Talk:Johnstown Flood
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[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)
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- 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.
There are at least three totally different values given in this article for the amount of water in the lake: 20 million tons, 20 million gallons, and 20,000 gallons. I'm pretty sure 20,000 gallons is incorrect, but someone needs to fix this error. —Bkell (talk) 02:53, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
- Even 20 million gallons seems too low. That's only 61 acre-feet. -- Coneslayer 19:44, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
A New York Times article [3] says that the lake is "eight miles long and three miles wide." It sounds like this might be the source of one of the conflicting numbers referenced by the park ranger above. Jpp42 11:58, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
whatever the lake size 20 million tons of water is 20 million cubic meters (not 18.1 million) - get with the metric system ! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.20.123.200 (talk) 12:18, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Not really a natural disaster
In a sense, any disaster is natural, since it relies on the laws of nature (for example, 9/11 couldn't have happened without such phenomena as gravity and combustion). But outside this tortured definition, the Johnstown Flood can't be considered a natural disaster. It was engineering malpractice, pure and simple. An artificial reservior with an elaborate control system was built high in the mountains. Then the control system was removed but the reservoir was retained. It was then only a matter of time until a period of heavy-enough rainfall came to overtop the earthen dam. Nature controlled only the timing of the disaster.
The "natural disaster" angle seems to have been played up to deflect blame from the enormously powerful Pennsylvania Railroad. Now that it's no longer a threat to us, let's feel free to speak the truth.
Do you Wikipedians agree? If so, shouldn't this article be removed from the "natural disasters" category? Let's discuss.
- The Pennsylvania Railroad had sold the dam some time before the flood, so they didn't need protection. It isn't clear that the wealthy folks who owned property around the lake were aware of the dangers. And while it is easy to understand what went wrong after it happened, it wasn't that clear at the time. IMHO, the Johnstown Flood and the effects of Hurricane Katrina were both natural disasters, even though some engineering mistakes were made. They certainly weren't man-made disasters. -- wrp103 (Bill Pringle) (Talk) 22:11, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
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- It should be noted that at the time, there were was no fault found in the courts against the dam's owners, and it was declared an "Act of God" by the same court. It seems digging up that court ruling, if records still exist, might be interesting to get some real detail on this. But because of this ruling and apparently widespread popular reference, I think it's fair to leave it in the natural disasters category. Don't be overly revisionist just because attitudes on this type of thing might have changed in 2007 compared to 1889. Jpp42 12:02, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
