0:08

I'm Mike Corey and this is

0:10

Against the Odds. We've

0:22

been telling you about the story of

0:24

the Johnstown flood which destroyed the city

0:26

of Johnstown, Pennsylvania on May 31st, 1889.

0:30

Now imagine what it would have been like

0:33

to work as a telegraph operator for the

0:35

Pennsylvania Railroad that day. You get

0:37

notice of a potential disaster at the nearby

0:39

South Fork Dam. There's concern

0:41

about causing panic and there have

0:43

been false alarms before. But

0:46

you relay the message anyway. My

0:48

guest today is Doug Bosley. He's

0:51

a park ranger at the Johnstown

0:53

flood National Memorial and

0:55

that telegraph operator was

0:58

Doug's great-great grandfather. Our

1:00

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apply. Doug

2:37

Bosley welcome to Against the Odds. Happy to

2:39

be here thank you Mike. So

2:42

Doug you live in Johnstown right? Yes

2:44

I do I was born and raised

2:46

in Johnstown Pennsylvania. Born and raised. I

2:48

would love if we could paint the

2:50

picture for our listeners about the geography

2:52

of the town. Where is it located

2:55

and why is this significant in our

2:57

story? Johnstown Pennsylvania sits

2:59

basically in the bottom of

3:01

a bowl in the

3:03

middle of the Allegheny Mountains and

3:07

system of streams and rivers has

3:09

eroded the landscape over tens of

3:11

thousands of years and

3:14

two rivers come together down in the

3:16

center of Johnstown Pennsylvania the Stony Creek

3:18

River and the Little Conewa River to

3:21

form the Conewa River pretty

3:23

much every drop of rain that falls

3:25

in the area eventually ends up at

3:27

the bottom of that bowl where Johnstown

3:29

is and it's always been prone to flooding

3:31

because of that. So then the nature of

3:33

a valley is that it funnels water down

3:36

into the base like you said it's almost

3:38

like a bowl. So there was the

3:40

big flood in 1889 but there's been many

3:43

other floods since then can you give us a bit of

3:45

a rundown of how often Johnstown

3:48

has flooded quite a bit over the years the

3:50

three major floods 89 1936 1977 but there were

3:52

many smaller floods just because of Johnstown's location

3:58

and everything built right next to

4:01

the rivers, most of the people living

4:03

right next to the rivers, most of the property

4:05

development right next to the rivers. Every

4:08

drop of water that falls in the area

4:10

eventually makes its way to the bottom of

4:12

that bowl where the main part of Johnstown

4:14

is located. It's caused quite a bit of

4:16

a mess over the years. Yeah, especially

4:18

in 1889 when there was the

4:20

big flood that we told

4:22

in the podcast. Can we paint the picture

4:25

of Johnstown? What was it like back in

4:27

1889? How

4:29

many people lived in Johnstown and the other towns

4:31

in the area? Johnstown had

4:33

around 30,000 residents,

4:35

including Johnstown itself and the smaller

4:38

towns and villages up and down

4:40

the valley. South

4:42

Fork, not too far from where the

4:44

flood started. Mineral Point downriver from that,

4:47

just a small railroad town. At

4:49

East Conama, a fairly large

4:52

railroad town. Woodvale, probably

4:54

one of Johnstown's nicest suburbs.

4:57

Most of the people in Johnstown worked

5:00

for the Cambria Iron Company, by far

5:02

the largest employer in the area. Pittsburgh

5:05

by then had overall become the largest

5:07

iron and steel maker in the country,

5:09

but the Cambria Iron Company was still

5:12

the largest single mill in the United

5:14

States. Johnstown pretty much

5:16

lived and died with the Cambria Iron

5:18

Company and those supporting industries including the

5:20

railroad, coal mines,

5:22

or associated businesses. Between

5:26

the boat, what, like 14 miles above

5:28

the city of Johnstown, there was a

5:30

dam. Can you

5:32

explain why that was there? Yes,

5:34

14 miles away from Johnstown, the

5:36

South Fork Dam. The

5:39

South Fork Dam was originally built as

5:41

part of the Pennsylvania Canal System

5:44

between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. The

5:47

state of Pennsylvania built this system, built the

5:49

South Fork Dam, and it was there to

5:51

supply extra water in the dry summers for

5:53

this canal system. Can you tell us

5:55

a bit about how the dam was built? The

5:57

South Fork Dam was an earthen dam, so it was

5:59

built. built of layers of earth

6:01

and rock, rock put

6:03

on the outside to prevent erosion. The

6:06

very bottom of the dam had five

6:08

large pipes originally and then the revolve

6:10

in those pipes that could be open

6:12

to let water out of the reservoir

6:14

behind the dam and then flow

6:17

down river and into the canal in Johnstown.

6:19

So it wasn't earth and dam, it did

6:21

have a spillway for excess water to go out

6:23

around the dam in case of an emergency, but

6:25

even from the very beginning that spillway

6:28

wasn't quite big enough to carry off the

6:30

water from a very large storm. One

6:33

interesting part of this whole story is that

6:35

this dam was purchased by the South Fork

6:37

Fishing and Hunting Club. It was owned by

6:39

some of the richest people around, right? It

6:42

was meant to serve the musks and the

6:44

bezos, these big-wig industrialists who had a ton

6:46

of money. They had purchased this dam and

6:49

the lake to build this club, correct?

6:51

That is correct. The canal went

6:53

out of business in the 1850s

6:56

and that dam and reservoir had

6:58

been pretty much abandoned, had actually broken

7:00

one time in 1862. So by the 1870s it was a broken

7:02

dam with a big

7:06

hole in the middle sitting there when the

7:08

South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club purchased the

7:10

entire property. They were this

7:12

group of wealthy Pittsburgh industrialists

7:14

mainly associated with the steel

7:16

industry and this particular group of

7:19

people, they were very interested in the

7:21

outdoors and they wanted their own private

7:23

resort where they could enjoy the outdoors.

7:26

The fishing, hunting, boating, and

7:28

they purchased that old broken dam and

7:30

made a few repairs to it so

7:32

that it could hold water again. Maybe

7:35

not the best engineered repairs, but they

7:37

did repair it so the lake would form once

7:39

again behind it which they called Lake Conama. And

7:41

I guess you can picture it, right? Because Cambria

7:44

Ironworks was there. Iron was shipped all

7:46

across the country building railroads. It was

7:48

a massive industry so there was a

7:50

lot of money and a lot of

7:52

people with money so why not take

7:54

this defunct dam, repair it, make a

7:56

beautiful lake, stock it with fish, and

7:58

make it this wilderness. this resort, you

8:00

know, a bit of a paradise, I

8:02

guess. The resort was very convenient to

8:04

Pittsburgh by train. It was only about

8:06

a 90 minute train ride. So it

8:09

was away from all of the

8:11

smoke and pollution in Pittsburgh, from all of the

8:13

steel mills, but still close enough that

8:15

they could come and go fairly quickly. Along

8:18

one shoreline of Lake Conama, about a

8:20

mile up the lake from the dam

8:23

was where most of the development was.

8:25

There was a large clubhouse building, which

8:27

was basically their hotel and strung

8:30

along the shoreline on either side of the

8:32

clubhouse. There ended up being 16 private

8:35

cottages built throughout the 1880s. And

8:38

sometimes people imagine them coming here because of

8:41

the people that they were. Andrew Carnegie, Henry

8:43

Clay Frick, Andrew Mellon, those types of

8:45

people, the, you know, the richest of

8:47

the rich that they were going there to conduct

8:49

business, but they were pretty much going there to

8:52

get away from all of that and enjoy the

8:54

outdoors. And when they purchased

8:56

that dam, like we mentioned, they had made

8:58

some changes and those changes actually played a

9:00

key role in what happened next. Can we

9:03

go over some specifics of what they did

9:05

to change the dam? Quite a

9:07

few changes had been made to the dam. One

9:10

of them was made right before they

9:12

took ownership. There was a, an

9:14

intervening owner of the property, a man named

9:16

John Riley, and those pipes that

9:19

I had mentioned earlier that were in the base of

9:21

the dam to allow water to be let out to

9:23

feed the canal. Those pipes

9:25

were quite a bit of cast iron and

9:27

that previous owner had those pipes removed and

9:29

sold for scrap. So those pipes had been

9:31

taken out not long before the club bought

9:34

the property in 1879. So

9:36

first mistake they made was that they didn't put the

9:39

pipes back in and they simply

9:41

just began filling the hole. And there was

9:43

no trained engineer involved with

9:45

the reconstruction of the dam with

9:47

the refilling of that hole. And

9:50

instead of being those carefully engineered packed

9:52

layers of earth and rock, how the

9:54

dam was originally built, the club pretty

9:57

much just dumped in dirt and

9:59

rock. and whatever else material they could find

10:01

to fill that giant hole. So that was

10:04

another mistake that the hole wasn't filled properly

10:06

and over time that material

10:08

that they dumped in there settled and created

10:10

a dip in the center of the dam. Yeah,

10:13

I guess it's just like a dam's a dam,

10:15

pile some stuff up, it'll stop the water, but

10:17

without really much foresight as to what

10:19

could happen. Just fill the hole back up and they

10:21

didn't put too much thought into that. And

10:23

you have direct connection to the

10:26

event as we mentioned in the introduction. So

10:29

it was your great-great-grandfather that

10:31

was a telegraph operator at

10:33

Mineral Point. Yeah, my great-great-grandfather

10:35

William H. Pickle worked for the

10:37

Pennsylvania Railroad in Mineral Point. He

10:40

was born in Illinois and

10:42

as a young man, he went to school to learn

10:46

telegraphy and become a

10:48

railroad telegraphor and he got a job

10:50

with the Pennsylvania Railroad in the mid-1870s

10:52

as a telegraph

10:54

operator and ended up

10:56

spending most of his career from the

10:58

1870s to around 1920 in

11:02

Mineral Point at that particular

11:04

telegraph office. Seen maybe

11:06

a half dozen photographs of him. All but

11:08

one are from when he was older, probably

11:10

in his 50s, 60s, 70s. He

11:14

did have fairly dark hair and then some of

11:16

them it is getting quite

11:18

gray. He always looks very serious.

11:21

How much did he think about the flood? It's

11:23

almost in his eyes when you look at these

11:25

photos that that was never

11:28

far from his mind in the years after

11:30

the flood. I see that when I look

11:32

at photographs of him that he's almost always

11:34

thinking about it. Telegraphers,

11:36

not a word you hear very

11:38

often these days. Can we just

11:40

refresh my memory and our listeners

11:42

memory? What exactly a telegraph operator

11:44

would do back then? For

11:47

the railroad, it's the electric

11:49

telegraph. They are using an

11:51

electrical system and

11:54

then the telegraph key that you're using

11:56

your hand or fingers to tap out

11:58

Morse code. send

12:00

messages and where the

12:02

railroad was concerned their main reason for sending

12:04

the messages was the control of trains on

12:06

the railroad tracks so they didn't run into

12:09

each other. And so

12:11

they'd be there with a singular button and then hearing

12:14

the beeps back and then trying to

12:17

translate that as quickly as possible so

12:19

trains don't collide basically. Correct. They would

12:21

control the railroad signal that

12:23

was right next to that particular telegraph office

12:25

and whether it was you know to stop

12:27

the train or let the train go let

12:30

the train reduce speed working

12:33

for the Pennsylvania Railroad like that they would

12:35

have been mainly concerned with railroad business. And

12:38

did your great great grandfather describe or do

12:40

you know what it was like the morning

12:42

of the flood? In July

12:44

of 1889 the Pennsylvania Railroad who

12:46

had quite a few employees involved

12:48

one way or another in the

12:50

flood that day the

12:53

railroad interviewed all of their employees that

12:55

were associated with the flood including my

12:57

great great grandfather and he had

12:59

reported coming on duty around 7 a.m.

13:01

that it had been raining all night

13:04

it was still raining fairly hard that

13:06

morning the railroad tracks and the telegraph

13:08

office in Mineral Point were right next

13:10

to the Little Conama River and

13:13

he said that the water was about bank full

13:15

so it was pretty close to overflowing the river

13:17

just from the rainstorm so the flood

13:20

had already started even before the South

13:22

Fork Dam broke. I'm

13:24

speaking with Park Ranger Doug Bosley

13:27

about the 1889 Johnstown

13:29

flood. We'll take a quick break and

13:31

then we'll talk about what happened when

13:33

the dam broke. We

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shopify.com slash the odds. I

15:51

had seen there was an uncommon event that

15:53

happened where there was a storm coming from

15:55

the south and a storm coming from the

15:57

north and they kind of collided and paused

15:59

together, an excessive amount of rainfall

16:02

in that area during that time. When did the

16:04

people at South Fork Dam realize that they had

16:06

a problem? They realized they

16:08

had a problem fairly early that morning

16:10

of May 31st. The

16:13

club's president, a man named Elias

16:15

Unger, was on site. Along

16:17

with the club's resident engineer, they had been making

16:19

some improvements to the property, so they had an

16:22

engineer on site. They didn't have an engineer when

16:24

they were rebuilding the dam, but they had an

16:27

engineer on site that day working

16:29

on this project. But when everybody

16:31

had woken up that morning and

16:33

they knew it had rained all night, some people said it

16:35

was raining so hard it woke them up in the middle

16:37

of the night. So the first

16:39

thing everybody did was take a look at the lake. They

16:42

said about how full the lake was and

16:45

they had never seen the water that high before. So

16:49

they started looking into it more and quickly

16:51

discovered that the water was very quickly inching

16:53

up the face of the dam and if

16:56

it didn't stop raining or if something wasn't

16:58

done, they were worried very early on

17:00

that the water could run over the top of the

17:02

dam. And it was something like six

17:04

or eight inches of rain overnight or something, right?

17:06

Yes, six to eight inches. It depended on where

17:08

you were in the area. Some

17:11

places a little bit less than that, some a little bit

17:13

more than that. Right around the area

17:15

of the club, it was around eight inches

17:17

of rain near the South Fork Dam. Yeah,

17:20

which is incredible, all funneled down into the

17:22

valley. If you get an inch of rain

17:24

or two inches, that can cause at least

17:26

some minor flooding. So yeah, imagine what six

17:29

or eight inches of rain will do. I think we

17:31

know. And

17:33

this is the time before cell phones and

17:35

social media. So back in that time, there

17:37

was the telegraph like we spoke about, but

17:39

how did word get around about there could

17:41

be a problem? It wasn't going to be

17:44

easy. 14 miles from the

17:46

dam to the nearest population center of

17:48

Johnstown. There were telephones

17:50

in the area in 1889, the clubhouse, the

17:52

club's hotel actually had a telephone, but it

17:54

wasn't hooked up yet for the season. They

17:57

only used it during the busy summer season.

18:00

It only rang as far as the train station

18:02

in the town of South Fork, which was two

18:04

miles away Basically to communicate

18:07

back and forth when club members were coming and

18:09

going from the train station to the club So

18:11

they needed to get to South Fork the town

18:14

of South Fork two miles away to the train

18:16

station there Where there was

18:18

a telegraph office and once

18:20

you have the telegraph involved. It's pretty much Instantaneous

18:23

communication with wherever you want to send

18:25

that message So that was the plan

18:28

when things were looking really bad Around

18:31

lunchtime around noon on May 31st

18:34

the club had decided they need to warn The

18:36

people down the valley especially as far as Johnstown

18:39

because of the the water was pretty much ready

18:41

to run over the top Of the dam around

18:43

12 o'clock and did your

18:45

great-great-grandfather have a role in warning

18:47

people? Yes He was involved in

18:49

the process that day between South Fork and

18:52

then his was the next office down River

18:54

or down the railroad in mineral point a

18:56

few miles away. And so

18:58

mr. Pickle was in the middle helped

19:01

craft one of the messages and was

19:03

also a little more heavily involved because

19:06

there were problems with the Telegraph system

19:08

that day because of the storm and

19:10

the electricity was cutting out Whether

19:13

it was a short in the wires or

19:15

something like that So it wasn't always functioning

19:17

west of his office towards Johnstown and two

19:19

of three messages that were sent that day

19:22

had to be carried on foot for part of the

19:24

journey of that message because the Telegraph

19:27

didn't have an open line the whole way to

19:29

Johnstown by the time of the third message things

19:31

had sort of corrected themselves And

19:33

there was a full telegraph

19:35

connection between South Fork and Johnstown, but

19:37

only for that third message Man

19:40

now it's just a tweet. It's crazy to

19:42

think how fast we've come to the point

19:44

we are today You

19:46

would mention that message was crafted. Yeah, do

19:48

we know what these messages said? Yes,

19:51

most of the copies of the messages were

19:53

lost in the flood But during that testimony

19:55

that the Pennsylvania Railroad took in July of

19:57

1889 they reconstructed those three methods So

20:00

we know pretty much what they said. What

20:02

was it? The first message said South

20:05

Fork Dam liable to break notify the

20:07

people of Johnstown to prepare for the

20:09

worst and The second one

20:12

was just worded slightly different it said the

20:14

water and Lake Dam is running over the

20:16

center and west side and is becoming dangerous

20:18

and The third one

20:20

said the dam is becoming dangerous and may possibly

20:22

go which puts

20:24

the Telegraphs is that

20:26

right the telegraphers? Yes Which

20:30

puts the telegraphers in a difficult position

20:32

because there had been many rumors for

20:34

years about the dam and I

20:36

wasn't stable And there had been some

20:38

leaks and break 25 years earlier, but

20:40

it wasn't serious. So if you're gonna

20:42

relay a message that's Basically

20:45

prepare for the worst no literally because that's

20:47

what I said I can see

20:49

why there would be hesitation because that would

20:51

cause panic right when the first

20:53

message was being sent There was concern that you

20:55

know what if this is just one of those

20:58

rumors that people have been hearing for years that

21:00

the dam could break and This

21:02

message is sent it's not true and

21:04

it gets everybody in a panic The employees

21:06

of the railroad didn't want to get in trouble

21:09

for causing panic The railroad didn't want to get

21:11

in trouble, but they decided though that sounds

21:14

serious enough that they had better send it

21:16

just to be safe And my

21:18

great-great grandfather said that it was a thing

21:20

that there oughtn't to be risks taken on

21:23

Mmm, and when that message got

21:25

out, what did the people do pretty

21:27

much nothing? when the

21:29

first message was received in Johnstown in

21:32

the very early afternoon and employees in

21:34

the train station didn't believe it because

21:36

they had heard similar things before and

21:40

They didn't spread the word beyond the train

21:42

station like a fire drill or something, right?

21:44

It comes up so many times It's like

21:46

I probably not anything serious, right? It's

21:49

raining and we're hearing this again just like

21:51

the other times No, they nobody

21:53

spread the warning beyond the train station And

21:55

that's what happened when the second message came

21:57

in also maybe an hour later Nobody

22:00

believed it and nobody spread the warning

22:02

beyond the station the one employee at

22:05

the Telegraph office in Johnstown a man

22:07

named Frank Deckard he survived he said

22:09

after You know if he would have

22:11

actually believed those he would have done something about it

22:13

because his family lived like a block from The train

22:15

station and he didn't even tell them They

22:18

really didn't think anything of it thought it was just

22:20

same rumors that they had heard before throughout the 1880s

22:22

anytime it rained well,

22:24

they would know soon enough and Those

22:27

first eyewitness reports when

22:29

the flood was coming towards them What did they

22:32

say most of those eyewitness reports

22:34

said that they didn't see water people didn't

22:36

see water when things were first? Coming

22:39

the flood wave had picked up debris.

22:41

You name it. It was picking it

22:43

up along the way and you know

22:45

railroad tracks trees houses Fences

22:48

bridges so a lot of times people didn't

22:51

know what they were seeing they just saw this Sort

22:54

of rolling ball of debris being pushed ahead

22:56

of the flood wave And

22:58

that third telegraph message that was received

23:00

in Johnstown The people actually started spreading

23:02

that one because they thought wow we

23:04

haven't received three messages like that so

23:06

close together before maybe there's something To

23:08

this so they tried their

23:11

best to spread the warning through Johnstown

23:13

But people even if they did

23:15

get the message the water in the streets was so high

23:17

that you couldn't get out of your house So

23:19

you're kind of stranded there and you got the

23:21

warning but nothing you could do So

23:24

some people by then knew that the worst was

23:26

coming But pretty much could just watch it as

23:28

it was coming at them through the

23:30

neighborhoods of Johnstown this this rolling

23:32

mass of debris That depending

23:35

on where you where it could be 20 30 or more feet high Yeah,

23:39

and I think moving it about 40 miles per hour or

23:41

something crazy like that, right? anywhere from

23:43

20 to 40 miles an hour or more

23:45

depending on the What part

23:48

of the valley it was passing through how narrow

23:50

it was how wide it was what sort of

23:52

obstructions were in the way and When

23:54

the dam broke around three o'clock that

23:57

afternoon it took about an hour for

23:59

that water to make its way down the

24:01

valley to Johnstown picking up that debris. So

24:03

took about an hour to go 14 miles. So

24:06

it wasn't always speeding along. It

24:08

had slowed down to a stop actually twice

24:10

along the way, but then other times going

24:12

up to 40 miles an hour. But

24:15

what do you do? Right? You're you look

24:18

out your window, you see a wave of

24:20

tracks and buildings and railroad cars, just you

24:22

would be so confused. And then at that

24:24

point it would be too late. Like what,

24:26

where do you go? What do you do?

24:28

You run into your home, but your home

24:31

can get taken away. So what

24:33

did people try to do to survive at

24:35

that point? Or was it already too late?

24:37

For the most part, it was too late

24:39

for a lot of them, but a lot

24:41

of people, they would hear the flood coming

24:43

first before they even saw it. Just hear

24:45

this deafening roar of this debris smashing everything

24:47

in its path. And once

24:50

people heard that, they knew what it was

24:52

before they even saw anything. And if you're

24:54

in your house, you can't get out because

24:56

there's already the flooding from just the rivers

24:58

overflowing from the rain. And a

25:01

lot of people would just start running up as

25:03

high as they can get in whatever house or

25:05

building that they're in. Were most the houses wood

25:07

or most were stone and the people who were

25:09

trying to save themselves, what exactly were they doing?

25:12

There was a mix of frame,

25:14

wood frame structures and either

25:16

stone or especially brick buildings

25:18

in Johnstown. A lot

25:21

of people actually, if they had the

25:23

chance, they went to some of those

25:25

masonry buildings thinking that they would be

25:27

stronger and that actually ended up being a

25:29

mistake. They just crumbled to nothing when the flood

25:31

wave hit. In a lot of cases,

25:34

the wooden buildings would be ripped off their foundations,

25:36

but then they would start floating. So

25:38

as people were trying to run upstairs or

25:40

run up to the attic and whatever building

25:42

that they were in, that would

25:44

save them in some cases and they would ride

25:46

in that building or on that building. But then

25:48

a lot of cases it would smash into something

25:51

else and break up and they would jump

25:53

onto another piece of debris. There are

25:55

another roof that was floating by or

25:57

just whatever object was floating by. a

26:00

steamer trunk, a mattress, a

26:02

tree. And then there's

26:04

a lot of stories of people on multiple

26:06

things as one thing would sink, they'd jump

26:09

on something else and just

26:11

try to stay on top as that rush

26:13

of water is carrying them across the valley.

26:16

Sounds like a horrible game of chicken where

26:18

you're rotting on top of your house, wondering

26:20

if your house will smash the thing it

26:22

hits or it'll smash you and you got

26:24

to pick and jump and it just sounds

26:26

horrific, man. Do you jump on

26:29

that roof that you see over there? It might

26:31

look better than what you're on, but is that

26:33

stable and people were seeing other

26:35

people going by on a roof or another piece

26:37

of debris and then disappear, a house

26:40

collapses on top of them, chimney topples

26:42

over on top of somebody and

26:45

you're hoping that you're not that next person

26:47

to go under or something topple onto you.

26:50

If you try to swim for it, you maybe see

26:52

something off to the side that maybe

26:54

looks a little more substantial where you just stay

26:56

where you are and ride it out and this

26:59

is happening hundreds of times over throughout the valley

27:01

all in a span of just a few minutes.

27:04

Right, and what's your great-great

27:06

grandfather's story? He was

27:08

in his office and it wasn't

27:11

too long after that third message had

27:13

been passed down the valley and he

27:16

said in his testimony, he heard something

27:18

first before he saw the water and

27:21

he looked out of the windows of his

27:23

telegraph office and saw a sudden increase in

27:25

the level of the water in the river,

27:28

this sudden extra surge. And

27:31

he turned around and actually took the time to

27:33

grab his coat and hat before he went outside

27:36

and as he was doing that, the level of

27:38

the water increased even more, there was even more

27:40

of a surge and he noticed

27:42

a house floating down the river on this

27:44

surge of water and that there was a

27:46

man on the roof of that house

27:49

and as he got closer, he recognized that it

27:51

was his neighbor from Mineral Point. So

27:54

that'll stop you in your tracks. And

27:56

the man was shouting to him that the town

27:59

had been washed away. and his family

28:01

washed away and all drowned. And

28:04

my great-great grandfather shouted back to him, do

28:06

you know anything about my family? And the

28:08

guy said to him, I think they're all

28:10

drowned. And Pickeral, my

28:13

great-great grandfather kind of froze, but

28:15

then collected his wits and got

28:17

out of the tower fairly quickly, crossed

28:19

the railroad tracks and started climbing up

28:22

the hillside just as the water started

28:24

passing through and sort of just probably

28:27

seconds away from getting swept down

28:29

river by the flood wave. His

28:31

telegraph office was toppled over, carried

28:34

partway down along the railroad tracks. His neighbor

28:36

that was on the roof of the house,

28:39

the house smashed into the riverbank and

28:41

the neighbor got thrown up into a tree, but

28:43

he did survive. And he

28:45

eventually made his way up onto the

28:47

hillside where my great-great grandfather was. So

28:50

it was just seconds away from being

28:52

killed. And I definitely

28:54

wouldn't be here doing this podcast if

28:56

that had happened. I was

28:58

gonna say, we're speaking. So some

29:00

of his family did survive then. Yes,

29:03

he assumed that they were killed and the

29:06

family all survived, his wife and

29:08

several kids survived. And they

29:10

assumed that he had been killed because the telegraph

29:12

office and the railroad was on the opposite side

29:14

of the river from the town. And

29:17

there was no way, all the bridges have been washed away. So

29:19

there was no way to get back and forth to see

29:21

what was really true. And they each for

29:23

a few days thought that everybody in the

29:26

family had died. Yeah, and I can't imagine

29:28

a darker hell to see

29:30

a whole city destroyed, a

29:32

whole valley destroyed. And then not knowing if

29:34

your wife and your children are alive or

29:36

dead, it's suspecting they're dead, but not never

29:38

really knowing. Yeah, that is one family that

29:40

had a happy ending, but it was not

29:42

the case for hundreds of families up and

29:44

down the valley. What was the

29:46

death toll, do they know? The best

29:48

number that they've arrived at is 2,209, is

29:52

probably more than that. But

29:55

that was the number that was come up within a

29:57

few years after the flood, just comparing who had

29:59

been killed. here and who isn't here anymore. So

30:02

there's a lot of photos of that day and when you

30:04

look at those what do you see what do you feel?

30:07

Several hundred photographers came in the Johnstown

30:09

in the days weeks months after the

30:11

flood and I've been

30:14

looking at these photographs for decades as

30:16

part of my job and then just

30:18

from growing up in the Johnstown area

30:21

they still amaze me every time I look at

30:23

them whether it's a photograph I've seen a hundred

30:25

times or one that I've come across that I've

30:27

never seen before just the

30:30

amount of total destruction that took

30:32

place. This fairly sizable small city

30:34

sections of it are completely gone.

30:37

What is left is in ruin,

30:40

debris everywhere, some

30:42

of the photos have bodies in

30:45

the images, dead horses. It's

30:48

hard to make heads or tails of what

30:50

you're looking at even if you're familiar with

30:52

the Johnstown area it's hard to tell exactly

30:54

what neighborhood that was unless you compare the

30:56

hillside in the background to what you're familiar

30:58

with. Just some of

31:00

the photos just leave you speechless. After

31:04

another quick break we'll hear about

31:06

the aftermath of the Johnstown flood

31:08

and then Park Ranger Doug's own

31:11

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out. After

32:30

the flood, were people able

32:32

to rebuild fairly quickly or

32:34

was everything just ground to a

32:36

halt for a long time? The

32:38

people that had survived that day

32:40

and the next day on June

32:43

1st started helping one another and

32:45

Johnstowners originally wanted just to help

32:47

themselves. The idea was we'll take

32:49

care of it, but they

32:51

quickly saw that it was more than they

32:53

could handle and outside

32:56

help came in and then beginning to

32:58

clean up the mess. Acres

33:00

and acres and acres of wreckage all over

33:03

the Johnstown area and a lot of that

33:05

was blocking the channels of the rivers and

33:07

there was a worry that if another

33:10

rainstorm comes along it's going to flood

33:12

again because the water can't drain out

33:14

of Johnstown. So they really made an

33:16

effort to get that debris cleaned up

33:18

and by maybe two or three years

33:20

after the flood it was very hard to

33:22

tell that anything bad had happened in Johnstown.

33:25

We had spoken about how there's over

33:27

2,000 people who died during

33:29

the flood and you

33:32

work at the National Memorial. Can

33:34

you tell us a bit about

33:36

when it was made and

33:38

what's it like to work there?

33:40

Johnstown Flood National Memorial was created

33:42

as a unit of the National

33:44

Park Service by Congress in

33:47

1964, would have been the 75th anniversary

33:49

of the flood. The

33:51

property where the remains of the

33:53

dam which had survived until then

33:56

was purchased by the United States

33:58

government to create a memorial. to

34:00

remember the lives lost in the

34:02

Great Johnstown Flood. One of the largest ways

34:05

we do that every year is on the

34:07

anniversary of the flood. We put

34:09

out 2,209 luminary bags with a candle in and light the candle

34:11

the evening of May 31st. So

34:18

one to represent each victim of the flood

34:21

is placed on the remains of the dam

34:23

and throughout the memorial that evening of

34:25

May 31st every year. Well,

34:27

let's turn the spotlight on to your

34:29

past a little bit because in July

34:31

1977 you were

34:33

5 years old and you were

34:35

living in Johnstown and it had

34:38

been raining a lot and there

34:40

was another flood. Can you tell

34:42

us about that story? Late

34:44

in the day of July 19th

34:46

and then into July 20th, a

34:48

very large rainstorm stalled over the

34:50

area and it rained even more than

34:52

it did in 1889 in Johnstown. There

34:56

was just under a foot of rain

34:58

in less than 24 hours in

35:01

Johnstown, like 11 point some inches and

35:04

Johnstown very quickly flooded in the middle of

35:07

the night. There was actually another fairly large

35:09

dam that broke, but thankfully it was slightly

35:11

down river from the main part of Johnstown.

35:13

It killed over

35:16

half of the 85 people that ended up being killed

35:18

in that flood. I think

35:20

there were around a dozen people killed

35:22

in my neighborhood in Johnstown. There

35:25

were some kids that I would have ended

35:27

up going to elementary school with. I

35:29

was about to start kindergarten that year and some

35:31

of those kids had lost their lives in the

35:33

flood. Do

35:35

you have any snapshots in your brain, memories

35:38

of the moments? I still

35:40

have very, very vivid memories

35:42

of the flood, even though I was only 5 years old

35:44

at the time. There was a

35:46

lot of damage, a lot of flood water, pretty

35:49

much right up to one or two houses

35:51

from my house. The

35:53

street that I lived on had a fairly

35:55

steep grade to it, so the water came

35:57

part way up the street and then turned

35:59

and went down an hour. beside my house.

36:02

So my house didn't receive any

36:04

direct damage but I woke up

36:06

the morning of July 20th. Something woke me

36:08

up loud noise or something and looked

36:11

out my window and I saw a big

36:14

helicopter really close to my house and thought

36:16

this is kind of neat. There's what's this

36:18

big helicopter doing? It was Army

36:20

Green. It looked like an Army helicopter and then there

36:22

was a line going down and

36:25

I kind of followed that line down to the

36:27

ground and I noticed they're actually

36:29

trying to pull people out of the water and

36:31

was suddenly as a

36:33

five-year-old that's not what I

36:36

expected to see that morning, became a little bit

36:38

upset. Yeah. Ran downstairs

36:40

to ask my parents or

36:43

my older brother what's going on

36:45

here and nobody was there. But

36:47

then I heard voices and hear my whole family was

36:49

out on the porch watching

36:51

the floodwaters come down the street.

36:54

I still have memories looking up my street

36:56

and where my street had been was now

36:58

a river and I still have very vivid

37:00

memories of walking around my

37:03

neighborhood, other neighborhoods in the Johnstown

37:05

area and just seeing all the

37:07

mud everywhere, rocks and smashed cars

37:09

and destroyed houses

37:11

and trees and in

37:14

my mind I can picture it like it happened

37:16

a few weeks ago or last summer or something.

37:18

I just never forget all

37:20

of those visions I have in my

37:22

head from experiencing that pretty much firsthand.

37:25

I imagine and five is the ripe

37:27

age for some emotional

37:29

dents, you know, when you witness something

37:31

like that. Have the events that day

37:33

affected you at all going forward like

37:35

in your adult life? Sometimes

37:38

when it rains really hard, it

37:40

kind of takes me back to that day.

37:42

I still live in the

37:44

same neighborhood that I lived in at the time

37:46

of the flood and just when

37:48

I go for a walk through the neighborhood, I

37:50

can't help but envision what it looked like back

37:53

then. I can like see the mud

37:55

and the destroyed houses and that's where that

37:57

red car was that I remember that was

38:00

all smashed up. I remember

38:02

finding a mud

38:04

covered matchbox car over

38:06

on this street that I think I probably still

38:08

have somewhere. The memories never go

38:10

away and it's weird how sometimes things

38:13

will make me think of the flood, whether it's

38:15

a smell or something somebody says and it'll just

38:17

take me right back to that day. Well,

38:20

Ranger Doug Bosley, thank you so much for

38:22

talking to me today on Against the Odds.

38:24

I was happy to be here, thanks for

38:26

the invitation. Hey

38:30

Prime members, you can listen to Against

38:33

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38:35

Download the Amazon Music app today or

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38:39

Plus and Apple Podcasts. Before

38:41

you go, tell us about

38:43

yourself by completing a short

38:46

survey at wondery.com/survey. This

38:53

is the fifth and final episode

38:56

of our series, Johnstown Flood. Thank

38:58

you so much to our guest,

39:00

Park Ranger Doug Bosley. To learn

39:02

more about the Johnstown Flood, visit

39:04

the Johnstown Flood National Memorial in

39:07

Pennsylvania or go to their website.

39:10

I'm your host, Mike Corey. This

39:12

episode was produced by Polly Stryker,

39:14

senior produced by Peter Arcuny. Audio

39:17

engineer is Sergio Enriquez. Coordinating

39:19

producer is Desi Blaylock. Series

39:22

produced by Emily Frost and Alita

39:24

Rosanski. Managing producer is

39:26

Matt Gantt. Senior managing producer is

39:28

Ryan Lawer. Senior producers are

39:31

Andy Herman and Rachel Matlow. Executive

39:33

producers are Jenny Lower Beckman, Stephanie

39:35

Jens and Marshall Louis, for one.

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Hey, it's Guy Roz here, the host of How

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