Abstract
EVERY now and again, Nature seems to take an impish delight in playing havoc with man's efforts to control her vagaries, flinging aside his puny restraints and sweeping both him and his works into a common destruction. One of her most potent agencies is water, and the catastrophic visitation which, following sudden heavy rains and melting snows, descended on fourteen highly industrialised and commercial States in the eastern part of the North American continent during the past week or ten days is the latest example of her indiscriminate violence. On March 18, with little or no warning, the Pennsylvanian towns of Johnstown and Pittsburgh, notable centres of the steelwork industry, found their streets submerged to depths of 10-15 ft., and in places considerably more, so that the unfortunate inhabitants were speedily reduced to dire straits from shortage of food and drinking water. Many were compelled to spend a night of terror perched on the roofs of their houses, scantily clothed, while a number of them, approaching one hundred, regrettably lost their lives in the darkness and confusion. Johnstown was the scene of a terrible disaster in May 1889, when a reservoir above the city collapsed, causing the loss of 3,000 lives. Pittsburgh, too, had a serious flood in 1913. On the present occasion, the estimates of damage to property run to 40 million pounds sterling at Pittsburgh and to 7 millions at Johnstown, at which latter place some 8,000 persons are said to be homeless. The whole countryside, in fact, in eastern Pennsylvania has been more or less under water,
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
American Flood Devastation. Nature 137, 524–525 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/137524c0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/137524c0