Flood, Fire, and Destruction: The Great Johnstown Flood

If you enjoyed this video, please consider joining my Patreon to help create more videos like this! https://www.patreon.com/PartTimeExplorer To give a one-time tip, please visit: https://www.historicalfx.com/support It was one of the darkest days in American history. The city of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, was already flooded with 12 feet of rain water when the South Fork Dam, 14 miles up the valley, collapsed, unleashing a wall of water, up to 75 feet high and nearly 40 miles per hour. Nothing that stood in its way had a chance. Buildings were ripped from their foundations. Entire trains full of passengers were thrown like toys, and the City of Johnstown and its surrounding boroughs home to 30,000 people, were obliterated. What caused the dam collapse? Was it greed and negligence? Or was this terrible tragedy inevitable from the start? In this adventure, we’re traveling to Johnstown in Cambria County, Pennsylvania to see what little remains of the pre-flood city, and see the lasting impact that this disaster had on the town, and visiting the Johnstown Flood Museum to look at the artifacts that witnessed that terrible day in May, 1889. Finally, we’re making our way to the dam itself, following the flood down the entirety of the valley, recreated with detailed animations to see the disaster like never before. This is our biggest documentary yet and quite honestly, the hardest story we've covered. I had a hard time getting through some of the narrations with a stiff lip for this one. Chapters: 0:00 - Introduction 4:28 - Early History of Johnstown 7:03 - The Main Line Canal System and the South Fork Dam 14:58 - The Cambria Iron Company 19:25 - The Presidential Train Tragedy 21:12 - The South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club 24:17 - Touring the Clubhouse and Cottages 28:45 - Concerns About the Dam 33:04 - The Memorial Day Storm of 1889 39:21 - Warnings to Johnstown 44:05 - Collapse and Destruction at South Fork 47:17 - The Viaduct 49:40 - Mineral Point 50:47 - John Hess at East Conemaugh 53:23 - Woodvale 55:00 - The Destruction of Johnstown 57:46 - The Churches 1:01:18 - Personal Stories 1:04:31 - Fire at the Stone Bridge 1:07:27 - The Aftermath 1:11:25 - Relief Efforts 1:16:05 - The Graves and Memorials 1:18:14 - Cleanup and Reconstruction 1:23:17 - Conclusion