If our history were a play,

geography would be the stage

Humid continentalLowest recorded

temperature 42 degrees below zero

Highest was 111 degrees

Four seasonsNor’easters/

blizzards

On 31 May 1889, the South Fork Dam near Johnstown broke after a heavy rainfall, and its rampaging waters killed 2,200 people and devastated the entire city in less than 10 minutes

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

• 2,209 people died.

• 99 entire families died, including 396 children

• 124 women and 198 men were left widowed. • More than 750 victims were never identified and rest in the Plot of the Unknown in Grandview Cemetery

Bodies were found as far away as Cincinnati, and as late as 1911

• 1,600 homes were destroyed

• $17 million in property damage was done

• Four square miles of downtown Johnstown were completely destroyed

• The pile of debris at the stone bridge covered 30 acres

• The distance between the dam that failed and Johnstown was 14 miles.

• The dam was owned by the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, an exclusive club that counted Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick among its members.

• The dam contained 20 million tons of water before it gave way, about the same amount of water as goes over Niagara Falls in 36 minutes.

• Flood lines were found as high as 89 feet above river level

• The great wave measured 35-40 feet high and hit Johnstown at 40 miles per hour

• The force of the flood swept several locomotives weighing 170,000 pounds as far as 4,800 feet

• $3,742,818.78 was collected for the Johnstown relief effort from within the U.S. and 18 foreign countries

• The American Red Cross, led by Clara Barton and organized in 1881, arrived in Johnstown on June 5, 1889 - it was the first major peacetime disaster relief effort for the Red Cross.

• Johnstown has suffered additional significant floods in its history, including in 1936 and 1977.

                              

Destroyed 64,000 homes

Dumped over 13 inches of rain in some parts of the state

Flooding in Forty-Fort, outside of Wilkes-Barre, dug up 2500 caskets in the cemetery

Only 25 bodies could be identified

FortyFortyForty

Formed over 300 million years ago

Contain many natural resources such as anthracite (hard) coal, bituminous (soft) coal, limestone and slate

Junction Fault separating the Appalachian Mountains and the Allegheny Plateau

260 MYA Late Permian210 MYA Late Triassic170 MYA Middle Triassic

115 MYA Early Cretaceous75 MYA

40 MYA3 MYA

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA, DEPARTMENT OF CONSERVATION AND NATURAL RESOURCES, BUREAU OF TOPOGRAPHIC AND GEOLOGIC SURVEY

Magnitude 5 earthquake hits Jamestown, PA September 25, 1998.

Philadelphia is a port city because ships can reach the Atlantic via the Delaware River

Pittsburgh is a port city because the Ohio River can transport goods down to the Mississippi and then into the Gulf of Mexico

Erie connects via the St. Lawrence River

Chesapeake Watershed

Mississippi Watershed

Ice Age formsthe Great Lakes

Erie Seaway

4 SeasonsHumid Continental

Nor’easters

Natural Disasters

Johnstown Flood

Hurricane Agnes

Port Cities

Philly

EriePittsburgh

Appalachian Mts

Watersheds

Alleghenies

Chesapeake Bay

Mississippi Basin

Lake Erie Seaway