The Johnstown Flood

In the early morning hours of June 1, the town has been hushed to an eerie and uncommon calm. All the noise of normal town life has disappeared because all of Johnstown has been destroyed. The flood wiped out every single bridge on the river except for the massive stone bridge, which was now part of the foundation of a massive, blazing heap of debris, flotsam, and corpses that had been washed up against it in the deluge.

Two-thirds of all homes were destroyed, as well as a whole host of telephone poles, “giant chunks of machinery, trees with all their bark shredded off, dead horses and pieces of dead horses” (202). With the amount of wreckage and devastation, a good portion of the populace can be forgiven for thinking they were in the midst of “Judgment Day” (202). As soon as the sun came up, various rescue parties began to form, while the whole valley was littered with the bodies of those who had not been fortunate to survive the initial onslaught of water or the travails of the night. In addition, new problems began to surface; many people were simply too stunned to act, and everyone, regardless of condition, had begun to be uncomfortably hungry.