"The rush of waters lasted three-quarters of an hour, while we stood rapt and spell-bound in the rain, looking at the ruin no human agency could avert. The scene was beyond the power of language to describe. You would see a building standing in apparent security above the swollen banks of the river, the people rushing about the doors, some seeming to think that safety lay indoors, while others rushed toward higher ground, stumbling and falling in the muddy streets, and then the flood rolled over them, crushing in the house with a crash like thunder, and burying house and people out of sight entirely. That, of course, was the scene of only an instant, for our range of vision was only over a small portion of the city.
"We sought shelter from the rain in the home of a farmer who lived high up on the side-hill, and the next morning walked down to Johnstown and viewed the ruins. It seemed as if the city was utterly destroyed. The water was deep over all the city and few people were visible. We returned to Conemaugh and were driven over the mountains to Ebensburg, where we took the train for Altoona, but finding we could get no further in that direction we turned back to Ebensburg, and from there went by wagon to Johnstown, where we found a train that took us to Pittsburg. I got home by the New York Central."
Edward H. Jackson, who worked in the Cambria Iron Works, told the following story:
"When we were going to work Friday morning at seven o'clock, May 31st, the water in the river was about six inches below the top of the banks, the rains during the night having swollen it. We were used to floods about this time of the year, the water always washing the streets and running into the cellars, so we did not pay much attention to this fact. It continued rising, and about nine o'clock we left work in order to go back to our homes and take our furniture and carpets to the upper floors, as we had formerly done on similar occasions. At noon the water was on our first floors, and kept rising until there was five feet of water in our homes. It was still raining hard. We were all in the upper stories about half-past four, when the first intimation we had of anything unusual was a frightful crash, and the same moment our house toppled over. Jumping to the windows, we saw the water rushing down the streets in immense volumes, carrying with it houses, barns, and, worst of all, screaming, terrified men, women, and children. In my house were Colonel A. N. Hart, who is my uncle, his wife, sister, and two children. They watched their chance, and when a slowly moving house passed by they jumped to the roof and by careful manoeuvring managed to reach Dr. S. M. Swan's house, a three-story brick building, where there were about two hundred other people. I jumped on to a tender of an engine as it floated down and reached the same house. All the women and children were hysterical, most of the men were paralyzed by terror, and to describe the scene is simply impossible. From the windows of this house we threw ropes to persons who floated by on the roofs of houses, and in this way we saved several.