A museum that chronicles a flood that killed more than 2,000 people in 1889 has been closed due to some far less cataclysmic flooding. The Johnstown Flood Museum in downtown Johnstown, Pennsylvania, has been temporarily closed because it "sustained some interior water damage due to a leak caused by the recent extreme weather," Heritage Johnstown said in a Facebook post earlier this week. Museum officials say a valve failure on the building's third floor caused water to pour through the walls, but artifacts and archives were not damaged, WJAC reports. Officials say drywall, ceiling tiles, and carpets need to be dried out or replaced, but they hope to reopen within several weeks.
"We are very fortunate that a volunteer docent, Nicky Bosley, came into work in the archives on the day that the museum was closed during our winter operating schedule and discovered there was a problem," officials say. "She sounded the alarm and allowed us to get in here and keep it from being much, much worse."
The museum commemorates the Great Johnstown Flood that killed 2,209 people, including 99 entire families, the Guardian reports. After days of heavy rain, a neglected and dangerously modified dam "owned by the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, an exclusive club that counted Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick among its members," gave way, releasing 20 million tons of water, per the museum's website. A wave 35 to 40 feet high slammed into Johnstown, 14 miles away, at 40mph. (More flooding stories.)
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