Johnstown Flood Was as Big as Mississippi River

(Wired) The devastating flow released when a dam burst upstream of Johnstown, Pa., in May 1889 transformed a small, normally tranquil river into a raging torrent that briefly rivaled the mighty Mississippi, a new study reveals.
Johnstown, which lies about 100 kilometers east of Pittsburgh, was a thriving coal- and iron-producing town in the years following the Civil War, says Carrie Davis Todd, a hydrologist at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown. Then, on the rainy afternoon of May 31, 1889, disaster struck: Continued

Photos: Wikipedia, Library of Congress