Few people realize how large it was. Or how slow.

Mon Incline, Mt. Washington:

Tourist Mother: [to her children] Now, they built the inclines to get away from the Johnstown flood.

7 Responses to “ Few people realize how large it was. Or how slow. ”

Comments:

Connor says:
January 9th, 2007 at 2:07 pm

Oh man, that hurts my brain. Wrong River Valley, wrong… everything.

The Jonestown Flood was such a crazy event that it didn’t even need to have Inclines to make it cool.

You know what the flood went through before it even hit Jonestown?

A Forest.
Three Smaller Towns.
A Steel Mill (which basically exploded when the waters hit the molten metal being produced all over the building).
A Barbed Wire Factory and its huge warehouse.
It picked up a big ship full of oil or kerosine or something
Some other stuff.

So when it hit the town (14 miles down the valley from where the dam actually broke), not only was it still a 40 foot wall of water going around 40 MPH, but it was water full of barbed wire, bits of still hot steel, trees, and house-debris.

You know where all that water got funneled after it hit the town?
Under a bridge. A bridge that managed to hold up even when the ship full of flamable liquids hit it and exploded. Something like 80 people died in the BURNING BARBED WIRE BLAZE of debris that got trapped at the bridge.

Now how much cooler is that than the Inclines?

zackuofpit says:
January 9th, 2007 at 7:43 pm

it was johnstown, Jonestown is where they had that creepy kool-aid death cult

Connor says:
January 9th, 2007 at 9:52 pm

Oops. Spelling.

You know what I meant though.

Chris Griswold says:
January 9th, 2007 at 11:36 pm

I am now imagining the Kool-Aid Man riding a wave of cool, refreshing death on the back of Sharkleberry Finn.

joelofjohnstown says:
January 11th, 2007 at 6:45 pm

um… it was more like 2000 people died in the johnstown flood…not 80
and i’m pretty sure there’s no boat that hit the wall of debris on the old stone bridge… it was just soo full of toxins and whatnot that when sparks hit it, it burst into flame

:the more you know:
:cue the nbc star:

Connor says:
January 11th, 2007 at 7:00 pm

The 80 people were the ones that died by fire. The other 2000 just drowned. Maybe there wasn’t a boat. The point, however, is massive water pressure forcing people through a tangled mass of burning barbed wire and debris.

lois says:
January 17th, 2007 at 7:03 pm

….ever been to Johnstown??? Might as well be Jonestown.

Overheard in Pittsburgh