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Johnstown is the largest city in Cambria County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 18,411 as of the 2020 census. Located 57 miles (92 km) east of Pittsburgh, it is the principal city of the Johnstown metropolitan area, which includes Cambria County and had 133,472 residents in 2020. It is also part of the Johnstown–Somerset combined statistical area, which includes both Cambria and Somerset Counties.
Henry Clay Frick was an American industrialist, financier, and art patron. He founded the H. C. Frick & Company coke manufacturing company, was chairman of the Carnegie Steel Company and played a major role in the formation of the giant U.S. Steel manufacturing concern. He had extensive real estate holdings in Pittsburgh and throughout the state of Pennsylvania. He later built the historic Neoclassical Frick Mansion, and upon his death donated his extensive collection of old master paintings and fine furniture to create the celebrated Frick Collection and art museum. However, as a founding member of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, he was also in large part responsible for the alterations to the South Fork Dam that caused its failure, leading to the catastrophic Johnstown Flood. His vehement opposition to unions also caused violent conflict, most notably in the Homestead Strike.
The Johnstown Flood, sometimes referred to locally as Great Flood of 1889, occurred on Friday, May 31, 1889, after the catastrophic failure of the South Fork Dam, located on the south fork of the Little Conemaugh River, 14 miles (23 km) upstream of the town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, United States. The dam ruptured after several days of extremely heavy rainfall, releasing 14.55 million cubic meters of water. With a volumetric flow rate that temporarily equaled the average flow rate of the Mississippi River, the flood killed 2,208 people and accounted for US$17,000,000 in damage.
The Johnstown Flood National Memorial is a unit of the United States National Park Service. Established in 1964 through legislation signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson, it pays tribute to the thousands of victims of the Johnstown Flood, who were injured or killed on May 31, 1889 when the South Fork Dam ruptured.
The South Fork Dam was an earthenwork dam forming Lake Conemaugh, an artificial body of water near South Fork, Pennsylvania, United States. On May 31, 1889, the South Fork Dam failed catastrophically and 20 million tons of water from Lake Conemaugh burst through and raced 14 miles (23 km) downstream, causing the Johnstown Flood.
Livermore, Pennsylvania is an abandoned town that was located on the Conemaugh River between Blairsville and Saltsburg in Derry Township, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. The town was abandoned and partially razed in the early 1950s following authorization by the Flood Control Act of 1936 and Flood Control Act of 1938 for construction of the Conemaugh Dam and Lake to prevent flooding of Pittsburgh. Much of the former town site now lies under the reservoir and floodplains.
The South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club was a Pennsylvania corporation that operated an exclusive and secretive retreat at a mountain lake near South Fork, Pennsylvania, for more than 50 extremely wealthy men and their families.
Floods in the United States are generally caused by excessive rainfall, excessive snowmelt, and dam failure. Below is a list of flood events that were of significant impact to the country during the 20th century, from 1900 through 1999, inclusive.
The Cambria Iron Company of Johnstown, Pennsylvania was a major 19th-century industrial producer of iron and steel founded in 1852. The company had the nation's largest steel foundry in the 1870s and was renamed the Cambria Steel Company in 1898. The company used many innovations in the steelmaking process, including those of William Kelly and Henry Bessemer. The company was acquired in 1923 by the Bethlehem Steel Company. The company's historic facilities, extending some 12 miles (19 km) along the Conemaugh and Little Conemaugh Rivers, are a National Historic Landmark District.
Floods in the United States (2000–present) is a list of flood events which were of significant impact to the country during the 21st century, since 2000. Floods are generally caused by excessive rainfall, excessive snowmelt, storm surge from hurricanes, and dam failure.
The 2007 Midwest flooding was a major flooding event that occurred in the Midwestern United States in the third week of August 2007. While Hurricane Dean was affecting the Yucatán Peninsula and the Gulf of Mexico, and Tropical Storm Erin was affecting Oklahoma and Texas, a persistent storm system hung over the Midwest for several days, causing repeated flash flooding in the US states of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Cool Canadian air clashed with large quantities of warm moist air from the Gulf, producing torrential rains along a stationary front. 5 deaths across the central United States were attributed to the resulting flooding. Seven Minnesota counties, eight Ohio counties, fourteen counties in Wisconsin, and seven counties in Illinois were declared Federal Disaster Areas.
The 1893 Brisbane flood, occasionally referred to as the Great Flood of 1893 or the Black February flood, occurred in 1893 in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. The Brisbane River burst its banks on three occasions in February 1893. It was the occurrence of three major floods in the same month that saw the period named "Black February". There was also a fourth flood later in the same year in June. The river runs through the centre of Brisbane with much of the population living in areas beside the river. It first flooded on February 6 due to a deluge associated with a tropical cyclone, called "Buninyong".
The Great Flood of 1862 was the largest flood in the recorded history of California, Oregon, and Nevada, inundating the western United States and portions of British Columbia and Mexico. It was preceded by weeks of continuous rains and snows that began in Oregon in November 1861 and continued into January 1862. This was followed by a record amount of rain from January 9–12, and contributed to a flood that extended from the Columbia River southward in western Oregon, and through California to San Diego, and extended as far inland as Idaho in the Washington Territory, Nevada and Utah in the Utah Territory, and Arizona in the western New Mexico Territory. The event dumped an equivalent of 10 feet (3.0 m) of water in California, in the form of rain and snow, over a period of 43 days. Immense snowfalls in the mountains of far western North America caused more flooding in Idaho, Arizona, New Mexico, as well as in Baja California and Sonora, Mexico the following spring and summer, as the snow melted.
The Inclined Plane Bridge is a 237-foot (72 m), Pennsylvania through truss bridge that spans Stonycreek River in Johnstown, Cambria County, in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. It connects the city to the lower station of the Johnstown Inclined Plane. The bridge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988 and was documented by the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) in 1997.
The Great Flood of 1913 occurred between March 23 and March 26, after major rivers in the central and eastern United States flooded from runoff and several days of heavy rain. Related deaths and damage in the United States were widespread and extensive. While the exact number is not certain, flood-related deaths in Ohio, Indiana, and eleven other states are estimated at approximately 650. The official death toll range for Ohio falls between 422 and 470. Flood-related death estimates in Indiana range from 100 to 200. More than a quarter million people were left homeless. The death toll from the flood of 1913 places it second to the Johnstown Flood of 1889 as one of the deadliest floods in the United States. The flood remains Ohio's largest weather disaster. In the Midwestern United States, damage estimates exceeded a third of a billion dollars. Damage from the Great Dayton Flood at Dayton, Ohio, exceeded $73 million. Indiana’s damages were estimated at $25 million. Further south, along the Mississippi River, damages exceeded $200 million. Devastation from the flood of 1913 and later floods along the Mississippi River eventually changed the country's management of its waterways and increased federal support for comprehensive flood prevention and funding for flood control projects. The Ohio Conservancy Act, which was signed by the governor of Ohio in 1914, became a model for other states to follow. The act allowed for the establishment of conservancy districts with the authority to implement flood control projects.
The Johnstown flood of 1977 was a major flood which began on the night of July 19, 1977, when heavy rainfall caused widespread flash flooding in Cambria County, Pennsylvania, United States, including the city of Johnstown and the Conemaugh Valley.
Victor Heiser was born Victor George Heiser in Johnstown, Cambria County, Pennsylvania. He was an American physician and author. He was a survivor of the Johnstown flood of 1889.
On March 17 and 18, 1936, the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, witnessed the worst flood in its history when flood levels peaked at 46 feet (14 m). This flood became known as The Great St. Patrick’s Day flood, and also affected other areas of the Mid-Atlantic on both sides of the Eastern Continental Divide.
The 1936 Northeastern United States flood was a historic flood that occurred across the Northeastern United States, as well as the Mid-Atlantic region and Ohio, in March 1936. Record-setting flooding after a combination of a particularly precipitation-heavy winter and large amounts of rainfall in March caused severe damage across the region.
References
- ↑ NOAA:1936 damages, Retrieved 2016-01-09
- ↑ Johnstown Flood Museum- Retrieved 2016-01-10
- ↑ The Floods of Johnstown p. 21-27- Retrieved 2016-01-09
- ↑ Johnstown flood levels (1936) p. 4- Retrieved 2016-01-09
- ↑ 47 years later ......another disaster.- Retrieved 2016-01-09
- ↑ The Killer Flood of March 17, 1936- Retrieved 2016-01-10
- ↑ USGS report: The floods of March 1936, part 1, New England rivers- Retrieved 2016-01-10
- ↑ unsigned, WFMZ-TV 69 News, September 26, 2011. "Pa. lawmaker: Use 'flood tax' on liquor for disasters". Accessed April 24, 2019.
- 1 2 Shannon, Joel. York Daily Record, April 12, 2017, "Pa.'s 18% hidden tax was supposed to be temporary ... In 1936".
- ↑ Farabaugh, Patrick (2021). Disastrous floods and the demise of steel in Johnstown. Richard Burkert. Charleston, SC. ISBN 978-1-4671-5001-9. OCLC 1260340723.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ↑ Adventures in Flood Control: The Johnstown, Pennsylvania Story p. 4-9 -Retrieved 2016-01-10