The Johnstown Flood Museum commemorates the Great Johnstown Flood that occurred on May 31, 1889.
Just east of Pittsburgh, Johnstown sits on a floodplain between the Allegheny, Little Conemaugh, and Stony Creek Rivers. Way back in 1840, engineers built the largest dam in America, creating the largest man-made lake of the time: Lake Conemaugh.
Unfortunately, days of rain undid all that work, destroying the dam and unleashing 20 million tons of water from the lake on the city of 30,000. Over 2,000 people lost their lives in what remains the worst American flood in history.
At least until now!
Cold weather caused a valve on the third floor of the Johnstown Flood Museum to rupture, unleashing a massive rush of water on the remnants of the first Johnstown museum.
Okay, it's deluge-ional to think the little trickle that messed up their drywall and carpet is at all comparable to the 20 million tons of water that destroyed an entire city, but it was a flood at a flood museum, and I can't help but love the coincidental humor.
Luckily, the museum staff said the flood didn't cause too much damage:
ICYMI: the Johnstown Flood Museum is temporarily closed due to an interior water leak caused by the recent extreme cold. We are grateful for the quick thinking of Nikki Bosley, our docent who was working in the archives and discovered the problem! Nothing of historic significance was affected, and we hope to soon have a timeline for reopening. In the meantime, we appreciate your patience as we work to remediate and repair our beloved flagship museum.
Hopefully, they'll get those ark-ives back open soon!
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