User:Kasei77/sandbox

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Five days after the 1889 flood the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) appointed a committee of four members to travel to the Johnstown region to investigate the cause of the flood. Chaired by an esteemed engineer and former president and founding member of the ASCE, James Francis, this committee toured the dam and flood-devastated areas, and commissioned a topographic survey of the dam remnants. They produced a state-of-the-art report (Francis et al., 1891) with many photographic plates, a detailed discussion of the dam’s history, appendices of hydraulic calculations, and a discussion section where other engineers could comment on the proceedings. This report was sealed and not made available to the public for more than two years after the disaster, even though many members of the ASCE clamored for its release. The final conclusion reached by the ASCE investigation (page 456) was as follows:

“The [South Fork] Hunting and Fishing Club [sic], in repairing the breach of 1862, took out the five sluices [drainage pipes] in the dam, lowered the embankment about 2 feet, and subsequently, partially obstructed the wasteway [spillway] by gratings, etc., to prevent the escape of fish. These changes materially diminished the security of the dam, by exposing the embankment to overflow, and consequent destruction, by floods of less magnitude than could have been borne with safety if the original construction of 1851-1853 had been adhered to; but in our opinion they cannot be deemed to be the cause of the late disaster, as we find that the embankment would have been overflowed and the breach formed if the changes had not been made. It occurred a little earlier in the day on account of the changes, but we think the result would have been equally disastrous, and possibly even more so.…” (Francis et al., 1891, p. 456).

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