44th Anniversary of the Johnstown Flood

Today marks the 44th Anniversary of the Johnstown Flood which happened on July 20, 1977, in Johnstown, PA.

My Experience Living Through the 1977 Johnstown Flood

It was a humid day in Johnstown, PA. I was working the 3 to 11 p.m. shift at Conemaugh Valley Memorial Hospital.

I did not have a parking spot in the hospital garage at the time and had to park in a far lot on the hill.

When I got off at 11 p.m. there was a downpouring of rain and blinding lighting flashes every couple of minutes. I had just purchased my first new car a 1977 Toyota Corolla. It had a stick shift and I wasn’t all that familiar with the shifting.

I finally got it out of the parking lot and was heading home through the downtown. That’s when I realized something was not right. There was several inches of water on the road and, of course, no other cars were on the road. The man hole covers were overrun with water and shooting water up in the air about three feet. I was on low ground and everything was flooding fast.

Somehow that little silver Toyota got me home and later my insurance called my car a total loss. It was definitely my lucky day I wasn’t washed away and survived.

I no sooner got home, when our house started to flood. In all, we must have had about four feet of water on our first floor. I kept on thinking that someone was going to come by in a boat to rescue us. No way, everyone was on their own.

Immediately After the Johnstown Flood, (44th Anniversary of the Johnstown Flood)

After the flood water receded, there were no cars, no food, no drinkable water, no electricity, no telephone service, no nothing.

Now everything was covered in a dirty mix of mud and water. The Red Cross immediately came in. There were Red Cross Food trucks in every neighborhood where you could get bottled water and a baloney sandwich or two. Then the National Guard was called out and men were posted on the street with guns to stop any looting. That was OK since none of the doors would close either. The doors were too waterlogged to fully shut.

I remember stepping out the back door and fell about three feet into the mud not realizing that the wooden steps had washed away from the house. I was OK though.

It was a hard time trying to clean when you had no clean water, no cleaning supplies, no washing machine and, again, no nothing. I had just started my new job and had to send a telegram that I was not going to be in to work for awhile. We also sent telegrams to our relatives that we were OK and survived.

Life After the Johnstown Flood

My next door neighbor’s husband had a heart attack sometime after the flood probably from exertion from cleaning. My dad tried to give him CPR but he didn’t make it.

I remember walking with my Dad and hitchhiking trying to get a ride on Broad Street. A plumber stopped for us. Of course, my Dad was able to talk the plumber into looking at our clogged pipes plus we got that valuable ride home.

At one point my mom sent me and my younger sister to this flood shelter which was out of a school basement in Westmont. We were probably the only people there. It was a little scary. We were to stay a couple days but came home the next day. It was nice because we were able to take a clean shower but it was kind of eerie too. They had a lot of cots set up and we slept on a couple of them.

The roads were covered with debris and we had to walk home from the shelter. I remember getting lost up in Westmont looking for the Incline Plane so we could ride down and be close enough to walk the rest of the way home. The tears were streaming from my eyes as my little sister tailed after me. Some kind hearted soul stopped and gave us a ride to the Incline Plane. This is a belated thank you to that gentleman.

If you ran your car on the road, you would get a flat tire at least weekly until all the debris was cleared off the road.

Ending of the Steel Mills

The steel mills were also a mess from the flood.

This is about the time that some of them started to close down and so one of the major employers was gone from the area.

They started the slogan that read, “We’re Wet, but We’re Not Washed Out” to keep up everyone’s spirts.

Ending Notes on the 44th Anniversary of the Johnstown Flood Blog

It was definitely a dark time for many people. All in all, there was 213 million dollars worth of property damage and 84 people lost their lives.

We were fine and survived one of the worst flooding disasters in history. For months afterward, every time it rained, I was unable to sleep.

On a lighter note, that brand new silver Toyota was my lucky car and it saved my life. I’ve had a silver Toyota Corolla ever since then. If you look out in my driveway, there is still a silver Toyota Corolla out there even after 44 years. No, I never change the color either.

44th Anniversary of the Johnstown Flood, an Experience I’ll Never Forget and lived to tell about.