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Other scenes of a like nature could be told and as usual in such cases there was a hero of heroes present, a self-sacrificing young man, who nearly lost his own life in his efforts to save those of his fellows:

Hundreds of lives were saved by this second Paul Revere, by name John G. Parke, and hundreds more would probably have escaped violent death if the warning had been heeded. It is not exaggeration to call young Parke a hero. He is an engineer. He saw that the South Fork dam must go, and jumping into the saddle, he dashed down the valley at terrific speed, shouting out his warning: “The dam! The dam is breaking. Run for your lives!” When he arrived at South Fork station, Parke sent a telegraphic message to Johnstown, two miles below, warning the inhabitants of the town of the coming disaster. He sent his message fully an hour before the flood came. When the water was almost upon him Parke fled to the mountains.

Too modest to speak of his actions in this regard, young Mr. Parke was prevailed upon to tell what he knew about the breaking of the dam. Said he:

“On Thursday night the dam was in perfect condition, and the water was not within seven feet of the top. At that stage the lake is nearly three miles long. It rained very hard Thursday night, I am told, for I slept too soundly myself to hear it, but when I got up Friday morning I could see there was a flood, for the water was over the drive in front of the club house and the level of the water in the lake had risen until it was only four feet below the top of the dam. I rode up to the head of the lake and saw that the woods were boiling full of water. South Fork and Muddy Run, which emptied into the lake were fetching trees, logs, cut timber, and stuff from a sawmill that was up in the woods in that direction. This was about 7.30 o’clock. When I returned, Col. Unger, the president of the club, hired twenty-two Italians, and a number of farmers joined in to work on the dam. Altogether thirty men were at work. A plough was run along the top of the dam, and earth was thrown on the face of the dam to strengthen it. At the same time a channel was dug on the west end of the dam to make a sluiceway there. There was about three feet of shale rock through which it was possible to cut, but then we struck bed rock that it was impossible to get through without blasting. When we got the channel opened, the water soon scoured down to the bed rock, and a stream 30 feet wide and 3 feet deep rushed out on that end of the dam, while the weir was letting an enormous quantity on the other end. Notwithstanding these outlets, the water kept rising at the rate of about 10 inches an hour.

“By 11.30 I had made up my mind it was impossible to save the dam, and getting my horse I galloped down the road to South Fork to warn the people of their danger. The telegraph tower is a mile from the town, and I sent two men there to have messages sent to Johnstown and other points below. I heard that the lady operator fainted when she sent off the news, and had to be carried off. The people at South Fork had ample time to get to the high grounds, and they were able to move their furniture, too. In fact, only one person was drowned at South Fork, and he while attempting to fish something from the flood as it rolled by. It was just 12 o’clock when the telegraph messages were sent out, so that the people of Johnstown had over three hours’ warning.

“As I rode back to the dam I expected almost every moment to meet the lake coming down on me, but the dam was still intact, although the water had reached the top. At about 1 o’clock I walked over the dam. At that time the water was three inches deep on it, and was gradually eating away the earth on the outer face. As the stream rolled down the outer face it kept wearing down the edge of the embankment, and I saw it was merely a question of time. I then went up to the club house and got dinner, and when I returned I saw a great deal more of the outer edge of the dam had crumbled away. The dam did not give away. At a rough guess I should say that there was 60,000,000 tons of water in that lake, and the pressure of that mass of water was increased by floods from two streams pouring into it, but the dam would have stood it could the level of the lake have been kept below the top of the dam. But the friction of the water pouring over the top of the dam gradually wore it away from the outer face until the top became so thin that it gave away.