\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0On May 28, 1889 \u00a0the destructive force of a broken dam decimates \u00a0an entire city that is in its path. At peak velocity\u00a0this flood, with the equivalent force of Niagara Falls kills roughly 2,200 people. \u00a0This natural disaster killed more than seven times that of the Chicago fire, which Peterrossi1\u00a0\u00a0explains, “killed around three hundred people”. The Conemaugh River which was blocked by a crumbling dam was patched by “straw and horse manure” and “relief pipes that were sold for scrap metal”, was doomed to break and people all around the dam new that it was not gonna be long until it happened. When the dam broke, it was stopped by \u00a0a wall of people and debris that sent the water back into Johnstown. \u00a0The problems that followed included fires and hoards of people flocking in to see the destruction. This was known as “Tragic Tourism” \u00a0because the death and destruction was interesting for people across the U.S. The two main Railroad companies, P.R.R. and B&O \u00a0which were in competition with each other, were starting to prevent travelers to visit the city of destruction in order to get workers in to rebuild. \u00a0these rubbernecking \u00a0tourists wanted to go on tours of the city, get photographic souvenirs and and physical mementos that they could bring back home with them. These same people also took souvenirs from the Chicago Fire and the San Francisco Disaster later on. People also toured morgues to witness the mass volume of lifeless bodies that were occupying the buildings, and the morticians that were disemboweling them. What is interesting is that the U.S. copied that morgue structure from Paris where morgues were massive and in public areas. the aftermath of the flood was described by Willis Fletcher Johnson \u00a0as ” all of the negatives of a military camp and new mining camp, with none of the pleasures of either”. The author finishes the article by comparing the tourist attraction of the Johnstown flood to the “Katrina Tour” which happened in the 21st century to show that people will always be attracted to disaster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0On May 28, 1889 \u00a0the destructive force of a broken dam decimates \u00a0an entire city that is in its path. At peak velocity\u00a0this flood, with the equivalent force of Niagara Falls kills roughly 2,200 people. \u00a0This natural disaster killed more than seven times that of the Chicago fire, which Peterrossi1\u00a0\u00a0explains, “killed around three […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":138,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist300a-spring2017\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist300a-spring2017\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist300a-spring2017\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist300a-spring2017\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/138"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist300a-spring2017\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1462"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist300a-spring2017\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1462\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1463,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist300a-spring2017\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1462\/revisions\/1463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist300a-spring2017\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist300a-spring2017\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist300a-spring2017\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}