30 Years Ago Today...

[Jim Price]

How many Rockpagers were around when the Johnstown Flood of 1977 hit? How many actually were in the flood?

I wasn't actually in the flood itself, but remember that night and following day very well. On the evening of July 19, 1977, I was 16 years old, living in my current home in Altoona, and getting ready to watch the Major League Baseball All-Star Game on television. The game was to start at 8, but the heavy storms rolled into the area shortly after 7. I remember the storms because of the heavy rain, and nonstop lightning and thunder, with a lot of frequent close-by lightning strikes. It was scary. My family and I retreated into the basement, where I tried to watch the baseball game on a small black-and-white television through the lightning static. After the game, Channel 6 news came on, and then-anchor Ron Stephenson and weatherman Ron Lorence both reported street flooding problems in Johnstown. We didn't think much of it at that point, as street flooding isn't uncommon when there is heavy rain like we had that night. The storm was starting to let up in the Altoona area at that point, and satisfied that our own basement wasn't flooding, we went to bed thinking all would be okay.

The next day I got up and turned on the television, and Channel 6 was off the air. We heard very little about any flooding until 12 noon, when WVAM's daily news talk show at that time, "Two Way Radio," came on, and the show's regular host, (the late) Denny Bixler, had just arrived back from flying over Johnstown in a helicopter. He proceeded to play footage he recorded during the flight, as he narrated and described the devastation he was seeing below him. It was then that we realized that a real disaster had happened only a short distance away.

At that point in time, I used to listen to AM radio a lot, and used to record lots of stuff off the radio, from music to programs and other things. Shortly after I started hearing Denny Bixler's footage, I put a cassette tape into my recorder and started recording it. I ended up recording 14 tapes' worth of footage over the next several weeks. I still have those tapes! (I'm actually in the process of dubbing the tapes off onto better quality cassettes and soon to CD, and will be donating the copies of the recordings to the Johnstown Flood Museum.)

I actually produced a montage of audio clip highlights from those tapes, including clips of the helicopter footage, police declarations telling people to get off the streets, national news reports of the flood, Ron Stephenson trying to reassure residents not to panic when Channel 6 came back on the air, and more. That montage will air on Q94 on Friday morning, and on WRTA during the afternoon.

My family wasn't directly affected by the flood, but I had two neighbors at the time who were. One neighbor who lived across the street was the manager of the GeeBee store in Richland, and he was at work the night the flood hit. I have his late wife on tape, calling "Two Way Radio" to ask Denny Bixler if he had flown over Richland and knew how that area had fared. Another elderly lady who lived below me had a daughter who lived in Tanneryville, which got wiped out in the flood. She didn't know for days whether the daughter was alive or dead. About four days later she learned that her daughter, Thelma, had lived, but was rescued from a tree after being washed downstream.

For anyone who was through it and has stories to tell, post away...

[onetooloud]

I live well above town on a hill and that night water ran in the front yard about 10 inches deep and 6to 8ft wide. You could see this easily all night because of the lighting.

The next day there was stones dirt and crap in the yard several feet deep remeber thiswas on a hill above town.

The biggest thing I recall was the day after was the nicest day you'd ever want to see clear blue sky and about 78. There was water running everywhere.

Hillsides which slide trees and all. I wouldn't have thought it possible trees 80ft high along with dirt and earth moved 100 ft downhill in big chunks. The damn trees didn't fall they just moved down the hill If you knew what to look for you could probably still see this.

Not far from my place there was a house in the middle of the road. It was moved off the foundation and onto the road.

[BDR]

Funny, I was seven at the time. I can remember vividly just a few months prior to that the opening of the original Star Wars, but I have no first hand memories of the Flood of '77.

Hmm. Priorities.

r:>)

[songsmith]

I was at a Christian summer camp just outside Johnstown. That night, lightning blasted several huge holes in the tabernacle, direct strikes, and the holes were at least 18" in diameter. The power went out, and the prayer servuce went on anyway, using bus lights for lighting and a bullhorn for sound. By the time we got out of that service, the water was knee-deep for the trudge back to the dorms.
The next day, hundreds of people were sickened by fertilizer that had washed into the camp's water supply. It was a very surreal scene, people hanging out of windows throwing up... dozens of them at a time, like some horrible horror movie. I never chundered, but wound up sleeping for more than a day after that. We never knew exactly what was going on until we got home 3 days later. I remember being terrified that the flood had taken my own house, let alone how my family was. They told us nothing. I was horrified to find out the death toll was 50 or so by the time I got home.------->JMS

[DirtySanchez]

I was not born when Jtown flooded , but I lived in linds crossing for 15 years.
I've seen my share of floods and the damage they can do.
January of 1996 was bad. I was stuck in my house with no power and 2 ft. of water in the first floor. I just watched a kid named Walter Mcchesney get dropped like 30 ft into the icy water in a failed attempt by a chinook helicopter to rescue him. It freaked me out so bad I refused to be "rescued" when they hovered over my house with a basket hanging.
The temp dropped to 9 degrees that night and when I woke up and went outside the next morning, all the water receeded but there was ice like a quarter inch thick where the high water mark was. It was odd, like a big hollow lake, thin ice with nothing under it. Then my neighbor and I found Walters body 100 yards downstream from my house. One of the worst experiences in my life. I know this has nothing to do with the Johnstown flood, but I figured I'd share anyways.

[BDR]

The temp dropped to 9 degrees that night and when I woke up and went outside the next morning, all the water receeded but there was ice like a quarter inch thick where the high water mark was. It was odd, like a big hollow lake, thin ice with nothing under it.

Yeah, my father's place was destroyed in '96 and the same thing happened — the layer of ice in the tree line. It was weird standing in the yard under the ice line.

r:>)

[skipisode]

I remember this flood due to my mother working for the PA Dept. of Health (State Health Nurse) at the time, and she was called out for emergency duty to provide health care, innoculations, and disease control. I actually went to assist as a volunteer in some of the emergency shelters, etc. I was 13 years old at the time, and I can remember how difficult it was to get into Johnstown due to the roads destroyed, etc. I also remember seeing the devastation the flood caused, and especially the effect it had on those involved who lost homes and loved ones. It was not a pretty sight by any stretch of the imagination. I still think about it
everytime I go to Johnstown.

[Trucula]

77' I just graduated and our town always got sealed in by floods from the Aughwick Creek. If we didn't have supplies we had to rely on neighbors to make it. Before the road and bridge was built we always were sealed off every winter when ice went over the road.
96' flood it was in my home 2 times flooding the 1st floor. Man you don't know how much you don't have control of things till this happens. I helped the neighbors move their cars out of the flood water and then remembered mine when the neighbor said she saw my cooler floating away. I went to the back door thru the water to get my keys to the car and saw the waste basket float one way and my sneakers the other thru the door window. Man the mud and mess!! Pictures, books, anything on the floor was history! I got FEMA loan money for the first time and the day the payment was due, I was hit again worse!

Just a year or two ago we had a flood and vandals sawed the light poles almost off and the flood took them out. We were sealed in again without power for a week until trucks could gain access to set the new poles. Lost all freezer food except for the big cook out we had!

[lonewolf]

I was not born when Jtown flooded , but I lived in linds crossing for 15 years.

Of course Linds Crossing flooded in 1977 just as bad as Johnstown. I was at home in Duncansville when I got a phone call---it was my band's (Forces) lighting tech. He, the sound tech and the "security guy" decided to go out on Juniata Valley Road, a favorite party road at the time. They went around a turn a whoosh, they were in water up over the hood. The light tech swam out, found a house and called me to come and get them. (like I'm the fire department or something?)

When I got there, the light tech was standing at the edge of the floodwaters and the other two were sitting on the roof of the car. We fished them to shore with a rope, but we had to wait for the water to recede before getting the car out. It was a mess.

35 years ago last month, I went down the Little Juniata River from Duncansville to Hollidaysburg on a truck innertube during Hurricane Agnes and the Flood of '72.

[PanzerFaust]

We were on vacation down at Virginia beach and I remember it being all over the national TV news, local papers, and people coming up to us asking if we were from near Johnstown...

It was just odd to think here we were 100's of miles from home but hearing all this news about Johnstown like it was the next town over...

Very Eerie

[mjb]

i was 10, i grew up in the west end part of town, up on a hill. we had some more than usual water in the basement. if your from j-town , you know what i mean. it was bad down below though,blacktop just skinned right off the roads. i remember the natonal guard patroling around and they brought you cases of 2 litre bottles of carbonated water which probobly was supplied by pepsi or something. i remember helicopters flying around. i was 10 so i was totally into it. i didn't understand disaster and that people were killed and stuff. i think my folks kept it kind of business as usual around the house. like i don't really remember the news footage and stuff all i knew was when i woke up the next day ther would be army guys and jeeps and stuff.you could see cambria city from wher i lived and i remember seeing trains in the water from my house through binoculars. i remember the helicopters flying really low and just how cool it was to see this stuff all day. we played alot of army in the neighborhood so this was like a bonus.

thats how i remember it as a 10 year old.

[YankeeRose]

35 years ago last month, I went down the Little Juniata River from Duncansville to Hollidaysburg on a truck innertube during Hurricane Agnes and the Flood of '72.

I was 9 when Agnes hit the area in eastern PA I grew up in, and I know areas to the North fared much, much worse. I have a lot of memories of that time. Just a few: Our house was all on one floor (My brother's bedroom and the attic were the exceptions.), and the dirt basement got more water than the sump pump could handle. Just one more step and the entire house would have been flooded. I recall my dad brought one of our white ducks in and let it swim around. For several days, there were 2 mini ponds on either side of the walk in our yard, very surreal. Relatives had their home/restaurant flooded out. I also recall walking down to my Baba's house, carrying a pair of rain boots (The ones with the buckles.) for her to use folded under my arm, and while holding onto my umbrella for dear life with both hands, a gust of wind bent it back and broke it. I really liked that red plaid umbrella, I suppose that's why I remember it being broken so well.




January '96...I remember hearing and reading about the boy who had fallen during the rescue attempt.
I can't imagine seeing something so tragic. My heart goes out to anyone who knew him, let alone witnessed such a tragedy. Several trees in my mom's yard were uprooted, and even the house high upon a hill my parents had bought and moved into in '77 sometimes got water in it, from yet another unseen underground stream. My mom had gone to work (At the relative's restaurant that was flooded in '72...they did get some flooding the next day when the river crested, but up to and including last year, it has never been near as bad as '72.), and hearing about the flood warning, I went up to her house to make certain the sump pump was on. After I discovered the pump wasn't even working, and a while later my sister joined me...we used buckets and a wet/dry vac to keep my mom's finished basement from getting any water damage. We put the water down a drain in another part of the basement, and then went back again, for hours and hours and hours. I don't recall if my sister and I went halfsies or I just got it, but I went to Sears and bought my mom a new sump pump as soon as humanly possible.




Edit: Births, you say? On July 24, 1997, in the wee, small hours, after 2 weeks of bed rest, I was in a Suburban and on my way to Pottsville Hospital to give birth 4½ weeks early. This was while the remnants of Hurricane Bertha were going up the East coast. Not another car in sight, my now ex-husband was driving like a snail, and stopping at every stop sign and light. Concerned with the blood loss, I told him if no other vehicles are around, run them, and if we are stopped, I'll have THEM take me to the hospital. Once I finally got there, it wasn't long and he was here.

[Danette]

My one friend, Mark Martinek ( formerly of Futher Gone & Jummy Sweat Pants) was born the night of the '77 flood in J-town. I recall him telling me about years ago( and it was very interesting) but I can't recall the details I am going to let him know of this thread. Hopefully he shares the story again. I don't have any memories of the '77 J-town flood - I was 8 and we had just moved back to CA.

JP- I used to do the same thing with my tape recorder lol. All my tapes were pilfered by my children over the years and recorded over though. Its really cool that you still have them.

[Colton]

Something about JP's post made me think of a little JP sitting in front of the tv, watching the ballgame, taking notes about the person singing the national anthem

[Jim Price]

Colton wrote:

Something about JP's post made me think of a little JP sitting in front of the tv, watching the ballgame, taking notes about the person singing the national anthem

That's not too far removed from the truth. In the early 70's, I actually used to tune in to "American Top 40" with Casey Kasem and literally wrote down the Top 40 songs every week. That's probably part of the reason I can recognize songs from that era so easily now.

Also, back in the 70's, cassette recording was that era's version of illegal downloading. I was constantly recording tunes off the radio and listening to the tapes; kind of a primitive prequel to today's iPod. I still have a lot of those tapes, and I plan to go through them sometime soon to see what other historic tidbits I might have captured while recording music (past radio personalities, etc.).

[Banned]

After the 1972 Agnes flood of Wilkes-Barre and much of Luzerne county, I worked on a clean up crew the rest of that summer. There were parts of Wyoming, Pa. which were under 20 or more feet of water for about a week. I have never seen such devastation, biblical comes to mind.

My cousin worked on a crew recovering bodies torn out of a cemetary at a bend in the river at FortyFort, Pa. They found some corpses that floated down to Harrisburg, 100's of miles away.

I remember the National Guard there to prevent looting in a practically abandoned city. We had to get a lot of shots, and had to try to never get any of the muck and slime on our hands or faces, and that did not work. I am lucky we did not get TB or a variety of diseases because they could not always give us the proper protective gloves, water.....You really worried if you got just a scratch on something covered in muck.

[RamRod 1]

In "77" I was playing the Holiday Inn in Williamsport and was shocked to see the Johnstown Flood on the national news.

[Larry]

I was born in Johnstown and most of my closest family still lives there. We came into town the weekend after the flood. I remember walking all over the city with my cousin even though I was only 8. We had no supervision.

Some of the Solomon Homes projects buildings were ripped in half. There were flooded abandoned cars everywhere, including in my grandmothers back yard. She still lives on Bedford Street in Dale. There was a small pizza shop one house down from hers that was destroyed by the rush of water. Luckily, it diverted the water across the street, sparing her house. It destroyed the house directly across from hers though.

A couple of kids that went to school with my cousins were killed right down the street in Dale too. It was really strange walking around in such devastation. I'll never forget it.

[BDR]

I still have a lot of those tapes, and I plan to go through them sometime soon to see what other historic tidbits I might have captured while recording music (past radio personalities, etc.).

I have a cassette of my first radio show. Man, did I suck that first night!

r:>)

[RobTheDrummer]

Colton wrote:

Something about JP's post made me think of a little JP sitting in front of the tv, watching the ballgame, taking notes about the person singing the national anthem

That's not too far removed from the truth. In the early 70's, I actually used to tune in to "American Top 40" with Casey Kasem and literally wrote down the Top 40 songs every week. That's probably part of the reason I can recognize songs from that era so easily now.

Also, back in the 70's, cassette recording was that era's version of illegal downloading. I was constantly recording tunes off the radio and listening to the tapes; kind of a primitive prequel to today's iPod. I still have a lot of those tapes, and I plan to go through them sometime soon to see what other historic tidbits I might have captured while recording music (past radio personalities, etc.).

NERD ALERT!!!

[Klamachpin]

I was a 12-year old boy who had just gotten a job as a paperboy. The first paper that I ever carried had bold front-page headlines of the flood. I was sleeping over at a friend's house on July 19th just a mile from my home in East Taylor Township. It's a beautiful house with huge windows in their living room. We watched the rain & lightning in awe & instantly knew this was an unusual, massive event taking place. It was truly scary. My friend's Mom was freaking out! She was running around the house screaming, "Ron (her husband's name), the evil spirits, the evil spirits, make them go away!", or something to that affect. I especially remember the Mineral Point area being mud-covered with unbelievable wreckage. My parent's house only sustained a wet basement. I'll never forget the '77 Johnstown Flood.

[moxham123]

I was 20 on the evening of July 19, 1977 and we were having band practice. I was in a band called Doc Holliday and we were practicing in a basement in the Westmont section of town. The rain started very hard and I was looking at one of the guitar players when a lightning bolt came right through the window behind him at his amp. Fortunately, he nor his amp were hit but I stopped practice immediately.

I drove home to the Moxham section of Johnstown and the rain was so hard I could not get out of my van. I, finally, ran into the house and went to sleep.

About 5:00 July 20th, my mother woke me and said, "You better get up, you're not going to work." Of course, I thought, if I am not going to work, why do I need to get up at 5:00 a.m.

She said to go onto the front porch. Since it was still dark, I could not see much but I could hear this enormous roar of water down the street at Ohio Street. I walked as close as I could and Ohio Street was like a raging river with slabs of pavement and cars floating by. Interestingly, some houses were destroyed and the ones next door were untouched just by the path of the water. My house was 1/2 a block from the water and was not damaged. We just had some water in our basement.

After the waters subsided, I was able to walk around Moxham and Hornerstown to make sure some homes, businesses, and people I knew were okay. I still have amazing photos I took that day. The next day, I had to get on a bus in Richland and go to work at Penelec in Cambria City to start clean up. I still remember that bus trip very well and how surreal it was to see all the damage across Johnstown. It was a sad day but everybody pitched in right away and started to clean up and try to put the pieces back together.

JP,

I think that is very admirable that you thought at that time to record the Johnstown Flood newscasts and now are able to donate them to the Flood Museum. I am sure they will be a very welcome addition to their exhibits.

[boot-man]

I was 8 at the time, i remember sitting up with my mom worring about my dad who worked in the steel mills. he was working a double shift that day 2nd and 3rd. some how he got out of it. we worried all night long until we got a phone call the next day saying he was alright. it was a crazy time. i have pictures from several news paper from the day.