Johnstown Flood

flooding. The dyke was one of the biggest in America at a mile and three quarters long. Colt’s

It didn't take long for the South Fork dam to become so overwhelmed that it broke and dumped water onto the town causing the deaths of 2,200 people. This was not the first problem they had with the dam though; structural problems with the dam were not a new development. Only two years after the finishing of the dam 2 leaks were discovered before the dam was even put into its full usage. They were forced to empty the dam so they could repair it. The dam suffered a major break on June 10, 1862, when the up-stream portion of the stone culvert running under the dam collapsed (Haddock, Vikki). There was little damage to property downstream, but a large section of the dam over the damaged portion of the culvert collapsed and was washed away. They dam was then closed and left with the large gap in it because of financial reasons until 1875 when the Pennsylvania Railroad sold the dam and also 500 acres to Benjamin Ruff who wanted to turn the area into a summer resort. Ruff's plan was to fill in the gap left in the dam and allow the lake behind it to refill to make a resort and the remaining water would run-off he had decided to sell the valves used to control the run-off for scrap metal (Johannson, Shelley). Ruff had hired a man to fill the gap who had some experience building railway embankments but no experience with dams. The plan was to add a double thickness of hemlock pilings was placed across

In the turn of the new century, the people of Galveston were faced with a grim reminder. The event that destroyed the small island of Galveston, the Galveston Hurricane, had many social, political, and economic impacts that made this storm life-changing. The Galveston Hurricane of 1900 improved Texas for the better and helped Galveston grow stronger as a city.

In 1973, the James Bay Project was initiated, which indicated the damming of many rivers and flooding the surrounding areas. Since then, it became progressively under the review of the community, internationally.

However, the dams were of faulty construction. Dam number one which caused the flooding was constructed of coarse mining refuse that Pittston had dumped into the Middle Fork of Buffalo Creek starting in 1968. This dam failed first on the heels of heavy rains. The water from Dam number three then took out dams number two and then number one. Dam number three had simply

The Johnstown Flood was a catastrophe that occurred in Western Pennsylvania on May 13st of 1889. The flood occurred when a dam on the Little Conemaugh River, South Fork Dam, failed to support heavy rainfall flow that caused the river to swell and the dam to be overloaded. Unfortunately, a short fourteen miles down the river lived the people of Johnstown. Johnstown was a prosperous yet modest western Pennsylvania town. The town had an iron company called Cambria Iron Company, which employed most of its men in producing steel products. The town, at the time, had a few phones, three local newspapers, and a handful of saloons. At the time, they were self-sufficient.

The Buffalo Creek flood of West Virginia is believed to be the most devastating coal relate disaster in West Virginia history. The flood occurred in the Buffalo Creek area of Logan County on February 26, 1972 when three dams broke and released 132 million gallons of water and coal waste known by miners as “gob,” and is a thick sludge-like material. The gob contains many toxic chemicals and pollutants such as mercury and arsenic that are left behind from the coal mining process. The wastewater would lie in settling ponds and dams until it could be properly disposed of. The water that was left over from processing coal would be disposed of in two different ways. Some of the water would be pumped from the dam back to the “tipple”, otherwise

The effects of the Buffalo Creek were massive. Most of the homes were damaged and demolished. There was millions in property damage to be paid. Approximately 500 houses and 40 mobile homes were completely wiped away by the flood and about 950 houses and mobile homes were damaged. The whole area was like one big pool, the water washing the homes down shore. Property damage totaled to an estimate of $50 million. It was almost like one side of the houses of the creek were more safe, as the water rushed down stream it would wash away the houses on the right side of the creek as the creek curved to the left, it would then take the houses on the left side further down when the next curve was to the right. The cleaning up process of this disaster took a very long time, since there was so much debris from the homes and cars it made it a lot more tedious work. It can only be imagined how much this disaster effected the people of this community. Approximately 120 people died, among those were 3 babies, over 4,000 were to be homeless, and 7 people were to never be found. Not only did this flood affect people physically, but also mental, psychologically, and finically. Local schools had been opened up as a center for people with no homes, also people were put into mobile homes. What was not put into consideration was their former neighborhood. People that they have been living

When a huge storm caused the Missouri River to overflow in 1993, its water swept through Hardin. Water swept through Hardin,destroying homes and other buildings. Then something terrible happened that the town would never be the same: the dead rose up from the cemetery. It destroyed homes and buildings, and unearthing nearly 600 coffins from the local cemetery. As storm after storm pummeled the Midwestern United States, rivers began to overflow their banks. Throughout the summer, floodwater destroyed homes and businesses, and roads and bridges were washed away. The flooding didn’t and unit fall, and by then, more 20 million acres of land. Fifty people had died, and 55,000 homes were damaged or destroyed.

(Erikson p. 25) The Buffalo Coal Company decided to stack this waste at the top of the mountains which after a while created a dam. This "sludge water" was dumped in nearby lakes which they stopped because this water would end up in the streams that lead to the town. They then disposed of the water behind the dam which held up to over 130 million gallons of waste. There was a non-stop rain plaguing this area throughout the whole month of February. This rain continued to fill this dam, and on February 26, 1972 that dam collapsed causing this valley to fill with slag water. Residents explained hearing explosions and it feeling like an earthquake as the flood began. In only a few hours most of Buffalo Creek had been washed away into the Guyandotte River. After most of the water left the scene could be described as something out of a war movie; wreckage, bodies lying everywhere. The Buffalo Creek government creates aid for survivors of this disaster by offering trailer homes and other relief processes. The book has a lot of witness accounts what it was like actually going through this. I found out that The Environmental Protection Agency was enacted in 1970 and by this time the Buffalo Mining Company had already been dumping their sludge and waste water

The American Red Cross team had 50 volunteers to help lead by Clara Barton. It was a major diester it overflowed all the dams and got into people’s house and destoryed their values. May 31st it was already flooding

The Johnstown Flood of 1889 was a terrible natural disaster. Sixty miles east of Pittsburgh in a valley near the Stony Creek, Alleghany, and Little Conemaugh rivers is where Johnstown is located. It all started on May 28, 1889 when a storm appeared over Nebraska and Kansas. The storm headed east and struck the Johnstown-South Fork area only two days later. The storm caused the worst downpour in this area with six to ten inches of rain in just twenty- four hours. The downpour caused trees to fall and rail lines to wash away. Elias Unger who was the president of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting club woke up to find the water in Lake Conemaugh swollen after the storm. The South Fork Dam was built to hold back the water in Lake Conemaugh. This

“Johnstown flood” is a short story written by David McCullough. This story talks about the miraculous survival of a little girl named Gertrude. Gertrude’s sheer luck got her up the hill safely. Of course, with the help of several people she met along the way. I think that this is an extraordinary act of how worked together and some people put his/her life at risk to save a small child that they didn’t even knew. I fell that this is a great example of how human beings come together in times of need and extreme danger and in the way that we try to protect ourselves from disaster.

A flood can be defined in many depths but is simply water where it isn’t wanted. In late 2010 Queensland was affected by major flash flooding this continued on into the beginning of 2011 and ¾ of Queensland was declared a disaster zone.

Page 8: I remember there was a terrible flood in Mississippi in the year of 1927 that left 1.5 million people homeless. There were also over 120,000 homes destroyed.