David Mccullough's The Johnstown Flood

The “Johnstown Flood” was a chaotic result for a small middle class family, natural disasters happen so much in one’s lifetime and can be emotionally crippling. This natural disaster caused many families and homes to come crashing down, all the townspeople shed tears that day as they watched their homes and loved ones float away with the water. The parents, wives, and husbands all looked in horror as they watched their family die in front of them. David McCullough’s story “Johnstown Flood” deals with a disaster that has major impact on the characters in the story. As we begin this story we look into the lives of the Quinn family, A small middle class family in the late 19th century. In the first part of this story we are given small information about the family. For example in the text it reads “On the morning of the 31st James Quinn had gone to the store early to supervise the moving of goods to higher levels. Before leaving home he had told everyone to stay inside. One of his children Marie, was already sick with the measles, and did not want the others out in the rain catching a cold”(Page 102). Already as we get into

Gertrude is the little girl who never really saw it coming, when her father yelled for the family to follow him her aunt that was holding her turned back as it said in the text “Well, i kicked and scratched and bit her, and gave her a terrible time, because I wanted to be with my father.” (Page 104). Her aunt made a terrible decision and almost got her killed for it, With major luck, however she swam over to a mattress and was saved by a man on a roof as it is stated in the text “Then he pushed loose and jumped into the current. His head bobbed up, then went under again. Several more times he came up and went under. Gertrude kept screaming for him to swim to her. Then he was having himself over the side of her raft, and the two of them headed off downstream, Gertrude nearly strangles him as she clung to his neck” (Page