Talk:Johnstown Flood

Untitled
The history channel special "the men who built America" had an amazing cgi recreation of what happened during this flood. This must be added to the article! It was during the episode "bloody battles" that this was shown

Break
How did the dam break? What crucial part of the dam gave way to allow it to collapse?


 * Read DAVID McCULLOUGH's book The Johnstown Flood (1968) or watch the pbs documentary

It was a combination of factors which led to the disaster. Although well-engineered originally, the dam had broken once years earlier, had been rebuilt to lesser standards, and had been poorly maintained for many years. The top was lowered to build a roadway across it, and leaks on the downhill side were patched with mud, brush and scrap wood rather than stone. To make matters worse, additionally, its planned method of draining excess water through the spillway had been greatly reduced by fish screens, so there was no practical way to lower the level to work on it.

In that weakened condition, with inadequate ability to reduce water level, the dam and the small crew tending to it were faced with holding back the torrential rainfall over several days which basically swamped the dam near its center by going over the top, causing a massive washout of the center section. The lake was several miles long, and held something like 20 million tons of water. It is hard to visualize without seeing the terrain. After reading about it and seeing photos for years, I eventually got there, and only then could I appreciate how much water must have been involved. The lake is still drained, but you can see where it was. Awesome. Hope this answers your question. Mark in Richmond. Vaoverland 12:22, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)


 * Just to add to what the previous contributor has written: An embankment dam (or earthen dam), if properly designed, constructed and maintaned is generally quite safe. To insure its structural integrity, however, it is imperative that water not be allowed to flow over the top of the dam and erode the earthen fill on the downstream side. Such erosion increases exponentially over time, reducing both the mass and structural continuity of the dam (water "slices" through the dam). In the case on the South Fork dam, the center was already weak, having been previously breached then repaired in an entirely inadequate manner. (In addition to soil, tree limbs, brush and manure were used to bring the center back up to grade.) Also, the valves or "gates" at the base of the dam had been removed and sold for scrap, thus there was no way to lower the level of the reservoir. The dam was also low in the center due to the settlement of the loose fill that had been placed to repair the breach. With the spillway partially blocked by debris caught in the fish screens, and thus unable to handle the large amount of water flowing into the reservoir, water began flowing over the center of the dam at a rapidly increasing rate, essentially slicing it in two. I haven't read the engineering reports prepared after the dam failed, but my impression is that the loss of structural integrity led to catastrophic failure. Cheers, Rico402 (talk) 20:13, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Possible plagiarism in this article
At least one sentence in this article seems to be very similar to another article which can be found at this website.

From this article: "With a population of 30,000, it was a growing industrial community known for the quality of its steel." From the johnstownpa.com article: "With a population of 30,000, it was a growing and industrious community known for the quality of its steel."

The original authorship of this particular piece of writing is actually a National Park Service brochure from the late 1980s, which has been repeatedly used without citation by countless sources. While almost everything the NPS does, as a taxpayer-funded operation, is considered public domain, it should be cited as such. Johnstownfloodof1889man (talk) 19:55, 27 December 2008 (UTC)johnstownfloodof1889man

What was the size of the lake?
In the article, there are two sizes mentioned.

In the section "South Fork Dam and Lake Conemaugh", it states "The lake was about two miles (3 km) long", which agrees with the article South Fork Dam article.

In the section "The Great Flood of 1889", it states: "allowing the water of the 3-mile- (5 km) long Lake Conemaugh".

I will try to find my McCullough book and check it. Does anyone else know? wrp103 (Bill Pringle) 15:16, 6 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I have the same book, but not handy. One thought is that just prior to the flood, the lake was unusually high.  I wonder if it was normally about 2 miles long, but had increased to about 3 miles with the higher water level.  -- Coneslayer 15:32, 6 October 2006 (UTC)


 * In 2005, the National Park Service conducted a volume study for the South Fork Dam and Conemaugh Lake as it was in the 1880s. As a result of this GIS study, it was determined that in the "high water area", the lake had a perimeter of 6.404993 miles, and a high water volume of 14,017,749.03 tons. (This was done becuase there have been conflicting numbers about the lake for many, many years, and we wanted to use technology to try to estimate an actual size.) I hope this helps. Doug Richardson, Park Ranger, Johnstown Flood National Memorial. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 165.83.123.131 (talk • contribs).

There are at least three totally different values given in this article for the amount of water in the lake: 20 million tons, 20 million gallons, and 20,000 gallons. I'm pretty sure 20,000 gallons is incorrect, but someone needs to fix this error. —Bkell (talk) 02:53, 7 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Even 20 million gallons seems too low. That's only 61 acre-feet.  -- Coneslayer 19:44, 7 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Oh, if I would have read the comment immediately before mine, I would have seen that 20 million tons is approximately the correct value. I'll change the article. —Bkell (talk) 13:00, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

A New York Times article says that the lake is "eight miles long and three miles wide." It sounds like this might be the source of one of the conflicting numbers referenced by the park ranger above. Jpp42 11:58, 31 May 2007 (UTC)


 * whatever the lake size 20 million tons of water is 20 million cubic meters (not 18.1 million) - get with the metric system ! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.20.123.200 (talk) 12:18, 4 May 2008 (UTC)


 * No, in the U.S. a is "ton" is 2000 lbs; a "metric ton" is 1000 Kg, or about 2200 lbs. So 20 million tons equals 40 billion lbs. A meter is equivalent to 35.3 ft 3 . The density of water at 25°C (78°F) is about 62.2 lbs/ft 3 . 35.3 ft 3 x 62.2 lbs/ft 3 = 2200 lbs. Therefore a metric ton of water has a volume of 1 cubic meter. 40x10 9 lbs / 2200 lbs/m 3 = 18.2x10 6 m 3 (to 3 sig figs). Cheers, Rico402 (talk) 22:09, 2 May 2013 (UTC)


 * The article currently says "The lake was about two miles (3 km) long, approximately one mile (1.6 km) wide, and 60 feet (18 m) deep near the dam. The lake had a perimeter of 7 miles (11 km) to hold 20 million tons of water. When the water was at its highest point in the spring, the lake covered over 400 acres (1.6 km²)." 3 km x 1.6 km is 4.8 km², not 1.6.  1 m x 2 m = 2 m² = 1280 acres.  This needs work.   Randall Bart    Talk   20:40, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Not really a natural disaster
I dont edit, I just comment. But there is a contradiction in adjacent paragraphs about legal liability. One sentance says, victims could not recover because the Fish Club lacked adequate resources to pay. But the next paragraph states that the Club was not found liable due to the nature of liability law in PA at the time. It cant be both. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.81.245.86 (talk) 20:36, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

In a sense, any disaster is natural, since it relies on the laws of nature (for example, 9/11 couldn't have happened without such phenomena as gravity and combustion). But outside this tortured definition, the Johnstown Flood can't be considered a natural disaster. It was engineering malpractice, pure and simple. An artificial reservior with an elaborate control system was built high in the mountains. Then the control system was removed but the reservoir was retained. It was then only a matter of time until a period of heavy-enough rainfall came to overtop the earthen dam. Nature controlled only the timing of the disaster.

The "natural disaster" angle seems to have been played up to deflect blame from the enormously powerful Pennsylvania Railroad. Now that it's no longer a threat to us, let's feel free to speak the truth.

Do you Wikipedians agree? If so, shouldn't this article be removed from the "natural disasters" category? Let's discuss.


 * The Pennsylvania Railroad had sold the dam some time before the flood, so they didn't need protection. It isn't clear that the wealthy folks who owned property around the lake were aware of the dangers.  And while it is easy to understand what went wrong after it happened, it wasn't that clear at the time.  IMHO, the Johnstown Flood and the effects of Hurricane Katrina were both natural disasters, even though some engineering mistakes were made.  They certainly weren't man-made disasters. -- wrp103 (Bill Pringle)  (Talk) 22:11, 27 May 2007 (UTC)


 * It should be noted that at the time, there were was no fault found in the courts against the dam's owners, and it was declared an "Act of God" by the same court. It seems digging up that court ruling, if records still exist, might be interesting to get some real detail on this.  But because of this ruling and apparently widespread popular reference, I think it's fair to leave it in the natural disasters category.  Don't be overly revisionist just because attitudes on this type of thing might have changed in 2007 compared to 1889.  Jpp42 12:02, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, the Johnstown Flood was indeed a man-made disaster. The earthen dam was bound to fail once it was overtopped.  And that was inevitable once the control equipment was removed. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 165.123.89.65 (talk • contribs).

New source of images
FYI,

The images that were supposedly of the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 were discovered to be doctored images of the Johnstown Flood of 1889. Here's the link:, and do a search for Galveston. The details on the images explain the doctoring. The images are government images so they should be public domain.

25or6to4 (talk) 12:58, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Responsibility for disaster
This disaster was clearly the result of human mistakes. A previous comment phrases it perfectly: "Nature only affected the timing of the disaster." Earthen dams have been used since antiquity, and they are very effective and can be made safe. The original builders of the dam in question were extremely competent and made a safe dam. The top of the dam was an adequate height above the surface of the lake. There was a spillway on one side to relieve high water levels, and if the spillway was insufficient to control water levels, underwater pipes controlled by valves operated from a control tower could be used to drain more water. All these devices were important because the worst thing that can happen to an earthen dam is to have water go over the top. This dredges the top soil off the dam, and as the top of the dam lowers, more water overflows, setting up a rapidly increasing failure mode. The purchaser of the dam and lake, who developed it as a vacation site for the wealthy patrons of the club, simply did not consult with a competent enough engineer before he modified the dam. The top was lowered to accomodate two carriages side by side. The spillway was screened to keep game fish from exiting the lake, and the drainage pipes were removed and sold for scrap. In its final form the water was just a few feet from the top, with no way to lower the levels in case torrential rains overfilled the lake. During the storms leading to the disaster, debris rapidly collected on the spillway screens, choking the only exit available for the extra water. Even in that era, the parlous state of the modified dam could have been forseen by any competent dam engineer. It's true that the members of the club, not being engineers, could not have been aware of these faults, but they nevertheless were principals in the company responsible for the calamitous dam modifications, and should have been held legally liable, as they would be today. The original developer who initiated the dam modifications had passed away before the flood, but the corporation and its members are still liable. In my opinion, the immense wealth and social prominence of the club members, and their huge political influence no doubt was responsible for their complete exoneration in this case. I would not be surprised if further scholarly research eventually unearths (no pun intended) some shady financial dealings associated with the denouement of this affair.Cd195 (talk) 06:13, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Popular Culture
I deleted the sentence on the Rob Szabo song "The Johnstown Kids", as the song has nothing to do with the flood. --24.145.4.58 (talk) 21:37, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Media Coverage
I recommend adding a section about the media coverage of the disaster. There was tremendous amount of yellow journalism surrounding the flood, including many stories of corpses being robbed of valuables (most were later discredited). On a positive note, the media coverage also helped garner the support of citizens across the U.S. and several other countries, leading to over $3,000,000 in donations.

Example - June 2, 1898: "10,000 Dead: Johnstown Blotted out by the Flood" - World

Sources (most available on Google): The Johnstown flood, By David G. McCullough; The Principles of Relief, By Edward T. Devine; The Red Cross in peace and war, By Clara Barton; American datelines: major news stories from colonial times to the present, By Ed Cray, Jonathan Kotler, Miles Beller DCSB2005 (talk) 16:53, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Temporary telephone tax in Pennsylvania
After the flood, the Pennsylvania legislature adopted a temporary tax on telephone service, which is still in effect today. Can some editor research this to find a good source? --DThomsen8 (talk) 15:04, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

I think it is really a liquor tax. Check out your local State Store. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.81.245.86 (talk) 20:37, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

May be usefull...
Gutenberg book with some illustrations and other infos: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/27669 76.117.247.55 (talk) 20:04, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Vandalism/Citations
Tough to tell when such a tiny amount of material has been cited, but should this article contain reference to "sex slaves," "weener size," and "asian minorities, hispanics, and white boys"?Arnold Rothstein1921 (talk) 03:12, 29 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for pointing this out. Looks like someone reverted part of the vandalism, but missed part of it - I just fixed it. Ckruschke (talk) 19:45, 29 November 2012 (UTC)Ckruschke

Turkey?
Turkey didn't exist in 1889.70.190.168.175 (talk) 19:40, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
 * According to our article on the Ottoman Empire, "Turkey" was used as an alternate name for the Empire even before the Republic of Turkey. The link did point to the wrong article, so I changed the link without changing the name in the body text. If someone feels strongly they can change the name in text as well. Regards, Orange Suede Sofa  (talk) 19:58, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Requested move 25 March 2015

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: Not Moved Mike Cline (talk) 13:23, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Johnstown Flood → Johnstown flood – Case norm per MOS:CAPS; not usually capitalized in sources. – Dicklyon (talk) 04:36, 25 March 2015 (UTC)
 * This is a contested technical request (permalink). Philg88 ♦talk 06:08, 25 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Support as nom. Usage in books has crept up to near 50% caps, but still falls far short of the "consistently capitalized" threshold in MOS:CAPS, which suggests we avoid unnecessary capitalization.  This is clearly not necessary, since most sources use lowercase.  Dicklyon (talk) 06:25, 25 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Oppose – Clearly a proper name, with significant and consistent capitalisation in RS. This article is not about floods in Johnstown, but about the specific Johnstown Flood. RGloucester  — ☎ 06:29, 25 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Support keep it to the guidelines — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.201.191.33 (talk) 22:29, 25 March 2015 (UTC)
 * It is consistently capitalised in sources, and is a proper name. If it were decapitalised, it would be ambiguous. The guidelines are in favour of capitalisation for this article. RGloucester  — ☎ 03:55, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
 * If by "consistently" you mean "recently about half". That's not what consistently is meant to mean there.  Are you suggesting that the thousands of books that use lowercase are ambiguous?  Like there another Johnstown flood they might be referring to?  That's a stretch.  Even the modern "common core" teaches it lowercase.  Dicklyon (talk) 04:06, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
 * It is consistently capitalised in roughly half of the available sources, meaning that there cannot possibly be a good reason to move the article away from the longstanding title. Doing so would make the title ambiguous, as no one would know whether this article is about floods in Johnstown or this specific Flood. It would also defy those sources. We cannot defy the consistent capitalisation. If capitalisation is at all consistent, it takes primacy in order to avoid ambiguity and maintain the encyclopaedic register. RGloucester  — ☎ 04:37, 26 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Oppose. Decapitalize the Johnstown Flood? Huh? It is surely known far and wide (and deep) as a proper name. And if half of the sources agree that it's a proper name, then it surely is, and acceptable as the long-term name for this page. As for ngrams, ngrams stopped in 2008, why are they still being used as a weighted legitimate source of information instead of a fossil record? Randy Kryn 5:20 26 March, 2015 (UTC)
 * I think if you look at books, you'll see that even by 2008 at lot of what the books n-grams are counting are wiki-mirroring books; newer stats would be even more biased by wikipedia. Other than that Wikipedia influence, is there reason you think the term would have suddenly become a proper name in the last 7 years?  Dicklyon (talk) 05:38, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Suddenly become a proper name? It's the Johnston Flood! It's been a proper name since it started raining. The U.S. government capitalizes it, the other external links on the page capitalize it, the references list museums and other institutions which capitalize it. Old ngrams capitalize it at least half the time. Why not withdraw the RM request on this one, there are hundreds of other pages you've changed that editors have let flow past - in fact there have been a flood of them. While sometimes a flood is just a flood, sometimes a flood is the Johnston Flood. Randy Kryn 12:07 26 March, 2015 (UTC)


 * Oppose, There is strong support for ".. Flood" though less consistent in scholar. Dicklyon, have you previously had requests like this contested?  GregKaye 10:53, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Never. Wikipedians in the past has shown strong support for the MOS and sources.  This opposition is odd and unprecented, wouldn't you agree?  Dicklyon (talk) 06:08, 1 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Oppose Web/book sources are a near split with the current name having a slight advantage. I'll assume a slight 'margin of error' with mirrors of the article. I don't think there is enough sources to warrant a name change from the current, under common name guidelines. The Nation Park Service, as mentioned by Randy above uses the uppercase but the flood museum uses lowercase. Uses my senses, as other editors point out as well above, this was no regular flood; it was major and cemented its place in history.--NortyNort (Holla) 21:43, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
 * If you look at MOS:CAPS, it should be clear that a "near split" means that WP style is to avoid unnecessary capitalization and go with lowercase. Dicklyon (talk) 06:16, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * CAPS states to use common sense as well.--NortyNort (Holla) 21:33, 1 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Support—Indeed, why was this technical request put here? A "near split" is way beyond the evidence needed to downcase it, according to our rules at MOSCAPS. Tony   (talk)  11:07, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Look at the pages references and external links, almost universal capitalization. According to this, search engine searches, and the guidelines (not rules) at MOSCAPS, "Jonestown Flood", capitalized, is surely the common name, and lower-casing a common name should have a good reason other than a 'near split' of old ngrams. The guideline that each and every name needs to be "consistent" across the board, which seems to be "nearly 100 percent-or-bust" in the eyes of editors who cite it to try to change titles, became MOSCAPS language in such a way that it shouldn't really hold sway in cases where proven common names are already in place. Randy Kryn 11:54 1 April, 2015 (UTC)
 * Exactly, Randy. "Consistent" capitalisation does not mean "100% always capitalised". It means that if capitalisation is consistently more common in RS, we use capitalisation. That's the case here, and that's why we use capitalisation. Dicklyon's definition of "unnecessary" is not supported by MOS:CAPS. We do not go against sources, especially not the article titles policy, which tells us to use the common names for article titles. The capitalisation is most common in sources, rendering it "necessary" according to the article titles policy (WP:UCN). RGloucester  — ☎ 18:56, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * The article title page reads, probably purposely, as some kind of legal document that goes on and on and so it sure doesn't surprise me that the same editors, less than a dozen, end up talking to each other on these name-change pages. How to find those pages, to even know they exist, and then to have enough interest to stick around until you recognize various arguments and then go back to the source of the language, takes awhile. So I like the pages' summary: "This page in a nutshell: Article titles should be recognizable, concise, natural, precise, and consistent". The Johnstown Flood probably passed those requirements long before it reached the high-water mark. Randy Kryn 19:22 1 April, 2015 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Requested move 29 December 2015

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: No move. After a week and a half, it's clear that no consensus will be found for any of the various suggested titles. It's worth pointing out that it does seem that "Johnstown Flood of 1889" is in common use, along with some other variants like "Great Johnstown Flood", but there wasn't much to suggest that they were more common than the present title, or that this is not the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Cúchullain t/ c 17:43, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Johnstown Flood → ??? – Choices would be 1)- the Great Johnstown Flood of 1889, for the joy of capitalizing the "F", and making the word a noun, 2)- Johnstown flood of 1889 and, 3)- Johnstown floods with content concerning all the floods sort of like it is now but expanded. The current name is ambiguous and does not conform to several instances of policies/and or guidelines such as Manual of Style/Titles and Deciding on an article title. Manual of Style/Titles goes a step farther than MOS:CAPS, that states "However, for names of Wikipedia articles and of section headings in articles and pages, generally only the first word and all proper names are capitalized in titles.". There were floods in 1894, 1907, and 1924, this flood, the flood of 1936, and the second great flood of 1977 (Ref:second great flood hits Johnstown (1977)) as well as around 3 more, so the current name can not possibly be considered a proper noun. Otr500 (talk) 04:59, 29 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Support as nominator 1)- Johnstown flood of 1889, 2)- Great Johnstown Flood of 1889, and 3)- Johnstown floods


 * Added comments: With so many floods, that also includes floods of 1902, 1909 (both smaller), 1913, and 1916 (1932: page 463-478 with the Johnstown flood of 1889 on p. 477 and 478, the 1894 flood on p. 479), there is no way to logically argue that just Johnstown Flood could be considered a proper noun. There is also absolutely no way the current title, using a capital "F" (or not) would delineate one particular flood among the many. The previous move discussion presented "If it were decapitalised, it would be ambiguous.", and "The guidelines are in favour of capitalisation for this article.". Wikipedia:Article titles|Deciding on an article title gives the criteria and this article name falls short per "Recognizability", "Naturalness", "Precision", "Conciseness", and "Consistency". Being ambiguous to the average reader because there were at least nine floods in all, covering 2 centuries, in a span of 83 years, with three being major. There is no possible way to know to narrow the current title down to the "first great flood" over the second "great flood" or any of the others, to the average reader, to satisfy Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Titles#Use commonly recognizable names. Consistency (The title is consistent with the pattern of similar articles' titles), in part would be according to "Category:Floods in the United States", is not even close. Otr500 (talk) 05:16, 29 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Support your first choice, Johnstown flood of 1889. Dicklyon (talk) 06:02, 29 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Oppose per WP:CONCISE as this is the only Johnstown Flood covered in Wikipedia. As for the capitalization, see above. Calidum T&#124;C 06:10, 29 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Oppose Starting this renaming discussion off with three possibilities greatly diminishes the chances of a consensus. More substantively, the other floods pale in comparison to the 1889 one. I think 1977 (with the Laurel Run Dam failure) comes in second. "Johnstown Flood" most commonly refers to the 1889 flood and I think this article's title reflects that. The lead makes it clear what year it is and readers are able to learn about other floods further down. If there were articles on the 1936 or 1977 floods, I could see a hat note for them up top.--NortyNort (Holla) 12:06, 29 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment: @ NortyNort, I am just wondering; If you don't like the policies and guidelines why not take the issue up there? You "push" for a title name apparently claiming that making the word flood part of a proper noun (with the capital "F") denotes only the 1889 flood in Johnstown. To help with the justification a redirect from "Johnstown flood" has to point to this article to avoid confusion. I am wondering how you can defend such a position with no actual supporting policy? A proper noun, in the English I have studied, will be such all the time. Not "some of the time", "part of the time", "split", or "usage creeping up", to create such proper noun. This is the only logical argument, that I can see, to your reasoning that gives justification to invoking ignore all rules, that is still subject to community-wide consensus. What you end up with is silliness and a featured article using "After a catastrophic flood in 1889" to avoid this calamity. There is not just one policy involved but several, that has to be ignored or given an exceptions, to allow going against the more broad community consensus. I have gone over a lot of the references, that led to this RM, and sentence usage not titles, continuously produced the Johnstown flood or Johnstown flood of 1889. It has been such "since the rain stopped" in books of that time (1889), later other books, and the organization protecting the history (that is in the town) in at least three places. Examples are: Official History of the Johnstown Flood (copyright 1889), capitalizes the title as is customary, but the opening sentence in the preface states "In presenting this, the first connected history of the Johnstown flood.". In the 1968 book Johnstown Flood, on the copyright page: "The Library of Congress has cataloged the Touchstone edition as follows: McCullough, David G., The Johnstown flood", and the 1984 book uses the title The Johnstown flood of 1889: the tragedy of the Conemaugh. The museum website states "The great Johnstown flood of 1889..." and in the same paragraph; "These are just some of the reasons the 1889 Johnstown flood...", with another link "The scale of the Johnstown flood of 1889...". I have more if you would like to compare references that capitalize "flood" in sentence use and not presented as a title. Otr500 (talk) 01:31, 31 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Oppose pre-emptive disambiguation. The event is usually referred to as "The Johnstown Flood" per both my memory & the sources / links on the page.  It is what the Johnstown Flood Museum is referring to in its title.  If there are other notable floods in Johnstown worthy of articles, then there might be cause to move, but there aren't. SnowFire (talk) 04:42, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Edit to Weak Oppose. Would suggest that if this *is* moved, go with Johnstown Flood of 1889 for disambiguation from the other article just created yesterday. SnowFire (talk) 20:06, 3 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Oppose but request move to Johnstown flood (lower case) per our style guide - WP:NCEVENTS. It's just not a big enough event to have a capitalization. —Мандичка YO 😜 16:31, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
 * See the earlier Requested Move above; I'd argue that "Johnstown Flood" is a proper name, as it's usually referred to as such. It's not a flood that happened to be in Johnstown, it's the Johnstown Flood (or even the "Great Johnstown Flood").  SnowFire (talk) 19:00, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
 * That is where the problem is. And a reason we can "fight" to make an encyclopedia something laughable --or better. Arguing ("Johnstown Flood" is a proper name) using only personal feelings, ideas, or thoughts is why we have policy. Those that argue without any substance or proof, such as policies and guidelines, using words like "I think", "if memory serves me", or "it's usually referred to as such", is not valid reasoning to trash or over-ride policy on one article without valid reasoning to at least support ignoring all the rules. The last part of your comments "or even the "Great Johnstown Flood" would certainly denote a proper noun, as differentiating one particular among many. This would satisfy WP:PRIMARY, Manual of Style/Titles, and provide reasoning of compliance per closing instructions "as reflected in applicable policy, guidelines and naming conventions".


 * FYI: Please look at Johnstown flood of 1977 in regards to you statement: "If there are other notable floods in Johnstown worthy of articles, then there might be cause to move, but there aren't.". It is more than a stubby-stub (I was rushing but don't like stubs), with unique content, and hopefully others will join in, but if not there is plenty of information (source; references) to support Johnstown flood of 1936 and to add to Johnstown flood of 1977. There were three major floods all deserving an article, two now that have articles and one left that deserves an article, if anyone is bored. Otr500 (talk) 05:41, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
 * What. Why do you get to decide that everyone who disagrees with you is using "personal feelings"??  I guess you were referring to me, but by "memory" I mean memory of the relevant sources, aka exactly what Wikipedia uses, and things like the Johnstown Flood museum itself.  This is obvious, what else could possibly be being referred to, alien transmissions?!  And you saw I said "the sources" as well, correct, and bothered to look into them?  Sheesh.  (This is referring specifically to whether "Flood" is capitalized.)
 * Anyway, for the record, you literally just made the 1977 flood article, so what I wrote above was correct for the time. Looking around a bit, there's not tons of sources, but it seems the '77 Flood also gets capitalized-F (e.g. http://www.johnstownpa.com/History/hist21.html, http://johnstownhistory.blogspot.com/2012/07/remembering-victims.html ).  Anyway, despite the fact that there were deaths, these other two floods still seem much more obscure than the famous one.  I'll edit to a weak oppose but think the current title is still fine as is; it's not uncommon to skip disambiguation when one use towers over the others. SnowFire (talk) 20:08, 3 January 2016 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

YouTube video
There is a flood simulation video on YouTube that is very interesting. It continues with other information on Johnstown and the flood. The external links section already lists probably more than it should but if this was deemed helpful maybe it could be used in place of one already there. Otr500 (talk) 21:22, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20130329151903/http://www.jaha.org/edu/flood/story/prr_reports_flood.html to http://www.jaha.org/edu/flood/story/prr_reports_flood.html/
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20061020021007/http://www.betweenthelakes.com/states/johnstown.htm to http://www.betweenthelakes.com/states/johnstown.htm
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20061020021007/http://www.betweenthelakes.com/states/johnstown.htm to http://www.betweenthelakes.com/states/johnstown.htm

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External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20151219011323/http://www.jaha.org/FloodMuseum/history.html to http://www.jaha.org/FloodMuseum/history.html

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Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Johnstown Flood (disambiguation) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 17:30, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Composition I - Writing Wikipedia
— Assignment last updated by DarthVetter (talk) 12:25, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

The complete story of the Galveston Horror by John Coulter published 1900
The final chapter is about the Johnstown flood telling many eyewitness accounts 2601:2C3:4380:AB0:1C7D:829C:AD6F:578 (talk) 21:57, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

I think this claim needs to be supported
The article claims that difficulty recovering damages from the Dam owners "led to American law changing from a fault-based regime to one of strict liability."

I find that both hard to believe and unsupported by any references mentioned in the article. It's also contradicted by the "strict liability" article which the sentence links to.

I'm tempted to remove the entire sentence from the article but I'm writing here first to solicit feedback before doing so. 20after4 (talk) 02:33, 3 September 2023 (UTC)