Johnstown Incline Webcam and 1889 Flood Map
Last weekend was the 125th anniversary of the great Johnstown flood in 1889, which wiped out the town and killed over 2,000 people in about 30 minutes. We have written a great news story talking about the terrible event.
Today I'm proud to announce that AccuWeather has established a live webcam at the Johnstown Inclined Plane.
The incline, which I visited in 2007, is a bizarre feat of engineering designed after the 1889 flood to save the city's residents in case of future floods (which did happen). It consists of two vertical train cars which move vertically up and down a mountain, transporting tourists. To quote from the official website: "The Johnstown Inclined Plane is the steepest vehicular incline in the world, meaning its 30' cars, which are large enough to hold 60 people, 6 motorcycles, or a vehicle, travel at the steepest grade for cars their size."
I visited the Inclined Plane in 2007 and took a number of photos there. Ron Shawley, local storm chaser and historian, did this "tour video" of the outside -- and inside -- of the Incline:
Also in 2007, I did an extensive blog about the meteorology surrounding the event . In that blog, I uploaded an actual weather maps from the event, which I have reprinted below:
