The Almost Flood Free City |
 Dave Thurlow, Host |
Hi, I'm Dave Thurlow from the Mount Washington Observatory and this is The Weather Notebook.
Most people have heard of the Johnstown Flood of 1889, but it was not just this flood that led to Johnstown being known as the "flood city". The 1889 flood was the biggest and most dramatic, but it was by no means the last. For the next forty years several costly and deadly floods led to river improvement projects downtown, that strengthened banks, created channels, and diverted floodwaters down stream. Here's what Doug Richardson at the Johnstown National Monument told me during a recent visit.
 The John Shultz house became an instant icon of the Flood and was a curiosity to many who traveled to Johnstown to see the devastation of the flood first hand. Many posed sitting or standing on the trunk of the tree. The Schultz family all survived the flood. |
And it remained flood free for 37 years, giving a new generation a sense of security.
Doug: "...but that ended in 1977 when over 85 people died.
They got a storm here of just what some people call biblical proportions 13-14 inches of rain."
Dave: "What did people feel after that. I mean you have the flood free city and now what. Were people leaving town?"
Doug: "They had been through this 3 times in a hundred years and they're confidence was shaken a little bit. But again, probably the sign of how they dealt with it was a symbol that they used on a lot of advertisements on billboards and it was just simply two hands shaking saying we will rebuild together."
And rebuild they did for there has not been one major flood since the flood of 1977.
For more information on the city of Johnstown, the virtually flood free city, visit our website at mountwashington.org. Our show's Senior Editor is Jay Allison. Funding for The Weather Notebook comes from Subaru and the National Science Foundation.