Johnstown, Pennsylvania, fills a valley where the Little Conemaugh and Stony Creek converge. Ideal for making steel. Unforgiving when it rains. The South Fork Dam collapsed on May 31, 1889, killing 2,208 people. Cambria Iron Works reopened six days later. Nobody debated whether to stay.
The rivers flooded again in 1936. The Army Corps of Engineers lined them with concrete channel walls rated for 81,500 cubic feet per second. In 1977, the water came at 115,000.
Today 17,600 people live where 67,000 once did. The median home sells for under $48,000. The steel mills closed in the early 1990s. Three flood-crest markers line City Hall like rings inside a tree.