Johnstown flood is a non-fiction book written by David McCullough. It details the events of the May 1881 flood in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The flood devastated Johnstown and resulted in 2,209 deaths. The cause of the flood was the rupture of the nearby Three Mile Dam. The dam was known to the people of Johnstown as the “South Fork dam,” which is the term that will be used in this paper. David McCullough is a professional historian. He has written numerous books on a wide range of topics. His most famous book is a Pulitzer-prize winning biography of Harry Truman. Another one of his famous books also won the Pulitzer prize and is a biography of John Adams. His net worth is approximately $200 million. He is an 83-year-old caucasian male. The Johnstown Flood is McCullough’s first published work. The South Fork dam was a dam that formed Lake Conemaugh. The lake was artificial and used for the pleasure of various wealthy businessmen from Philadelphia. These men included Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and John Fulton. These men were aware that the dam was unstable, but did little to fix the dam. A bad storm flooded and then broke the dam. The resulting flood, composed of all of the water from Lake Conemaugh, decimated Johnstown. …show more content…
They were aware of the faults in the dam but were not responsible enough to fix them. McCullough gives a few explanations as to why the dam had not been repaired: laziness and greed. I think that it might be a mix of both of them. Those responsible for dam repairs were wealthy. Many rich people are greedy and do not want to lose their money; repairing the dam would cost money. In addition to the greed, the owners of the South Fork dam were lazy and procrastinated on the repair of the dam. They did decide to repair the dam years before it broke, but the repairs were not comprehensive or
The dam had made the water so shallow that steamboats were not able to travel safely up the stream. There are some positives that The Hoover dam was built and the one thing that it help us do was helped control the colorado river. It helped the people save a large amount of money and it also helps so that the people do not have to spend it on distillation. “It saves the county money so they don't spend it on distillation.” The crops in Yuma are able to be saved because there are not any unpredictable massive floods.
Stephen Puleo wanted to tell the story of The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919, so he did. Puleo is an author, historian, university teacher, public speaker, and a communications professional. Some of his works are the “Boston Italians”, “A City So Grand”, and “Dark Tide”. While I was reading this book, I was amazed of how big and fast the Molasses was moving down the streets of Boston. You wouldn 't think of molasses moving fast.
Political and Ecological Corruption: A review of The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw Rivers are the carriers of life and culture. It is on the banks of rivers where plants and animals are guaranteed what is necessary to survive: water and food. It is on the banks of rivers where the first civilizations popped up, and where some of today’s most influential cities are located. So what happens when humans begin to meddle with rivers? Dams are notorious for the destruction of river’s ecosystems and some of the civilizations around them.
There was so much damage in the Everglades, the Water Management District had to pay $50 million to $100 million (“Florida Wildlife Hurt by Progress”). Without a doubt, this was a huge problem to the Everglades and the Water Management District, having to pay a lot of money. Marjory Stoneman Douglas said “Their idea was to get the water off the land. They never thought they would need that water” (“Floridians Finally Heed Old Warning on Water”). This phase was a big struggle to everyone who was trying to protect the Everglades.
In the town of Johnstown they had steal industries that were booming, and it gave steady paychecks to the workers who worked really hard and long shifts of 12 hours long 6 days a week. Since the town was in a valley with hills surrounding it, it didn't have much of a chance if a flood ever occurred. But the people of Johnstown had no idea of the risk they were at. There was a man made lake that was held by a dam that was made of earth but it was so poorly built that it sagged in the middle and leaked, and it was not easy to release water if it ever became too full. In late May of 1889 came clouds of rain as it rained it filled up the reservoir.
On February 26, 1972 the Buffalo creek community was destroyed by a terrible flood. The flood caused many tears, pain and death. In the blink of an eye, people’s lives completely changed; lives were lost, houses were gone and families were destroyed. Buffalo Creek is one of the mountain hollows in West Virginia on the edge of the Appalachians, near the Guyandotte River. The land used to grow warm green grass, but overtime the land became a dark place with debris from mine operation spills.
In the beginning, Yuma was a small town that had nothing but a desert and was known as the Wild West. However, Yuma underwent many historical events in the past making the Yuma we have today. The Yuma Project was one of the major events that changed Yuma, it introduced the plan to irrigate millions of acres around the world with irrigation projects. Irrigation projects would be constructed using government money, but they would not come cheap. Throughout the years, the developers of Yuma had to overcome many challenging floods but with the help of technology,
It controls the distribution of flow between the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers” (Kazmann and Johnson 1). The structures of the Old River played an important role in preventing the Mississippi River from changing course by controlling flows diverted into the Atchafalaya (McPhee 6). The person in control of this was LeRoy Dugas. He had been a part of working for the Old River since 1963.
After watching the movie, “The Return of Cuyahoga River” I was blown away by all of the history, facts, ignorance, and activism displayed in this film. There was so much information packed into this documentary. Information about this 100-mile long river that curves north and then south as it u’s along Lake Erie, and how in “1827 U.S. citizens changed the Cuyahoga River for the first time.” It was originally a swampy marsh infested with mosquitos and caused problems for the city of Cleveland Ohio. Cleveland was a small lazy town until the mouth of the river was widened by humans allowing for mercantile boats to pass by their town.
As Kitson (2009) notes, "the hydropower projects, in many ways, represented a new form of colonization, as indigenous peoples were excluded from the decision-making process and bore the brunt of the social and environmental impacts of the dams" (p. 630). This lack of consultation and collaboration with Native American communities during the planning and approval of hydropower projects has been a significant challenge in mitigating their impacts. In fact, as Deloria and Lytle (2011) explain, "the United States government, which had a trust responsibility to protect tribal lands and resources, had approved the dam without consulting the tribal nations that would be most affected by it" (p.
The Buffalo Creek Disaster written by Gerald M. Stern helped me understand the different decisions a lawyer must go through to help their clients. The Buffalo Creek Disaster was a man-made disaster that occurred in February 1972. The Buffalo Creek Mining Company’s coal waste refuse pile collapsed, leaving over 125 people dead and 4,000 people mentally distraught. The Arnold & Porter law firm was reached out to by survivors for help and Gerald M. Stern was appointed as the lawyer for the case, who eventually won $13.5 million for the survivors.
The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 was of the most powerful natural disasters of the 1900’s in 11 states along the Mississippi River from Illinois to Louisiana. The flood lasted from the beginning of April, through May, June and July and finally ended in August. During the flood, the river got to be as wide as 80 miles in some places and submerged residential areas in as much as 30 feet of water. The flood affected multiple states and the country in countless ways. Some of the ways it changed the country was in a social and political way.
This is because many people lost family members, money, and homes. A lot of people died from starvation and disease. Many banks failed, causing people who had money in that bank to lose it. Many people were left homeless and even died. Finally, Herbert Hoover made the Hoover Dam in 1931, to control flooding and generate electricity in the area.
Homework 7 Gaven D. Crosby Pennsylvania College of Technology Homework 7 This paper will discuss the way that the Mississippi River, and the New Deal have affected emergency management. The Mississippi River is a river that floods quite often, almost every year. The lower portion floods more than the upper portions, and affects more people. This is due to the terrain of the areas surrounding the lower Mississippi.
• The construction of this dam destroyed approximately thousands of archeological sites forever which could have earned revenue to the government through