At the end of May 1889, endless rain swells the rivers around Johnstown, a factory town in Pennsylvania squeezed into the bottom of a valley. On 31 May, upstream, an earth dam gives way, and the lake it held back rushes down onto the town.
Published that same year, this book gathers newspaper dispatches and eyewitness accounts: families taking refuge on rooftops, the fire in the wreckage piled against the stone bridge, then help arriving from all over the country. A direct and often heartbreaking account of a tragedy that moved the whole of America.
Written like a long piece of reporting, the book is easy to read in the language you are learning.
