NEW ORLEANS WASN'T OUR FIRST FLOOD DISASTER

It was a pleasant and prosperous town, built upon the rapidly growing American steel industry. Then at 4:07 p.m. on May 31, 1889, a great, thundering roar was heard as the South Fork Dam broke, sending 20 million tons of water ripping down a narrow Valley and racing toward the city, located 450 feet below. A wall of flood water, as much as 60 feet high, reached speeds of 40 miles per hour as it smashed into the city, destroying everything in its path.

The whole thing was over in 10 minutes. But, as would prove the case with Hurricane Katrina 116 years later, the nightmare was just starting.

As darkness stretched over the Pennsylvania valley, thousands huddled in attics and on rooftops. Many floated on the remnants of houses, fences and other structures. Some were swept downstream to the old Stone Bridge. But the debris piling up against the bridges arches caught fire, killing over 80 people who had survived the wall of water.

More than 2,200 people were dead. Far more were homeless. Many of the missing were never found. Some bodies were discovered years after the flood. Many were never identified.

As would happen 116 years later with Hurricane Katrina, the nation responded to the stricken city with a great and spontaneous outpouring medical help, volunteer time, money, food and clothing.

The clean-up operation required years of effort and great quantities of money. People came back, but many moved on. Although its manufacturing centers were rebuilt, it took five years for the city to reach its pre-flood population. The Pennsylvania city would lose its identity as a manufacturer of quality steel. Instead, it would come to be known as "The Johnstown Flood."

What caused the disaster?

A little bit of nature and a whole lot of man.

Nature started things rolling with heavier than normal rains during that spring of 1889. The rains caused the waters to rise in the old South Fork Dam, which stood on a mountainside 450 feet above Johnstown. Eventually, the shoddily built dam gave way (like the levees at New Orleans over a century later) and sent a wall of water thundering down the valley and into the flood plain on which Johnstown was built.

Blame for the collapse of the dam was laid at the feet of steel millionaires like Andrew Carnegie and Andrew Mellon, who had bought the abandoned reservoir, repaired the old dam and then raised the lake level to provide more shoreline for a fancy clubhouse and cottages. The simultaneous combination of a shoddily built dam, man-raised lake levels, a city built below lake level and heavy rainfalls resulted in the perfect storm of water which destroyed Johnstown. It wasn't much different than the lethal combination of a sinking flood plain, a city built below sea level, shoddily maintained levees and a hurricane which resulted in the perfect storm which would flood New Orleans 116 years later.

As would happen in New Orleans, man had also tinkered with the rivers surrounding Johnstown. The banks of the Little Conemaugh River and the Stony Creek River had been narrowed to provide more building space for the growing city. But the process had made the city far more susceptible to flooding.

What lessons did the country learn from the Johnstown Flood?

Not many. Or there would never have been a New Orleans flood.

What should we have learned?

Never, never shortchange the maintenance of dams, levees and other structures which hold back waters which are higher than the land of nearby cities.