johnstown Flood by Rob Suzuki HOUGHTON MIFFLIN HarcOUrt

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1 e johnstown Flood by Rob Suzuki HOUGHTON MIFFLIN HarcOUrt

2 The johnstown FLOOD by Rob Suzuki ILLUSTRATION CREDITS: 3, 4, 7, 9 Stephen Snider PHOTOGRAPHY CREDITS: Cover World History Archive/Alamy Images; 1 (t) Bettmann/Corbis; Blind (inset) maxstock/ Alamy Images; 2 maxstock/alamy Images; 5 (t) The Print Collector/Alamy Images; 6 (b) ClassicStock/Alamy Images; 8 (t) Bettmann/Corbis; 10 (c) Ilene MacDonald/Alamy Images; 11 (t) Niday Picture Library/Alamy Images; 12 (t) ClassicStock/Alamy Images; 13 (b) Corbis; 14 (b) H. Mark Weidman Photography/Alamy Images All other photos Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishers Copyright by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner unless such copying is expressly permitted by federal copyright law. Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work should be addressed to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, Attn: Contracts, Copyrights, and Licensing, 9400 South Park Center Loop, Orlando, Florida Printed in the U.S.A. ISBN: XXXX A B C D E F G If you have received these materials as examination copies free of charge, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company retains title to the materials and they may not be resold. Resale of examination copies is strictly prohibited. Possession of this publication in print format does not entitle users to convert this publication, or any portion of it, into electronic format.

3 Table of Contents Trouble at the South Fork Dam The Dam Breaks Struggling to Survive Disaster Strikes the City The World Responds Glossary

4 Before the flood, Johnstown was a thriving city. On the afternoon of May 31, 1889, unrelenting rain had been falling on Johnstown, Pennsylvania for days. Water had already risen over the banks of the rivers and into the streets. Then it rose higher. People scrambled to move their belongings into the upper stories of their homes. They had long been used to the hazards of occasional flooding. But this time, things would be different. Victor Heiser was sixteen years old. He was working in his family s barn when he noticed his father, gesturing from the window of their nearby home. At his father s urging, Victor scrambled to the roof of the barn. From there he saw the most amazing sight of his life: a gigantic wall of water and debris. The wave carried trees, houses, and even train cars. In seconds, Victor would be riding on top of the wave. 3

5 Trouble at the South Fork Dam The disaster that struck Johnstown had started at the South Fork Dam, fourteen miles upstream from the city. Behind the dam was Lake Conemaugh. Lake Conemaugh was more than two miles long and sixty feet deep. It had become a popular recreation spot. Some of the richest businessmen in America owned vacation homes there. The South Fork Hunting and Fishing Club, whose members included steel baron Andrew Carnegie, was responsible for taking care of the dam. But the club didn t do a very good job. The dam was in very poor condition. Lake Conemaugh was a popular vacation spot for wealthy businessmen. For years, some people had proclaimed that the dam would break during the spring. That s when the winter snows melted and the lake s waters rose. But other people thought the prediction would never come true. Sadly, those people were wrong. The dam was about to fail. 4

6 A spillway lets a little water out to keep a dam from overflowing. Since earlier that morning, men had been working in an intense battle to save the dam. They had tried everything they could think of. They even tried to build the dam higher by putting loads of soil and stones on its rim, but that didn t work. The water was rising too fast. The leaks in the dam were growing larger. Many dams are built with an outlet called a spillway. If water rises too high, the spillway lets a little water out of the dam to stop it from overflowing. The spillway in the South Fork Dam was not large enough. As the lake kept rising, workers cut a second spillway in the dam. But the new spillway did not let water out fast enough. The lake kept rising. 5

7 The Dam Breaks By afternoon, the men had abandoned their work; it was simply too dangerous. People feared that the dam would give way any minute. Then, at a little after 3:00 p.m., it did. Water began flowing over the top of the dam, slowly eroding the earth at its rim. As the dam wore away, more water began to run over the top, and the speed of the erosion increased. Suddenly, people near the lake heard a roar as loud as thunder. Like a chainsaw cutting through butter, the waters of Lake Conemaugh ripped the dam to pieces, and millions of tons of water began pouring downstream. Below the dam were a string of tiny villages, then the city of Johnstown. Warnings had been sent out, but many people had ignored them. Most people had no idea what was about to hit them. 6 The South Fork Dam breaks apart.

8 Struggling to Survive A massive wall of water, thirty feet or more high, up to a half mile wide, and traveling up to 40 miles per hour, roared into the valley below. The luckiest people were those who lived on higher ground, or close to it. They ran uphill to a safe place and managed to survive. A few miles downstream, the wave slammed into the small town of Mineral Point. Before the wave hit, Mineral Point was a bustling community. After the wave had passed, the town no longer existed. After the flood, little remained of the town of Mineral Point. Nothing could stop the wave. It tore huge trees out by their roots, and washed away tons of soil from the valley floor. It reduced houses, barns, factories, and everything in them to a gigantic mass of debris. It even swept railroad cars off their tracks. 7

9 A bridge washes away in the flood. The flood swept up thousands of people, too. One of them was six-year-old Gertrude Quinn. Desperate to escape the destruction, she grabbed a bed mattress and rode it on top of the wave. She was terrified that at any moment she would be pulled under and drown. As Gertrude clung fiercely to her makeshift lifeboat, she watched in awe as a group of about twenty people floated alongside. They rode the flood on top of the roof of a destroyed house. Gertrude called out for help, but the people could not reach far enough to grab her. Suddenly, one brave man dove into the churning flood, and swam toward Gertrude. Pulled under water again and again, he eventually reached her. With a mighty effort, he managed to throw her to shore. More than 40 years later, Gertrude told this story in a book she wrote about the flood. 8

10 Many other people became heroes on that day. One was a railroad engineer named John Hess. Hess was at the local railroad yard when he heard the roar of the flood coming. Instead of running to higher ground, he risked his life to save others. Hess raced down the valley in his train toward the village of Woodvale, blowing the train whistle in warning. Woodvale was completely destroyed, but Hess s warning saved many lives. One of the people John Hess saved was six-year-old Elsie Frum. When her father heard the whistle, he grabbed Elsie and her sisters, and called out to his wife. The family ran to a nearby hillside, and escaped the wave of water and debris by only seconds. Elsie would live to be 108 years old the oldest survivor of what locals called the Great Flood of Little remained of Woodvale after the flood. 9

11 Disaster Strikes the City The flood surged into the city of Johnstown at 4:07 p.m. The main wave hit an area of the city s downtown about four square miles in size. The debris carried by the flood only made matters worse. Trees acted like battering rams, slamming into houses, businesses, churches, and schools. Most people knew the flood was coming only when they heard the terrible roaring sound of the wave. They had only seconds to flee for The flood destroyed huge their lives. parts of Johnstown. Those too far away to run for the hills climbed to the upper floors of buildings, desperately hoping their buildings would hold. When the flood wave hit, C.C. Ramsey and his family scrambled to the third floor of their home. Suddenly, a string of railroad cars crashed into the house, destroying the lower floors. Ramsay and his family floated downstream on the roof of their house, and managed to escape when the roof came to rest in a pile of debris. 10

12 A huge pile of debris was trapped by this stone bridge. After the wave swept through town, it roared down the valley carrying even more debris than it had before, including miles of barbed wire swept into the flood when a local wire factory was destroyed. Just below the town, a huge stone bridge crossed the valley. When the flood waters reached the bridge, debris piled up against it, forming a kind of dam. There, for the first time and only time, the flood was stopped. As the flood carried more debris down the river, it continued to pile up against the stone bridge. Inside the debris pile were many people who had survived the flood by clinging to anything that would float. But for these people, the terror had not yet ended. As they struggled to free themselves from the wreckage, part of it began to smolder, then burn. As the inferno grew, many of these people perished in the flames. 11

13 More than 2,000 people died in the Johnstown flood. When the floodwaters receded, they left behind unimaginable destruction. Whole neighborhoods had been reduced to rubble. Stores, schools, and factories had been destroyed. The streets were littered with everything from furniture and overturned automobiles to twisted heaps of lumber, dead animals, and railroad cars. Everything, outside as well as inside, was covered in a layer of oily, stinking mud. Worse yet was the impact on Johnstown s people. More than 2,000 people had died in the flood. It would take months to locate many of the dead; a number of the victims would never be found. The people who wandered the streets of their ruined town had no food, no drinkable water, and few medical supplies. But soon, help would be on the way. 12

14 The World Responds Newspapers reporters swarmed to the city. The papers they worked for carried the story of the Johnstown tragedy to readers around the globe. As powerful as the stories, were the photos that accompanied them. When people saw the photos, they responded with incredible generosity. Supplies of money, food, building materials, and medical supplies arrived by the wagonload. So did volunteers. Doctors, nurses, and other volunteers arrived by the hundreds. Among them was Clara Barton, leader of the American Red Cross, which had aided wounded soldiers during the Civil War. The Red Cross provided critical support in Johnstown s time of need. For Johnstown and its residents, there was still a lot People begin the difficult task of work to do. It would take of rebuilding Johnstown. years to rebuild the city and for the survivors to recover from the loss of friends and relatives. The Johnstown Flood was one of America s worst disasters ever. Like those who perished in its rushing waters, it would never be forgotten. 13

15 Glossary baron a very powerful businessperson debris the remains of anything broken down or destroyed erosion the process of being worn away by water or wind makeshift something used as a substitute for the real thing spillway a passageway to carry excess water from a lake or reservoir The rebuilt Johnstown as it looks today 14

16 Responding TARGET SKILL Sequence of Events Think about the events that describe how the South Fork Dam breaks. Copy the chart below. Then list the events that tell what happens. Add more boxes as needed. Water rises in the lake behind the dam. Water starts to leak.? Write About It Text to World Imagine that you were a witness to the destruction caused by the Johnstown Flood. Write a one-paragraph letter to a friend describing what you saw. 15

17 TARGET VOCABULARY alleviate ambled flared hazards intense ornately proclaimed smolder stifling unrelenting TARGET SKILL Sequence of Events Identify the time order in which events take place. TARGET STRATEGY Summarize Briefly tell the important parts of the text in your own words. GENRE Literary Nonfiction gives factual information by telling a true story. Write About It In a famous quotation, Aung San Suu Kyi said, Please use your freedom to promote ours. What freedoms do you value most? Why? Write a letter to the editor of a Burmese newspaper explaining the freedoms you have and why they are important to you. 16

18 Level: T DRA: 44 Genre: Literary Nonfiction Strategy: Summarize Skill: Sequence of Events Word Count: 1, Houghton Mifflin Online Leveled Books