IRB Media Summary of David McCullough's Johnstown Flood

Annotation

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview: #1 The South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club was a private summer resort located on the western shore of a mountain lake in Pennsylvania. On the afternoon of Thursday, May 30, 1889, the club was not quite ten years old, but with its gaily painted buildings, it looked spanking new.#2 The storm that night was the worst rainfall that had ever been recorded for that part of Pennsylvania. It was also the most extensive rainfall of the century for such a large area. But there were large disparities in the amount of rainfall between places within a hundred miles of each other.#3 The town was full of visitors on Memorial Day, with people gathering along Main Street since noon. The parade got underway about two-thirty.#4 Johnstown was a dangerous and ugly city in 1889, but the land around it was beautiful. The city was built on a flood plain at the confluence of two rivers, down at the bottom of an enormous hole in the Alleghenies.