David McCullough sets the scene by introducing a range of characters from the wealthy to the middle class of Johnstown. Setting up the scene allows McCullough to give narratives that provide background information that sets up the reader for the disaster that is going to occur.<\/p>\n

Location of Johnstown is important when understanding the flood and the severity of its impact on the town. As Sarah<\/a> mentions in her post, Johnstown was an area that was exposed to and prone to unexpected rains and windstorms. The location in a valley makes Johnstown specifically susceptible to flooding. Comparing the Chicago Fire of 1871 and the Johnstown Flood of 1889 many similarities can be drawn. Both places had natural elements that made them vulnerable to hazardous elements whether it is fire or rain. Catherine<\/a> points out that there are many parallels between the two disasters, in both the Fire and the Flood the often threats of damage, but no actual harm caused people to become immune to the actual threats of a serious fire or flooding. More specifically in Johnstown, there were many written accounts of the threats that were given to the South Fork dam. “In 1881, the dam threw a terrific scare into the people in the valley. On the morning of June 10, during a flash flood, a rumor spread through Johnstown that the damn was about to break.\u201d (63) Throughout the years until 1889 there was not much cause for alarm because the threats of calamity only proved to be rumors. So, in the wake of a disaster people are disorganized and are not fully aware of the dangers.<\/p>\n

Touching upon the aspect of blame, I disagree with Sarah<\/a> post because in this instance there are people who can be held accountable. Ignorance and focus on capital, reputation and pride that a person holds often clouds the vision of doing what is right. There were many opportunities for the dam to be fixed, and as hindsight is always 20\/20 there were telltale signs of a dam that needed amending. Thus far, McCullough has presented the information about Benjamin Ruff who was in charge of the restoration of the old dam. Ruff was put off by the findings of John Fulton, associate to Daniel Morrell (a man who held a high reputation), who sent Fulton to check the status of the South Fork dam. Fulton saw the faults of the dam, the erosion and lack of upkeep, gave great concerns to urgent correcting the issues. Ruff was put off by Fulton\u2019s findings and disregarded his suggestions as he saw Fulton as less then competent. While the blame is not solely on Ruff, it was people with his \u00a0attitude that accompanied to the devastation of the flood.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David McCullough sets the scene by introducing a range of characters from the wealthy to the middle class of Johnstown. Setting up the scene allows McCullough to give narratives that provide background information that sets up the reader for the disaster that is going to occur. Location of Johnstown is important when understanding the flood … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Clouding the Water”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[62,94,237],"class_list":["post-356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-chicago-fire-1871","tag-david-mccullough","tag-johnstown-flood"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his254-spring2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his254-spring2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his254-spring2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his254-spring2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his254-spring2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his254-spring2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":929,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his254-spring2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356\/revisions\/929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his254-spring2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his254-spring2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his254-spring2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}