neither here nor there now, for in the
common calamity they are one.

Laughing at Danger.

"Now you would have thought that the people on the Johnstown flat would
have got out of the way when warned of danger, wouldn't you? But they
simply laughed. You must remember that a good portion of the place was
flooded long before the dam broke. The rise of the two rivers did that.
The water ran from two to five or six feet high in some of the houses.
But, bless you, that was nothing. The place had been flooded so many
times and escaped that everybody actually howled down all suggestions of
danger. Telegrams had been coming into town all the afternoon and they
were received by Miss Ogle, the brave lady operator, who stuck to her
post to the last, but they might as well never have been sent for all
the good they did.

"Well, now with Johnstown spread out before you you can readily
understand what happened when the flood burst through the gap. There was
no time to run then. No time to pray, even. You notice the river makes a
sharp curve, and naturally enough the impetus of the water spread it
over a wide territory. The Conemaugh houses on the flat went down like
so many pasteboard houses. A portion of the flood followed the stream
and the other portion went tearing along the line of the hills which
form the left side of the triangle.

Wiped Out of Existence.

"Now look away over to the left and then away over to the hills on the
right, and what do you see? That distance is how great? Two miles, do
you say? Yes, fully that and probably more. Well, now for two or three
squares inland from this stream at our feet there is nothing but a
barren waste of sand--looks like a desert, doesn't it? Can you imagine
that all that immense strip was covered with stores, business houses and
dwellings? Where are they now? Why, just look at that circular hole just
beneath us on the other side of the stream. That was the gas works once.
The great iron receiver, or whatever you call it, went rolling, dashing,
crashing away before the flood, and not a vestige of it has been found
yet. Can you ask, then, what became of the houses? Simply wiped out of
existence.

"There! I put down the figure 2 on the map. It is a brick building, as
you see, but there is a big hole knocked in it. That is the B. and O.
depot. Figure 3--Two more brick buildings with one end completely gone.
These are the Cambria Iron Company's offices and the company's stores.