Johnstown Flood Timeline

Times

Please note that many of the times listed below are approximate. 

 

 

May 28

A large storm system started in Kansas and Nebraska and would eventually come to Pennsylvania a few days later.

May 29

The storm system worked its way through Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee. Some storms were severe.

May 30

12:00 p.m. Large crowds began to gather in the streets for the Decoration Day parade. Decoration Day would later become Memorial Day. Mr. Chapman was reverend at the Franklin Street Methodist Church described the morning: "The morning was delightful, the city in its gayest mood, with flags, banners and flowers everywhere..."

2:30 p.m. The Decoration Day parade started. It went from Main Street to Bedford Street. From there, it took participants who marched to where the Civil War veterans were buried in Sandy Vale Cemetery.

4:00 p.m. The rain began. Most people had returned home from the cemetery on Decoration Day.

5:00 p.m. The rain stopped.

9:00 p.m. Around 9:00 p.m., the rain started once again. This time, it was pouring, and it seemed as if it may never stop. Reverend Chapman recalled:

"Sometime in the night, my wife asked if it were not raining very hard, and I being very sleepy, barely conscious of the extraordinary downpour simply answered, yes and went to sleep, thinking no more of it until morning.”

"The Reverend Chapman, back on his front porch after participating in the graveside ceremonies, sat gazing at the park with its big elms and draped chain fence, and thought to himself that he had seldom looked upon a lovelier scene. Or a least so he wrote later on." -The Johnstown Flood, David McCullough.

May 31

6:30 a.m. "When I awoke at about 6:30 on the morning of the 31st, I found it very foggy outside, and on going out, found the lake had risen during the night probably 2 feet, and I heard a terrible roaring as of a cataract at the head of the lake, about a mile above the club house where I was staying." - John Parke, resident engineer at the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club.

7:00 a.m. "From 7 o'clock on the water rose. People who were glad they didn't live downtown began to wish they didn't live in town at all. On the water crept, and on, up one street and out another, across the imaginary lines between the many boroughs, until at last there was consolidation, and the same wet blanket covered all. Eighteen inches an hour the Stonycreek rose for a time, and the Conemaugh about as rapidly." -George T. Swank, Tribune editor.

7:00 a.m. The Cambria Iron Works’ morning shift arrived at this time and were sent home.

7:44 a.m. Hettie Ogle sent a river reading that the water level was 14 feet.

10:00 a.m. Schools closed early around 10:00 a.m. and children were sent home for the day. The Cambria Mills had already closed a few hours before. Water had already started to fill some basements on in the lower end of Johnstown. The morning wasn't necessarily cause for concern. People were used to spring flooding.

10:15 a.m. A section of the Day Express train that left Johnstown a few hours earlier is stopped in Johnstown due to track conditions farther up the line.

10:44 a.m. The latest river level reading from Hettie Ogle indicated it was now 20 feet.

11:00 a.m. Hettie Ogle wired the following message to Pittsburgh. "Rain gauge carried away."

12:00 p.m. "As we write at noon, Johnstown is again under water, and all about us the tide is rising. Wagons have for hours been passing along the streets carrying people from submerged points to places of safety...A most exasperating state of affairs, and one for which there ought to be a remedy." -George T. Swank, Tribune editor.

12:30 p.m. Hettie Ogle wired the following message to Pittsburgh. "Water higher than ever known. Can't give exact measurement"

1:00 p.m. The first telegraph message. There is no clear consensus on exactly what this telegraph message said. It went something like this: "South Fork Dam is liable to break: Notify the people of Johnstown to prepare for the worst." Emma Ehrenfeld, the South Fork telegraph operator, received a message about the condition of the South Fork Dam. It was from someone that people "generally don't have much confidence in." She did not want to send an alarming message down the lines if it was not true. She got in contact with William Pickerill, the Mineral Point telegraph operator and he thought the message was "a thing that there oughtn't to be any risks taken on." Pickerill's lines were down so he gave the message to William Reichard to carry on down the tracks.

1:52 p.m. A second telegraph message was sent down the Conemaugh Valley. Riding up to the South Fork Dam on horseback from South Fork, Dan Siebert went to check on the condition of the dam. He reported that the center of the dam was "a glassy sheet of water, fifty to sixty feet wide, had started over the top." Due to weather conditions, this message could only go as far as Mineral Point. Again, William Reichard would send the message on from William Pickerill. Reichard took the message to the "AO" telegraph tower and it was sent down the Conemaugh Valley and to Pittsburgh. It read: "The water is running over the breast of lake dam, in center and west side and is becoming dangerous."

2:45 p.m. A third telegraph message was sent down the Conemaugh Valley. J.P. Wilson, who signed his name on the second telegraph message, heard that a man named John Baker had just come from the dam and reported that the water cut a hole through the center. He immediately went to Miss Ehrenfeld and had her send another message. It read: "The dam is becoming dangerous and may possibly go."

3:00 p.m. George T. Swank, Tribune newspaper editor writes, "At three o'clock, the town sat down with its hands in its pockets to make the best of a very dreary situation. All that had got out of reach of the flood that could, and there was nothing to do but wait; and what impatient waiting it was anyone who has ever been penned in by a flood and has watched the water rising, and night coming on can imagine..."

3:10 p.m. The South Fork Dam breaks unleashing 20 million tons of water down the Conemaugh Valley.

3:15 p.m. South Fork. South Fork. Telegraph operator Emma Ehrenfeld and train engineer H. M. Bennett were in the telegraph tower when Bennett saw people running and then saw the floodwaters coming down the valley. Emma Ehrenfeld said: "It just seemed like a mountain coming." Around twenty homes in South Fork were destroyed in the flood, along with a bridge and planning mill. Geographically, much of South Fork is built on the hillside putting a large part of the town out of the direct path of water.

4:00 p.m. "Shortly before four, one leading citizen was asked how much higher he thought the water would rise in the valley if the dam let go. His answer was about two feet.""It was now not quite an hour since the dam had given way. The rain was still coming down some. It had been a long, tiresome day in Johnstown, and the prospects for a night without gas or electricity were not especially cheerful, but by the looks of the water and the sky, the worst of it had passed." -Quotes from The Johnstown Flood, David McCullough.

4:07 p.m. The floodwaters hit Johnstown. Many people heard a sound like thunder and saw all of the debris being pushed in front of the wall of water. It was described as "the death mist." The wave took several different paths through town. Much of the debris in Johnstown was stopped at the Pennsylvania Railroad's seven arch bridge.

6:00 p.m. A fire started at the Pennsylvania Railroad's stone bridge. It was fairly new in 1889 and had seven arches. People would recall the bright light from the fire, particularly when darkness fell on Johnstown. The fire would continue to burn throughout the night and into the next day. People miles away could see a red glow in the sky from the fire. One man said the fire burned so bright he could read his newspaper by the light. Approximately 80 people died in the fire at the Stone Bridge.