Catastrophes in the commonwealth: 6 notable natural disasters in PA history
From one of the worst floods in U.S. history to a strange and deadly layer of smog, Pennsylvania has a long history of resilience in the face of natural disasters.
When Mother Nature unleashes her fury in the form of fire, floods, earthquakes, and storms, people and places are often in the way. Pennsylvania, crisscrossed with rivers and streams, is most likely to be hit by floods—as seen in the devastating flood in Johnstown in 1889. But the state has also been struck by wildfires, tornadoes, hurricanes, drought, and even earthquakes. Many of these natural disasters claimed lives as they destroyed towns and cities.
We recount some of the most notable natural disasters to unfurl in Pa., from the deadly to the bizarre.
1. The Johnstown Flood
On a rainy spring day in 1889, the waters of the Little Conemaugh River, swelled from a broken dam, charged down a mountain and leveled the city of Johnstown. After the water receded and it was clear thousands had perished in the Johnstown Flood, the U.S. responded to what was then the worst natural disaster to have ever hit the country. But though the flood was spurred by rain, its roots weren’t exactly natural. Rather, the dam of a manmade lake was poorly constructed and not well maintained, breaking under the pressure of heavy rains and releasing 20 million tons of water on the valley below. The lake was part of a hunting and fishing club enjoyed by Pittsburgh industrial barons, meaning that many in Johnstown blamed careless, wealthy men for the destruction of the city and the deaths of at least 2,209 people.
Historian David McCullough details the origins, damage, and aftermath of the Johnstown Flood in his book of the same name. McCullough actually interviewed survivors of the flood for the book, which was published in 1968. You can learn more about the flood by reading the book and by visiting Johnstown, which is home to both the Johnstown Flood Museum and the Johnstown Flood National Memorial.
Unfortunately, the Great Flood of 1889 wasn’t the only significant flood to hit Johnstown. The city was also struck by major floods in 1936 and 1977.
2. Donora Smog
In 1948, a vicious yellow smog descended on the town of Donora, a mill town outside of Pittsburgh. The natural disaster had decidedly unnatural beginnings: Air pollution from steel mills mixed with fog so that the deadly pollutants couldn’t disperse, trapped in a layer of cold air. The smog quickly began causing respiratory problems in the town’s residents. Ultimately, the five days of smog led to the deaths of at least 20 people, while as many as 14,000 suffered respiratory injuries.
U.S. Steel refused to claim any responsibility for the disaster. You can learn more about what may be the worst air pollution disaster in U.S. history at the town’s Donora Smog Museum, which also chronicles how the incident helped to inspire the Clean Air Act of 1963.
3. 1985 Tornadoes
The myth that Pennsylvania didn’t need to worry about tornadoes was shattered in 1985 when a combined 44 tornadoes hit the state and parts of Ohio, New York, and Ontario, some with winds over 261 miles per hour. In Pa., 65 people were killed. In Crawford County, the primarily Amish community of Atlantic was almost completely demolished by a tornado. In Erie County’s Albion, many homes and businesses were totally leveled. In the town of Wheatland in Mercer County, almost all of the businesses that employed city residents were destroyed.
”Everything it touched it destroyed. Everything it touched is gone. There is very little minor damage,” a spokesperson for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) told the New York Times at the time.
4. Centralia
In 1962, a fire began burning in an abandoned mine in the Pa. town of Centralia. It’s been burning ever since, and it will continue to burn for hundreds of years. Like many natural disasters, the causes aren’t exactly natural—the fire ultimately began because of humans delving into the earth for coal, so that when a coal seam caught fire, it spread through a web of abandoned mines beneath the town. The threat of toxic gases eventually led to the evacuation of Centralia in the early 1980s.
Today, the town is almost entirely abandoned. Adventuring tourists sometimes visit to see the empty town as well as Graffiti Highway (an old road covered in graffiti that’s been mostly covered with dirt).
5. Pymatuning Earthquake
No one died in the biggest earthquake ever recorded in Pennsylvania, a 5.2-magnitude quake in northwestern Pa.’s Pymatuning in 1998. However, the ill effects came after: residents reported problems with their groundwater—more than 100 wells went dry in the months immediately after the earthquake, and new springs formed as well.
6. Hurricane Agnes
Perhaps the worst storm to hit the state, Hurricane Agnes, claimed the lives of 50 Pennsylvanians in June 1972. More than 68,000 homes were destroyed as the storm, then downgraded to a tropical storm, fell over central and eastern Pa. The devastation was largely due to flooding as both the Susquehanna and the Lackawanna Rivers swelled, with the overall cost of the damage in Pa. estimated to be $2.8 billion—more than $21 billion in today’s dollars.
In Wilkes-Barre, the Susquehanna River crested at more than 40 feet. Meanwhile, the historic cemetery in Forty Fort flooded, and caskets floated through the streets as residents were rescued in rowboats. In Harrisburg and York, children at summer camps had to be rescued by the National Guard and the state police.
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