austindamdisaster

This photograph is part of the (especially entertaining) Indicommons.org "across the Commons" feature Dam It!

This is just amazing to see what the area looked like back then. I saw the remains of the dam sometime around 15 years ago for the first time and have been intrigued ever since. Making a park there can help people, especially children, learn some history. I got to show my children last fall when the leaves were changing on the way back from the Grand Canyon. How beautiful.

Austin, a quiet town in Potter County between St. Marys and Coudersport, holds the distinction of having survived the second-worst flood disaster in Pennsylvania's history. On Sept. 30, 1911, at 2:29 in the afternoon, the Bayliss Dam burst. The floodwaters engulfed the town of 2,000 inhabitants, leaving 78 dead and a mass of wreckage in its wake. While the devastation caused by the Johnstown Flood is remembered through films, memorials and museums, the tragedy at Austin faded into obscurity.

Hi, I'm an admin for a group called Beauty in a Tragedy, and we'd love to have this added to the group!

On September 11, 1911, the Austin Dam broke sending 265 million gallons of water into Austin and Costello... from internet: "Austin Dam truly is an unusual sight - a broken monument to the power of nature and the folly of man. The fractured remains still stand, 77 years after the large concrete dam ruptured and wiped out the north-central Pennsylvania town of Austin on a sunny autumn afternoon. Within a couple of years, the dam, located along Route 872 in Potter County about a mile north of Austin, finally may become a park - a memorial to at least 78 people who died in the tragedy."

Thanks! We also found some information in the New York Times Archive about the event at the end of Sept. 1911. We'll add date and state information to the source data and reload the description.

I just found out recently that my great-great uncle was one of the 78 who died in this awful flood. It was a story I had never heard. It is very tragic to see these photos and know that so many lives were lost.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin_Dam