The Johnstown Flood

by Marc Tyler Nobleman

2006 COMPASS POINT BOOKS SOFTCOVER

48 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Award-winning author of books for all ages, including one that changed history and inspired the first documentary based on a nonfiction picture book.

I've had the privilege of speaking at schools and conferences in 30+ states and almost 20 countries.

Reviews

[Peter]

This is considerable whitewash. Mr. Nobleman, the author, touches on the negligence of the gentlemen’s leisure and sporting club, the owner of the dam that killed thousands, in this way: “The club ordered repairs, which … were carried out without the help of an engineer. As a result, the dam was not adequately improved. … they did not replace discharge pipes that had been removed before the club bought the property.” The definitive book on this disaster, The Johnstown Flood, by David McCullough, points out that the club’s members spent plenty of money on the grounds and buildings of the club, but spent little on the dam. When the owner of the Cambria Iron Works presented an engineer’s report that raised alarm at the lack of a discharge pipe to the club members, the club’s response was to dismiss the report, citing trivial factual errors, such as the misnaming of the club, that the dam was not originally of stone, the culvert did not originally contain pipes, etc. This latching onto trivial errors in order to discredit dissent turns out not to be a recent talking head innovation, but in fact very old school. Did Marc Tyler Nobleman think that this exchange between the engineer expert and the gentlemen who felt that they had already spent enough was too trivial, or too damning, to be mentioned? The answer is blowing in the wind, or perhaps in his notation of other trivial details, such as the fact that on the day of the flood, the owner of the club sent three (3!) telegrams to the towns downstream warning them that the dam might break. Three times he warned them and still they did not listen! Like God before the flood; it’s almost as if the rabble deserved to drown. The young author, smirking at us from his photo at the back, unsurprisingly also does work for Fortune and the WSJ.