create flow over the already weakened section of the structure. After the dam was rebuilt, the lake it held back was two miles long, about one mile wide and 60 feet deep. But a reconstructed structure would cause no end of headaches for the new owners, with constant leaks springing out, requiring spot repairs of hay and mud. Johnstown's history spans all the way back to a settlement established in 1791. As the 18th century gave way to the 19th, the town saw growth along with the use of Pennsylvania Main Line Canal, in which it was a port and key transfer point. But things would really start to pick up for the town with the demise of the canals and the rise of the railways. Almost like a direct opposite to the life of the South Fork Dam. The town which called home to the Cambria Iron Company of Johnstown was the leading steel producer in the United States, outproducing both steel from Pittsburgh and Cleveland. By the 1880s, Cambria works had grown to become a huge enterprise, sprawling over 60 acres in Johnstown and employing around 7,000 people. This boom had been fueled by the company being the country's main supplier of barbed wire, allowing the town's economy to support a population of around 30,000. The area had become known for flooding hotspots towards the end of the 19th century, as increased rainfall led to rising water levels in the valley. And the rain would blight the area again in 1889, when the streets of Johnstown once again could be seen with the sheen of pooling water towards the end of May. A low pressure area formed over Nebraska and Kansas on the 28th of May 1889. Two days later, the weather was now over western Pennsylvania and causing record-breaking rainfall. Between 6 and 10 inches of rain fell in 24 hours over the region, swelling the banks of streams into large torrents. Some of Johnstown's streets were beginning to become flooded in the rainfall, leading to many residents being stranded inside their homes. On the morning at the 31st of May 1889, the Lake Connemar had become swollen after a night of heavy rainfall. The lake level was now near cresting the South Fork Dam. Elias Unger, president of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, assembled a gang of men to try and save the dam. They went to the now clogged spillway, which had caught debris in its netting and tried to clear the blockage, but to little success. Unger sent out a messenger to the nearest telegraph station to inform the residents of Johnstown below, but this would not reach his destination. Despite the efforts to save the dam, the writing was on the wall, and Unger ordered his men to retreat to high ground at 1.30pm. The men could see the inevitable begin to unfold, as the dam breached between 2.50 and 2.55pm, sending a deluge of water down the valley towards Johnstown. It would take just over an hour to empty Lake Connemar's 3.843 billion gallons. This effluent travelled down the 14 miles towards Johnstown, picking up debris with the flow. The water was slowed down at the Connemar viaduct, but after just seven minutes, this failed, adding renewed force to the flood waters. On route to Johnstown, the small town of Mineral Point was completely washed away. The flood next hit Cambria Ironworks at the town of Woodvale, picking up railway carriages, scrap metal and barbed wire. Just under an hour after the breach of the South Fork Dam, the flood hit Johnstown. The torrent of effluent travelling at speeds of nearly 40mph hit buildings, people and vehicles. The debris that consisted of barbed wire, rubble and other material crushed anyone out in the street and bombarded the town's standing structures. The water reached Stonebridge. This became a pinch point where debris was pushed up against it, creating a small dam, pushing water out in different directions, causing other parts of the town to flood. Eventually, the build-up of debris caused a fire adding to the carnage. Hundreds of residents were stranded and hundreds of the dead were swept away, with some reaching as far as Cincinnati. 777 bodies were never identified, and a total of 2,208 deaths were linked to the dam breach. Around 1,600 homes were destroyed and 99 families completely wiped out. The cost was approximately $17 million in property damage, including 4 square miles of downtown Johnstown completely destroyed. The cleanup would go on for years, but essential services were quickly put back to work within a few days, including the railroad and parts of the steelworks, although the latter would only resume full operation some nearly 18 months later. Early rescue and cleanup efforts were hindered by the vast amounts of barbed wire amongst the debris, which cling to the ground and caused injuries to any would-be emergency worker. On 5 June, founder Clara Barton of the American Red Cross made it to the town, leading to the disaster becoming the organization's first major mission. The rescue and relief efforts would mean Barton would stay at Johnstown for five months. The disaster had the benefit of being the subject of a large number of photographs, which helped in raising funds for the town and its victims. But with such destruction and death left in its wake, the root cause had to be found, and if possible, discover who was responsible. Clearly, the cause of the torrent of water was the South Fork Dam, and its severely weakened reconstruction, but the conclusion of an investigation at the time hinted that even in its original fully functional state, the dam would have failed. Strangely, the report from the American Society of Civil Engineers went unpublished to the public for two years after their initial findings, for not wanting to be dragged into any potential litigation. The results essentially got the highly wealthy owners of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club off the hook of responsibility, but the public knew differently. The club never had to face any legal ramifications, being able to write off the event as an act of God. But in 2016, a re-evaluation of the disaster proved that the extensive and improper modification to the dam was the root cause of it failing, although this is long after those responsible could have been given their legal just desserts. Although legally dodging the liability, many of the club's members did pay significant amounts to Johnstown, including club co-founder Henry Clay Frick and millionaires like Andrew Carnegie. Although the victims of the accident didn't feel like they received justice, the event became etched into the country's culture, leaving a legacy for more than 100 years. This is a plain difficult production. All videos are produced by me, John, in a currently wet and windy suburban southeast corner of London, UK. All videos on the channel are Creative Commons Attribution Share and Like Licensed. Help the channel grow by liking, commenting and subscribing. Check out my Twitter for all sorts of photos and onto the sods, as well as hints on future videos. I've got Patreon and YouTube membership as well, so if you fancy supporting the channel financially, you can check them out. And all that's left to say is thank you for watching.