Talk:Johnstown Flood

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An event mentioned in this article is a May 31 selected anniversary

[edit] Break

How did the dam break? What crucial part of the dam gave way to allow it to collapse?

Read DAVID McCULLOUGH's book The Johnstown Flood (1968) or watch the pbs documentary [1]

It was a combination of factors which led to the disaster. Although well-engineered originally, the dam had broken once years earlier, had been rebuilt to lesser standards, and had been poorly maintained for many years. The top was lowered to build a roadway across it, and leaks on the downhill side were patched with mud, brush and scrap wood rather than stone. To make matters worse, additionally, its planned method of draining excess water through the spillway had been greatly reduced by fish screens, so there was no practical way to lower the level to work on it.

In that weakened condition, with inadequate ability to reduce water level, the dam and the small crew tending to it were faced with holding back the torrential rainfall over several days which basically swamped the dam near its center by going over the top, causing a massive washout of the center section. The lake was several miles long, and held something like 20 million tons of water. It is hard to visualize without seeing the terrain. After reading about it and seeing photos for years, I eventually got there, and only then could I appreciate how much water must have been involved. The lake is still drained, but you can see where it was. Awesome. Hope this answers your question. Mark in Richmond. Vaoverland 12:22, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Possible plagiarism in this article

At least one sentence in this article seems to be very similar to another article which can be found at this website[2].

From this article: "With a population of 30,000, it was a growing industrial community known for the quality of its steel." From the johnstownpa.com article: "With a population of 30,000, it was a growing and industrious community known for the quality of its steel."

[edit] What was the size of the lake?

In the article, there are two sizes mentioned.

In the section "South Fork Dam and Lake Conemaugh", it states "The lake was about two miles (3 km) long", which agrees with the article South Fork Dam article.

In the section "The Great Flood of 1889", it states: "allowing the water of the 3-mile- (5 km) long Lake Conemaugh".

I will try to find my McCullough book and check it. Does anyone else know? wrp103 (Bill Pringle) 15:16, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I have the same book, but not handy. One thought is that just prior to the flood, the lake was unusually high. I wonder if it was normally about 2 miles long, but had increased to about 3 miles with the higher water level. -- Coneslayer 15:32, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

In 2005, the National Park Service conducted a volume study for the South Fork Dam and Conemaugh Lake as it was in the 1880s. As a result of this GIS study, it was determined that in the "high water area", the lake had a perimeter of 6.404993 miles, and a high water volume of 14,017,749.03 tons. (This was done becuase there have been conflicting numbers about the lake for many, many years, and we wanted to use technology to try to estimate an actual size.) I hope this helps. Doug Richardson, Park Ranger, Johnstown Flood National Memorial. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 165.83.123.131 (talk • contribs) 21:03, 8 March 2007.