S4E4: Paul Scheer and the Johnstown Flood

Summary

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SNAFU with Ed Helms – S4E4: Paul Scheer and the Johnstown Flood

Original Air Date: October 29, 2025
Host: Ed Helms
Guest: Paul Scheer

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Episode Overview

In this lively and harrowing episode, Ed Helms sits down with Paul Scheer (comedian, author, podcaster) to uncover the catastrophic story of the Johnstown Flood of 1889—one of America’s worst industrial disasters. Mixing history, humor, and hard truths, Helms and Scheer unpack the confluence of greed, bad engineering, and class divisions that turned a Pennsylvania boomtown into a site of mass tragedy. Along the way, they riff on infrastructure follies, disaster movies, and the bizarrely recurring figure of robber baron Henry Clay Frick. It’s a rollercoaster of historic faceplants, leavened by Scheer’s comedic perspective and Helms’s gift for drawing out the darkly absurd.

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Main Discussion Points & Insights

1. Catching Up with Paul Scheer & Establishing the Episode (01:54–06:49)

• Paul and Ed reminisce about their days in the New York comedy scene at UCB, recalling grimy venues and wild backstage stories.
  • Paul Scheer: “We were performing in an old strip club where sometimes you’d be doing a show and people would... get up and leave. And you’re like, did I do a bad job? No, they just thought they were coming to a strip club.” (04:39)
• Helms gives Scheer a warm intro, touting his prolific success as a comedian, podcaster, and now author.
• Scheer admits he’s long had a fascination with disasters—having even flooded his own home in L.A.

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2. The Setup: Johnstown in the Gilded Age (08:06–11:49)

• Helms: Johnstown, Pennsylvania, in 1889 was a booming industrial town, its growth fueled by steel, coal, and an influx of European immigrants.
• Scheer: Notes the pitfalls of unchecked growth, likening the situation to SimCity: "You can’t build too quick. There are enough sewage plants? Things happen." (09:41)

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3. The Dam, the Rich Men, and Big Mistakes (11:49–15:08)

• Helms explains how the South Fork Dam and Canal—vital infrastructure—ended up in the hands of Henry Clay Frick, a young “robber baron,” who converted Lake Conemaugh into the South Fork Hunting and Fishing Club for the ultra-rich (11:49).
• Frick’s renovations included lowering the dam for a carriage road, selling off safety pipes and valves, and adding a fish screen—all degrading safety for the sake of leisure.
  • Scheer: “You can talk somebody into a bad idea really quickly... it’s a bunch of small things that make sense, but then when you pile them all together, it is disaster.” (14:11)
• Safety was repeatedly sacrificed for the convenience of the privileged.

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4. Warning Signs and the “Perfect Storm” (15:08–17:49)

• The steel mills in Johnstown, needing more land for housing, started dumping slag into the rivers, shrinking their capacity and making the region prone to flooding.
• Helms connects the dots: “You’ve got a region undergoing massive, short-sighted infrastructure changes... all coalescing into—the perfect storm.” (16:29)
• Both compare the tension-building in historical events to that of disaster movies.

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5. The Deluge Begins: The Storm of 1889 (18:02–22:01)

• In late May, an unprecedented downpour hits: 6–10 inches of rain falls in 24 hours, combining with melting snow to swell Lake Conemaugh to the brink.
• The dam’s president, Elias Unger, frantically tries to clear the fish screen and warn Johnstown by telegraph—but lines are down, and decades of false alarms mean warnings are ignored.
  • Helms: “Even so, there were people racing down on horses and stuff, telling people. But there had been so many false alarms... that there was also a kind of blasé sense about it.” (20:46)
  • Scheer: "This is the sky is falling, kind of Chicken Little moment." (21:09)

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6. The Collapse: Johnstown Flood Unleashed (22:01–31:46)

• At 2:50pm on May 31st, the dam gives way, unleashing a 60-ft wall of water and debris traveling at 40 mph. The devastation is instant and nearly total.
  • Helms: "The flood was just beginning... it’s about to get real grim." (22:01)
• The destruction is described in vivid, cinematic terms, with railroad cars, barbed wire, buildings, and industrial waste swept along.
  • Helms: “Most people... are overtaken so quickly and there’s so much panic and chaos you’re just grasping for anything you can grab onto.” (31:15)
• Scheer and Helms riff on disaster movie tropes, the futility of “good swimmers” against such events, and infamous scenes from Titanic.
  • Scheer: “You have a train wrapped in barbed wire heading for you. It doesn’t matter if you’re a good swimmer.” (31:15)

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7. Compounding Tragedy: Fire and Aftermath (34:10–36:06)

• The waterborne debris pile chokes a stone bridge and catches fire, burning for three days and adding inferno to flood.
  • Scheer: "It's almost overwhelming to even comprehend... No one can survive this." (34:10)
• By the end, the wreckage is a 30-acre heap, up to 70 feet high in places.
  • Helms: “Nearly three months to clear out.” (36:06)
• A photograph of a tree-impaled house, with the family inside surviving, becomes the iconic image of disaster.

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8. The Toll: Victims, Loss, and Miracles (36:08–38:33)

• Over 2,200 people die; the flood is the deadliest U.S. disaster of its kind until the Galveston hurricane.
• Rumors included a baby surviving a 75-mile journey on floating debris.
• Massive property losses: $17 million at the time (about $600 million today).

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9. Response, Accountability, and Human Nature (43:39–49:59)

• The American Red Cross, led by Clara Barton, organizes its first major disaster response, cementing the organization’s legacy for relief work.
  • Scheer: “Is this the first time the Red Cross exists or...?”
  • Helms: “First time they were called into action in this capacity. Clara Barton was a huge part of this recovery effort...” (44:27)
• The hosts reflect humorously and seriously on resilience and the urge to rebuild (“we’re basically cockroaches” – Helms).
• Lawsuits against the South Fork Club and Henry Clay Frick go nowhere. The Civil Engineering society’s inquiry (funded by Andrew Carnegie, also a club member) finds no wrongdoing; the courts call the flood an “act of God,” letting the wealthy off any hook.

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10. Reflection & Legacy (49:59–56:28)

• The event spurred some (too-late) infrastructure improvements, including an inclined railway to help Johnstown residents reach safer ground (52:05).
• Paul and Ed dive into the psychology of tycoons, culpability, and moral blindness among powerful figures, drawing parallels to contemporary leaders, presidents, and even disaster relief icons.
  • Scheer: "Every great leader, tycoon, even athletes, has to have this ability to separate themselves from their actions." (53:47)
• The story is retold in a spectacular 1926 silent film, which the pair marvel at for its early special effects.

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Memorable Quotes

• “We knew each other when we were just comedy larva wriggling around.” — Ed Helms (04:22)
• “It’s a bunch of small things that make sense, but then when you pile them all together, it is disaster.” — Paul Scheer (14:11)
• “Basically Johnstown now had the cardiovascular health of a chain-smoking borscht belt lounge act.” — Ed Helms (16:15)
• “You have a train wrapped in barbed wire heading for you. It doesn’t matter if you’re a good swimmer.” — Paul Scheer (31:15)
• “Why do we have to wait for disasters for this side of us to emerge?” — Ed Helms (47:15)
• “Every great leader, tycoon, even athletes... has to have this ability to separate themselves from their actions, because I don’t think you could go to bed at night.” — Paul Scheer (53:47)

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Notable Timestamps

• [04:39] – Scheer on UCB’s early days as a repurposed strip club
• [11:49] – The dam is bought by Frick, the rich get their fishing club
• [16:29] – “The perfect storm” setup for disaster
• [18:02] – Rainstorm hits: heaviest ever recorded in the region
• [20:46] – Communication breakdown: warnings ignored
• [22:01] – The dam breaks; the deluge begins
• [31:15] – The futility of “being a good swimmer” vs. disaster
• [34:10] – Flood is compounded by fire; town is devastated
• [43:39] – The Red Cross and nation’s rescue/relief response
• [49:59] – The courts rule disaster as “act of God,” absolving the Club
• [52:05] – Post-flood infrastructure: the inclined railway
• [54:29] – The 1926 silent disaster film and special effects spectacle

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Tone & Atmosphere

• The tone is a mix of darkly comedic banter and genuine shock at historical negligence and suffering. There are sharp jabs at the upper class, self-deprecating humor about disaster preparedness, and a running throughline of Scheer and Helms marveling at both the absurdity and horror of how preventable the Johnstown Flood actually was. Despite the death toll, both manage to find moments of levity—often through cultural references and riffing on disaster movie tropes.

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For New Listeners

This episode gives a fast-paced, compelling crash course in the Johnstown Flood—a tale with disturbing echoes today. The hosts courageously poke fun where they can, but never lose sight of the gruesome toll or the social lessons. If you liked the blend of historic catastrophe, comedy, and biting critique of the powerful, this is classic SNAFU.

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Podcast fans and history nerds alike, you’ll end up a little smarter, and a little more wary of country clubs with dams.

Transcript

[Eva Longoria]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Ed Helms]

This episode is brought to you by Audible.

[Johnny Knoxville]

Hello, America's sweetheart. Johnny Knoxville here. I want to tell you about my new true crime podcast, Crimeless Hillbilly Heist from Smartless Media, Campside Media and big money players. It's a wild tale about a gang of high functioning nitwits who somehow plot pulled off America's third largest cash heist.

[Ed Helms]

Kind of like Robin Hood, except for the part where he steals from the rich and gives to the poor.

[Paul Scheer]

I'm not that generous.

[Johnny Knoxville]

It's a damn near inspiring true story for anyone out there who's ever shot for the moon, then just totally muffed up the landing.

[Ed Helms]

They stole $17 million and had not bought a ticket to help him escape.

[Paul Scheer]

So we're sitting like, oh God, what do we do?

[Michael Lewis]

What do we do?

[Ed Helms]

That was dumb. People, do not follow my example.

[Johnny Knoxville]

Listen to Crimeless Hillbilly Heist on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Maggie Freeling]

The murder of an 18 year old girl in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved for years until a local housewife, a journalist and a handful of girls came forward with a story.

[Paul Scheer]

America, y' all better wake the hell up. Bad things happens to good people and small towns.

[Maggie Freeling]

Listen to Graves county on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And to binge the entire season ad free, subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts.

[Paul Scheer]

No one talks about that. No one talks about how the fishing in that club went downhill.

[Ed Helms]

You know what? There's a reason for that. Paul. I'm just gonna be honest. That's a kind of a shitty take.

[Paul Scheer]

Because like, I mean, I'm paying top dollar to be in this hunting fishing club. I've got a lot of hunting.

[Ed Helms]

How good was that fishing? It was really good.

[Maggie Freeling]

Really good.

[Paul Scheer]

Really good.

[Ed Helms]

All right. Damn it. Hey, I'm Ed Helms and welcome back to a show about history's greatest screw ups. More specifically, a show in which I walk my wonderful guests through distinctly unwonderful moments from the past. Today we'll be covering the infamous Johnstown flood of 1889. And our guest, well, he's truly one of the best in the biz. And I mean that in both the general sense, in that he's just an awesome dude, but. But also he is someone who is just constantly crushing it across like every platform in the whole business. You might know him from TV shows like the League or Black Monday or his uber popular podcasts. How did this get made and unspooled? Please welcome my very dear old friend, the great Paul Scheer. Ed.

[Paul Scheer]

So excited to be here because honestly, it's the only time I've ever get any validation. You just reading off those credits made me feel good. I'm like, oh, wow.

[Ed Helms]

I mean, Chris, I didn't even mention your book. You just had a. You just wrote a book. I have a book.

[Paul Scheer]

You know, look, you and I are now authors. We are best selling authors. Very exciting.

[Ed Helms]

It is very exciting. I'm very proud of us. I was trying to think back to the origin of our friendship, and it just. It falls into that huge basket of just wonderful people orbiting the UCB Theater in New York City around what, like 1999?

[Paul Scheer]

Right in that area? Because, you know, it's interesting. There are certain people that, like Jason Mantiz, obviously. We co host this podcast together. I know Jason for many years, but Jason was not somebody that was invited to my wedding, which is a crazy thing because we weren't that close at that point in our. He was definitely a friend. He didn't make that cut. He didn't make that cut.

[Ed Helms]

I was at your wedding.

[Paul Scheer]

You were. And I.

[Ed Helms]

The whole time, I was like, where is Jason?

[Paul Scheer]

Why is he Jason?

[Ed Helms]

This is horrible. Meanwhile, Jason gave a toast at my wedding. As a matter of fact, it's wild.

[Paul Scheer]

To me that I talk to him all the time and he was somebody that was not. That was just not a close friend at that moment.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah, but you're so right in that. I feel like there's so many people from that community that I. They somehow, like, merged with our DNA at that time. It's like we knew each other when we were just comedy larva wriggling around.

[Paul Scheer]

We were performing in an old strip club where sometimes you'd be doing a show and people would get up and leave and you're like, did I do a bad job? No. They just thought they were coming to a strip club and were very confused for the first 45 minutes of the show.

[Ed Helms]

Exactly.

[Paul Scheer]

They're like, this is great, but when are they gonna take off their clothes?

[Ed Helms]

I remember there was a basement that you would get to through a trap.

[Paul Scheer]

Door, basically, and the most rookety wooden staircase of all time to get down it.

[Ed Helms]

And you would go down there and it was like a grotto from, like 16th century Paris. Wet brick walls and dirt floor.

[Paul Scheer]

It was a city catacomb, if you will.

[Ed Helms]

That's what it was.

[Paul Scheer]

Oh. I mean, you would see the craziest stuff and it was only one way in and one way out.

[Ed Helms]

Wait, somebody was giving haircuts down there?

[Paul Scheer]

Well, haircuts down there and on stage. Yeah, one of the. One of the resident teachers there.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah, a legend. One of the original.

[Paul Scheer]

No audience. No audience. Really crazy.

[Ed Helms]

That should have been its own show, the haircut show. Weirdly, it would have found an audience, too, I'm sure.

[Paul Scheer]

100% actually more palatable than some of the shows that we did experiment with.

[Ed Helms]

As one of the OG podcasters and one of the greats in the podcasting business.

[Paul Scheer]

Oh, my God, thank you.

[Ed Helms]

No, truly, you've carved out such an awesome niche. It's been so cool to see you do a lot of shows in the studio. You do a lot of shows live, on tour. Do you have a preference?

[Paul Scheer]

I think, yeah. For me, I think there's something really fun about when it's just Jason, June and I chatting with each other. I think that that's always really a blast and we're not playing for laughs, but when we do it in front of an audience, it's. I like the. I like the showmanship of it. I like. I like getting out in front of an audience. I like finding where the jokes are, finding what they find funny and kind of chasing that, because sometimes also it can get almost. So what I love about the studio is it's so casual that sometimes you are just having a conversation and maybe that's okay, too, but, like, you know, you forget, like, oh, we gotta, like, hit some more jokes, or that one thing is funny, like. And I didn't even think it was that funny.

[Ed Helms]

Well, are you ready?

[Paul Scheer]

I'm thrilled. I'm such a fan of snafu. The book was great. I love the podcast. But the thing is, I also have experience with floods here because. Not a major flood, but I've had some flooding issues in la. In la, you can't get over it. I mean, obviously natural disasters are awful, but flooding is, like. It's infuriating because it's all there, but it's all wrecked and you can see it and you can't stop it. And it's. And it's. It. You feel, like, powerless as the water comes in and you're sleeping and I flooded. I mean, I did also flood my own house, too, and I have experience in floods, so I'm excited.

[Ed Helms]

I'm concerned about you and your lack of water maintenance. So, as I mentioned before, we're going to be talking about the Johnstown flood of 1889.

[Paul Scheer]

Not the Jonestown, not the Jonestown. Different flood.

[Ed Helms]

Also different disaster. Yeah, very different kind of disaster. Do you know anything about the Johnstown flood?

[Paul Scheer]

Never heard a thing. Okay.

[Ed Helms]

Oh, good. Well, I mean, not good. You should know better, honestly.

[Paul Scheer]

Okay. Sorry.

[Ed Helms]

But this will be fun because it's all fresh. Our story begins in central southwestern Pennsylvania, a bustling, bucolic little city. Now, just to orient you, Johnstown is about 52 miles east of Pittsburgh. Founded in 1800 by Swiss immigrant Joseph Johns, it is nestled at the confluence of the Stoney Creek and Little Conemaugh rivers. Now, just 14 miles upstream from Johnstown on the Little Conemaugh river is the South Florida Fork Dam. You know, cue the spooky music because that's going to be real important real soon. I know you're. You're from Long island originally. Do you know this area at all, like western mpa? I do.

[Paul Scheer]

Very familiar with this area. This is right in my wheelhouse. As far as places I know, like, from.

[Ed Helms]

Get from. From, like getaways as a family.

[Paul Scheer]

Yeah, I mean, look, I've been to Sesame Place, which is in Pennsylvania, Hershey Park.

[Ed Helms]

You got all the amusement parks dialed in. All right, well, 1889, Johnstown is thriving. It was basically the rust before it got rusty. Steel was king, thanks to the mighty Cambria Iron Company. Nearby, coal mines kept the fires burning and the bustling, dense railroad lines all tied it together. This was a blue collar boom town. And as a result, European immigrants were pouring in looking for work. The population exploded by roughly 30,000 people in the mid-1800s. Now, on paper, Paul, explosive growth is great, right?

[Paul Scheer]

Sure.

[Ed Helms]

But is it always good for a community?

[Paul Scheer]

No, I know this is just an.

[Ed Helms]

Efficient way to stress people out.

[Paul Scheer]

I mean, I know this from many years of playing the Sims video game. You can't build too quick. Things happen, you know, you can't keep up. Supply and demand. Yeah, there's a lot of jobs, but then, you know, there are enough sewage plants. You know, things happen.

[Ed Helms]

You know, as someone who's known you a long, long time, so many of us have been trying to pull you out of SimCity.

[Paul Scheer]

No, I gotta. You're too dead. And I'm not even on the sim, not even doing the people.

[Ed Helms]

I'm just doing the cities.

[Paul Scheer]

I build the city.

[Ed Helms]

I can't. I'm so worried about when SIM goes VR and you'll, like, just. You'll be so immersed.

[Paul Scheer]

I gotta put this baseball stadium somewhere, Ed.

[Ed Helms]

Well, you know, rapid growth can often lead to corner cutting, as we all know. And, boy, will that come into Play. So watch out. At some point, the State of Pennsylvania, or as it's formerly known, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, sold two of its major infrastructure assets, the Western Division Canal and the aforementioned South Fork Dam, to a private investor named Henry Clay Frick.

[Johnny Knoxville]

All right.

[Ed Helms]

I hope. I wish this is the origin of the term frickin. I don't know if that's true, but there will be good reason for it.

[Paul Scheer]

Henry Clay Flick does feel to me like a. I don't know if this is the appropriate term, but like a robber baron has the name of the.

[Ed Helms]

Okay, 100%. He was like buddies with Carnegie and Mellon and all those guys. So Frick was a rising industrial heavyweight in his 30s, juggling coal, steel, and of course, the society clubs, with a knack for turning big risks into even bigger fortunes. Naturally, the steel tycoon's first order of business upon this purchase was to convert the sleepy Lake Conemaugh above the dam into, wait for it, the South Fork Hunting and Fishing Club. Oh, because, yeah, as we all know, rich people love to hang out with other rich people and just shoot things.

[Paul Scheer]

Well, I mean, you have to. I mean, you know, that's the thing. What are you gonna do with your spare time without that? Now this is interesting though. Cause you're saying it's a working class town that now is kind of. It's kind of gentrifying itself in a way, right?

[Ed Helms]

Yes. Now, this is 14 miles upstream of Johnstown. So we are in. And it's. And it's a significantly higher elevation. We're maybe like 500ft higher in the mountains.

[Paul Scheer]

Okay.

[Ed Helms]

And.

[Paul Scheer]

And I guess 13 miles in the 1800s is. That's a. That's a far. Like right now. Yeah, that's a high.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah, we got the Model T yet. So it's like a resort. And, and the lake is kind of dumpy when he buys it. But his goal is to. Is to really make it this beautiful place just for rich people to hang out and I guess scoff at poor people maybe. Is that another one of their hobbies?

[Paul Scheer]

It's perfect because you're high enough and you can look down, you can literally look down, you can shoot a bird and then look down at the poor people and laugh at them as you eat your. Your squab.

[Ed Helms]

Exactly. So to do this, to make this resort, Frick and his resort investor buddies lowered the dam head to put a road across the top of it, which reduced the dam's safety margin. He also sold off the dam's safety pipes and valves for scrap and he did not replace them. He slapped a fish screen over the spillway to ensure good fishing. Yeah, they stocked this lake with lots of good fish. Cuz keep in mind it is a hunting and fishing club.

[Paul Scheer]

Yeah.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah.

[Paul Scheer]

Well, you got to have them both.

[Ed Helms]

You got. If it's in the name, you got to make sure the fish are in the lake. Right.

[Paul Scheer]

And you want to make sure it's easy to catch those fish. So you feel good about it. Yeah.

[Ed Helms]

You stock that thing. Yeah. And now meanwhile, they're also just patching various leaks in this dam. It's a giant earthen dam with mud and straw and basically treating critical infrastructure like a summer tiki bar. Now this is all because some rich guys really, really wanted a pretty lake and they wanted it fast and cheap and wow. I don't know. This is a kind of horrifying pattern in class dynamics when rich people make terrible decisions like this. Do you think it's honest ignorance with maybe a dash of optimism bias, or is it just straight up willful negligence?

[Paul Scheer]

You know, I never think that people truly are out to hurt other people. I don't think it's like, well, we're going to flood this down because it doesn't make. It's not good business sense. But I feel like you can, you can talk somebody into a bad idea really quickly where it's like, well, you know, we're just going to lower the. It's already high. We're just going to lower it a little bit.

[Ed Helms]

We need a road across the top and that's.

[Michael Lewis]

Right.

[Paul Scheer]

And then that's actually going to help us. And it's a bunch of small things that make sense, but then when you pile them all together, it is disaster. The thing that I'm curious about that you said that really jumped out to me was like he took away the safety gauges of the, of the dam.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah. There were pipes and valves built in that, that were part of the release mechanism for, for, you know, seems like.

[Paul Scheer]

That'S a hard one to kind of smooth over.

[Ed Helms]

That's not true.

[Paul Scheer]

For no reason.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah, I mean, if you really dig into this, which I encourage listeners to, to, to read more about this. David McCullough wrote an incredible book about the Johnstown flood and it's pretty dark. I'm like you, I want to give some benefit of the doubt because I think there's a ton of just optimism bias in people like this where it's just sort of like, I mean, this can't happen and it's like. Or this is too. That's too crazy to even contemplate that this whole massive dam could fail. Sorry, spoiler alert. But we're going to get there.

[Paul Scheer]

Wait a second.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah. Now here's the good news, is that this club, once it was finished, was enormously successful. And many of the rich, richest men in the world joined this club, making it instantly profitable. Now this was the largest reservoir in the country at the time. It's about 2 miles long, roughly 1 mile wide and 60ft deep. Lake Kanama had basically become a summer paradise. Meanwhile, 14 miles downstream, Johnstown was churning away as the industrial little trooper town that it was. And to make room for this massive influx of workers that was occurring, the steel mills had begun dumping a lot of their slag, or the industrial refuge from the steel making process. They were dumping this slag into the river to build up more land where they could build more homes. Of course this had the unfortunate effect of narrowing the riverbed which was sort of clogging it like an artery and it just was making it more prone to flooding. Basically, Johnstown now had the cardiovascular health of a chain smoking borscht belt lounge act.

[Paul Scheer]

Yeah, so we really are, we're basically, we've created like again, spoiler alert, the flood. We are creating the perfect, the perfect storm. Really like we're, we're building it.

[Ed Helms]

Oh, you stole my setup.

[Paul Scheer]

Oh no.

[Ed Helms]

The perfect storm. Yeah, I mean I'm just gonna read it anyway, but it's, but no, you hit it right on the head. Basically you've got an entire region undergoing massive, very short sighted infrastructure changes and they are, all of these things are coalescing into. Wait for it, say it.

[Paul Scheer]

The perfect storm.

[Ed Helms]

Which is sadly the perfect metaphor because the actual perfect storm is about to hit.

[Paul Scheer]

Oh boy.

[Ed Helms]

Do you ever feel that movies and history, both builders, tension the same way. Like everything kind of feels fine and there's that first act of a movie where you're just sort of building the Jenga Tower and then just relaxed into.

[Paul Scheer]

It and you feel like nothing can go wrong here. I mean Titanic is a perfect example of it. James Cameron's Titanic.

[Ed Helms]

It looks.

[Paul Scheer]

What a wonderful film. What a beautiful boat. What great people.

[Ed Helms]

Yes.

[Paul Scheer]

And then watch out.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah. Oh, and also Titanic. That's another great example of the class dynamics at play. The storm is upon us. A note to my sound editor. Please add some sound effects in post. Thank you very much. It's late May. Yeah.

[Paul Scheer]

Oh yeah.

[Ed Helms]

It's not very good. You're no Michael Winslow, let's be honest.

[Paul Scheer]

Ah, man. And you know what? I lost that part to my. So mad. The reboot, of course. All right.

[Ed Helms]

It's late May, 1889. A low pressure system that has. That had formed over Nebraska and Kansas two days earlier was now a massive storm directly over western central Pennsylvania. And it was for real, very scary. It was the heaviest rainfall ever recorded in the eastern United States to date. Estimates say that 6 to 10 inches of rain fell in 24 hours. I always feel like those metrics are like, what. Like, what does that mean? Six to ten inches isn't very tall, but. But then you're like, oh, I guess that is actually crazy relative to what was normal for the time. And here's the other thing, is that there was still snow in the mountains. So the rain is falling on the snow, which is creating even more water coming from the fresh snowmelt. Creeks and streams were quickly overrun, taking down trees and other debris. Even telegraph lines and rail lines were starting to come down. This is just from the rainstorm. We haven't even gotten to the real disaster yet. The next morning, it's May 31st. The president of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, Elias Unger, awoke in a tizzy. It was still pouring rain, and as such, that dam, dam damn near was overflowing.

[Paul Scheer]

Well, now what do you do?

[Eva Longoria]

I mean.

[Paul Scheer]

Cause this is the moment where, you know, like, this is the problem with a natural disaster. You can see it start to come, right? Like, this is it. Like this morning. He knows. But what can you do?

[Ed Helms]

You can't.

[Paul Scheer]

You almost can't do anything to stop it at this point, can you?

[Ed Helms]

He tries Unger. Unger quickly gathered a group of men to unclog the debris. They'd put a fish strainer, basically, at the spillway to keep fish from leaving the lake. And so that was now completely clogged with debris. And so no water was getting out of the lake. It was only rising. He sent one of his engineers, John park, on a horse down to the telegraph office. He wanted to issue a warning to the people of Johnstown. The dam was in danger of collapsing.

[Paul Scheer]

Get out of there.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah.

[Paul Scheer]

Now it's like, what The Fantastic four new galactus was coming there. Get out. Get out of the city, guys. Get out of the city.

[Ed Helms]

I don't know what you're talking about, but yes, exactly. This was tricky for two reasons. Number one, I would think that if, like, under this kind of duress, like sending a telegraph message, actually tapping the thing must have been like, like, so hard to do, right? Like, you're just like. Because you're probably shaking. You're trembling. And it's like.

[Paul Scheer]

Well, that's why you have to hire the best. It's like you have to hire the best telegraph. They have to be emotionless. You know, whether you're breaking up with your husband, you telling somebody that a loved one has died, or telling you that an impending flood is happening.

[Ed Helms]

Well, to make matters worse, telegraph lines were down. Well, they're down. So word didn't even, didn't even get there. No messages were sent to Johnstown. And even so, there were people racing down on horses and stuff, telling people. But there had been so many false alarms that the dam was gonna burst over the previous decades that, that there was also a kind of like, blase sense about it.

[Paul Scheer]

This is the sky is falling kind of Chicken Little moment. And this is why I think again, we prepare a lot for something terrible. You know, you're always like, ready for something bad to happen. And then I would say 95% of the time, the. The worst version doesn't happen. But, you know, and then you're, oh, I prepared for nothing. I did all the things. So I can imagine here that they've probably had some moments like, okay, you know, they're not gonna. They're not buying into.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah, it's the whole cry wolf scenario. Yeah, you get kind of tired of freaking out and who knows? But this one, this one was real. And it was real, real bad. There was a lot of drama at the top of the dam. Some guys were trying to actually stack more material on the top of it, but they could feel the dam moving and so they, they got off. And that hunger guy was like, get out there. And they were like, no, we're not going.

[Paul Scheer]

Is this like an earth dam?

[Ed Helms]

Yes. What's interesting about this type of dam is that when they do breach, it is almost always catastrophic because the flow of water instantly compromises the entire structure and it begins just washing out the. The material of the dam, as you can imagine. So at 2.50pm, the dam is finally compromised and it collapses and the water just comes rushing out. Now, South Fork is the first little town to be hit by this flood. The town, thankfully, is on a little bit higher ground, but 20 or 30 houses were still destroyed. Tragically, four people were killed in South Fork. The rest of the citizens were able to get to safety in time, but this flood was just beginning. And a word of warning, it's about to get real grim. I gotta ask you, Paul, if you were in like, Johnstown or South Fork that day, would you be the guy like calmly sandbagging, or are you the guy sprinting for higher ground like it's the last chopper out of Saigon?

[Paul Scheer]

You know, it's interesting. My, my gut is always to be the calm sandbagger. My wife's job is to get the hell out.

[Ed Helms]

And that might be your job, but what are you doing? What is your adrenaline telling you to do?

[Paul Scheer]

I always say that my wife and I are kind of Kirk and Spock the way we look at things. I'm looking at it very logically and my wife is like, let's just go.

[Ed Helms]

Oh, I love that.

[Paul Scheer]

I think in this moment, look, if my wife gets the urge to run, I'm gonna be following her.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah, I think at a certain point, it's like, you know, when it's this insane and we're about to hear more about it, it's like you just run best you can. All I know is what I've been told. And that to half truth is a whole lie.

[Maggie Freeling]

For almost a decade, the murder of an 18 year old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved until a local homemaker, a journalist and a handful of girls came forward with a story.

[Ed Helms]

I'm telling you, we know Quincy killed her.

[Maggie Freeling]

We know a story that law enforcement used to convict six people and that got the citizen investigator on national tv.

[Johnny Knoxville]

Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica Curran.

[Maggie Freeling]

My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist producer. And I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find.

[Ed Helms]

I did not know her and I.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Did not kill her or rape or.

[Ed Helms]

Burn or any of that other stuff.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

That y' all said.

[Ed Helms]

They literally made me say that I.

[Maggie Freeling]

Took a match and struck and threw it on her.

[Ed Helms]

They made me say that I poured.

[Paul Scheer]

Gas on her.

[Maggie Freeling]

From Lava for good. This is Graves County, a show about just how far our legal system will go in order to find someone to blame.

[Paul Scheer]

America, y' all better wake the hell up. Bad things happens to good people and small towns.

[Maggie Freeling]

Listen to Graves county in the Bone Valley. Feed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And to binge the entire season ad free. Subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcast.

[Michael Lewis]

Michael Lewis here. My book the Big Short tells the story of the buildup and birth of the US housing market back in 2008. It follows a few unlikely but lucky people who saw the real estate market for the black hole it would become and eventually made billions of dollars from that perception. It was like feeding the monster, said Eisman. We fed the monster until it blew up. The monster was exploding. Yet on the streets of Manhattan, there was no sign anything important had just happened. Now, 15 years after the Big Short's original release and a decade after it became an Academy Award winning movie, I've recorded an audiobook edition for the very first time. The Big Short story, what it means when people start betting against the market and who really pays for an unchecked financial system is as relevant today as it's ever been, offering invaluable insight into the current economy and also today's politics. Get the Big Short now at Pushkin fm Audiobooks or wherever audiobooks are sold.

[Eva Longoria]

I'm Eva Longoria. And I'm Maite Gomez Jejun. And on our podcast Hungry for History, we mix two of our favorite things, food and history. Ancient Athenians used to scratch names onto oyster shells and they called these ostracon to vote politicians into exile. So our word ostracize is related to the word oyster. No way. Bring back the Ostrakhan. And because we've got a very mi casa es su casa kind of vibe on our show, friends always stop by.

[Ed Helms]

Pretty much every entry into this side.

[Johnny Knoxville]

Of the planet was through the El.

[Ed Helms]

Golf of Mexico, forever and ever.

[Eva Longoria]

It blows me away how progressive Mexico was in this moment. They had land reform, they had labor rights, they had education rights. Mustard seeds were so valuable to the ancient Egyptians that they used to place them in their tombs for the afterlife. Listen to Hungry for History as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Malcolm Gladwell here. This season on Revisionist History. We're going back to the spring of 1988, to a town in northwest Alabama where a man committed a crime that would spiral out of control. 35 years.

[Johnny Knoxville]

That's how long Elizabeth Senate's family waited.

[Ed Helms]

For justice to occur.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

35 long years. I want to figure out why this case went on for as long as it did, why it took so many bizarre and unsettling turns along the way. And why, despite our best efforts to resolve suffering, we all too often make suffering worse.

[Maggie Freeling]

He would say to himself, turn to the right, to the victim's family and apologize. Turn to the left. Tell my family I love him. So he would have this little practice. To the right. I'm sorry. To the left. I love you.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

From revisionist History, this is the Alabama Murders. Listen to revisionist history, the Alabama murders on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Ed Helms]

The flood raced down the 14 miles of the little Conemaugh river valley, destroying everything in its path.

[Paul Scheer]

I mean, how quickly? In seconds is it? Minutes? What do we got here?

[Ed Helms]

It's moving a lot faster than you can run, I'll put it that way.

[Paul Scheer]

Okay.

[Ed Helms]

At one point, the flood was briefly stopped by a railroad bridge, but it eventually pushed past the bridge, gaining even more momentum. It raced through two more small towns with massive force, destroying literally everything. At this point, because the gorge is so deep, it's sort of, like, funneled. And the force of the water is so intense that it wipes these towns out to the bedrock. There is nothing but bedrock left in the wake of the flood. And then Johnstown residents heard a deafening roar before they saw it. But most even had no idea that this roar could be a flood. Suddenly, a massive wall of debris slammed into first, the Cambria Ironworks. The water swept up railroad cars, barbed wire, which was a product of these steel, of these steel plants. It then reached Gauthier Wireworks, causing boilers to explode and emit black smoke, just making it a more nightmarish scen. Just 57 minutes after the collapse of the dam, the flood reached the center of Johnstown, moving at a whopping 40 miles per hour. And it was up to 60ft high in some places. This wall of water and debris that was just like, you know, just rushing.

[Paul Scheer]

Through, even knowing everything that I know in the movies that I've watched, and many of them, like Day After Tomorrow, great films. The. But like that 60ft of water, right? And it's like. And you're not an. You're not an island. It's not a tsunami, but it is acting like a tsunami.

[Ed Helms]

It really is acting a lot like a tsunami and. Or an avalanche. It's sort of a combination of the two. And I remember it's so funny because when I was a kid, you know, I would hear about tsunamis, and I would be like, ah, no big deal. I can swim. I can swim. I'm a good swimmer, you know, but, like, in this situation.

[Paul Scheer]

You can't.

[Ed Helms]

Like, it doesn't even matter how comfortable you are in the water, how good a swimmer you are, because it's barely water. It's just. It's like debris.

[Paul Scheer]

Yeah. You have a train wrapped in barbed wire heading for you. It doesn't matter if you're a good swimmer.

[Ed Helms]

Yes, yes. Johnstown residents were either crushed by debris or caught up in the barbed wire or drowned in their homes or places of work. Some folks were able to stay afloat on debris, waiting for help. Most people in this situation, they're overtaken so quickly and there's so much panic and chaos that you're just grasping for anything that you can grab onto 100%.

[Paul Scheer]

But this is why I travel with 200 pound weights on me at all times, just in case. It keeps me grounded.

[Ed Helms]

I know you're legendary in the rucking.

[Paul Scheer]

Community and it's hard to go to restaurants, things that goes out, but I'm ready for it.

[Ed Helms]

It's a pain for all of us who are friends with you, but, yeah, it's very cool. We respect you for it.

[Paul Scheer]

Thank you.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah. And this is kind of reminiscent of Rose in the Titanic, right? You brought up the Titanic. She found a chunk of. Of something to cling to, hold on to. Yeah. I feel like there was room for Leo to have climbed up on there, but it's a big debate. I don't know.

[Paul Scheer]

Well, you know, you bring this up. This just came up. Now, obviously Mythbusters put it to the test, but. Yeah, but James Cameron was not happy with MythBusters and recently recreated the water temperature and the thing and basically proved that at the rate that Leo was hyperventilating and freezing, he could not have stayed on.

[Ed Helms]

It's so funny.

[Paul Scheer]

I just saw it the other day. He just did it the other day.

[Ed Helms]

That's amazing.

[Paul Scheer]

Which is really funny to me.

[Ed Helms]

So a fun, weird little, maybe not a fun fact, but a weird little additional Titanic connection here is that our buddy Frick had actually canceled his Titanic ticket because his wife had a sprained ankle and had to be hospitalized. So this guy, he can avoid a disaster here and there. Anyway, back in the middle of Johnstown. This is crazy. The Pennsylvania Railroad stone bridge, which was this huge stone bridge in the middle of Johnstown, it became this kind of catch all filter, which was so building up in this bridge was all of these twisted train rails and boxcars and barbed wire and entire buildings and, yes, sadly, of lots of bodies piling up against it, forming a temporary dam. Now, this dam, which was sort of catching the flood, redirected floodwaters upstream of the Stoney Creek, which is the other river that kind of comes into the town of Johnstown. So now the flood is going upstream, Stony Creek, it reaches a sort of point where gravity then overtakes it again and pulls it back, unleashing a second wave that floods back into the city from the opposite direction, which is just completely bonkers.

[Paul Scheer]

It's almost overwhelming to even comprehend what is going on. It sounds like, whoa. But to be in it, to be there, it just seems like, well, no one can survive this. This is an insurvivable situation that you have presented.

[Ed Helms]

It is nuts. Now it's about to get even more nuts. If you were writing this script, Paul Scheer.

[Paul Scheer]

Yeah.

[Ed Helms]

And you wanted things to get even worse in this moment, what would you do?

[Paul Scheer]

I mean, I want to break another dam. I want to, I don't know, maybe dual dams or. Gosh, I mean, come on, think it through.

[Ed Helms]

Fire.

[Paul Scheer]

We got to have a fire. We got to have a fire.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah. Okay. Here's how things actually spiraled even more. Let's just throw in a completely new kind of natural disaster. The massive pile of flood debris at the stone bridge suddenly caught fire. At least 80 people were trapped inside the wreckage and killed just in this inferno. The fire raged for three full days, lighting up the ruins of the city, which is just heartbreaking and incredible.

[Paul Scheer]

Well, I imagine there's also gasoline. There's things that. There's oil in there. There's things that are going to catch fire. Yeah.

[Ed Helms]

All the industrial waste of a big industrial town, like, piled up in there.

[Paul Scheer]

Yeah, that's gonna. That's gonna keep it going.

[Ed Helms]

And trees, like, trees, which is just fire fuel. It's just like a big old mass of tons of trees that have been ripped out.

[Paul Scheer]

So we got black smoke, we got waves, we got fires. This is truly a nightmare. This is.

[Ed Helms]

It's epic.

[Paul Scheer]

Yeah, it's epic. This is like going on the ride at Universal Studios where they recreate the earthquake. We're seeing everything.

[Ed Helms]

I'm gonna say it's a little worse than that.

[Paul Scheer]

I'm gonna say maybe King Kong.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah, okay.

[Paul Scheer]

All right.

[Michael Lewis]

Yeah.

[Ed Helms]

Maybe they threw the King Kong in the face. So by the time this fire actually died out, the flood waters had receded and Johnstown was left with a staggering 30 acre heap of wreckage.

[Paul Scheer]

Oh, my Lord.

[Ed Helms]

In some places, 70ft high. Just the wreckage. This would take nearly three months to clear out. We have a famous image taken from the cleanup here. This is the Schulz family house. The six people living in that house survived.

[Paul Scheer]

Wow.

[Ed Helms]

This is an iconic photo that a lot of people think just sort of captures the insanity. There's so much cognitive dissonance looking at that.

[Paul Scheer]

It clearly went on a little bit of a journey, like, this house is not where it was. And wow. And the way that that tree goes through, like if you are picturing the house as like two eyes And a mouth. It's gone through one of the eyes of the top half of the window and it's really.

[Ed Helms]

Wow.

[Paul Scheer]

Yeah, it's massive.

[Ed Helms]

Oh, he'll need a glass eye for sure.

[Paul Scheer]

I mean, 100%.

[Ed Helms]

Let's get into the aftermath. The magnitude of the Johnstown flood was unimaginable. It ended in 17 million in damage, which is 600 million today. And this is, remember, this is a town of 30,000 people. It's not like New York City. Like, this is just an epic wipeout for this town. 2,209 people were killed, which made it the largest loss of civilian life, my lord, at the time.

[Paul Scheer]

All because a hunting and fishing club wanted to catch some fish a little bit easier.

[Ed Helms]

Well, I guess, yeah, but yeah, I mean, did you taste those fish, Paul?

[Paul Scheer]

I mean, it was so easy to catch. So easy to catch those fish.

[Ed Helms]

The loss of life was epic. And it wouldn't be surpassed until 1900 when the Galveston hurricane hit, which was also another epic natural disaster. This is crazy. There were even reports of the flood carrying bodies as far as Cincinnati, Ohio, like way, way downriver. Reportedly, one baby survived on the floor of a house as it floated 75 miles downriver from Johnstown.

[Paul Scheer]

Isn't that like baby Moses? Didn't they put baby Moses in one of those? Like a little carrier in the water? Is that baby Moses?

[Ed Helms]

But he didn't wash away. They just hid him in the reeds.

[Paul Scheer]

Oh, buddy.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah. This little baby washed away 75 miles away.

[Paul Scheer]

And wow.

[Ed Helms]

And it was fine. And that little baby grew up to be me.

[Paul Scheer]

Well, Ed.

[Ed Helms]

All I know is what I've been told. And that to half truth is a whole lie.

[Maggie Freeling]

For almost a decade, the murder of an 18 year old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved until a local homemaker, a journalist and a handful of girls came forward with a story.

[Ed Helms]

I'm telling you, we know Quincy killed her.

[Maggie Freeling]

We know a story that law enforcement used to convict six people and that got the citizen investigator on national tv.

[Johnny Knoxville]

Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica Curran.

[Maggie Freeling]

My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist producer. And I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find.

[Ed Helms]

I did not know her and I.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Did not kill her or rape or burn or any of that other stuff that y' all said.

[Ed Helms]

They literally made me say that I.

[Maggie Freeling]

Took a match and struck and threw it on her.

[Ed Helms]

They made me say that I poured.

[Paul Scheer]

Gas on her.

[Maggie Freeling]

From lava for good. This is Graves County, a show about just how far our legal system will go in order to find someone to blame.

[Paul Scheer]

America, y' all better wake the hell up. Bad things happens to good people and small towns.

[Maggie Freeling]

Listen to Graves county in the Bone Valley. Feed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts and to binge the entire season ad free. Subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcast.

[Michael Lewis]

Michael Lewis here. My book the Big Short tells the story of the buildup and birth of the US housing market back in 2008. It follows a few unlikely but lucky people who saw the real estate market for the black hole it would become and eventually made billions of dollars from that perception. It was like feeding the monster, said Eisman. We fed the monster until it blew up. The monster was exploding. Yet on the streets of Manhattan, there was no sign anything important had just happened. Now, 15 years after the Big Short's original release and a decade after it became an Academy Award winning movie, I've recorded an audiobook edition for the very first time. The Big Short story, what it means when people start betting against the market and who really pays for an unchecked financial system is as relevant today as it's ever been, offering invaluable insight into the current economy and also today's politics. Get the Big Short now at Pushkin fm Audiobooks or wherever audiobooks are sold.

[Eva Longoria]

I'm Eva Longoria. And I'm Maite Gomez Rejun. And on our podcast Hungry for History, we mix two of our favorite things, food and history. Ancient Athenians used to scratch names onto oyster shells and they called these ostrakan to vote politicians into exile. So our word ostracize is related to the word oyster. No way. Bring back the ostracon. And because we've got a very mi casa es su casa kind of vibe on our show, friends always stop by.

[Ed Helms]

Pretty much every entry into this side.

[Johnny Knoxville]

Of the planet was through the El.

[Ed Helms]

Golf of Mexico, forever and ever.

[Eva Longoria]

It blows me away how progressive Mexico was in this moment. They had land reform, they had labor rights, they had education rights. Mustard seeds were so valuable to the ancient Egyptians that they used to place them in their tombs for the afterlife. Listen to Hungry for History as part of the My Kultura Podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Malcolm Gladwell here. This season on Revisionist History, we're going back to the spring of 1988 to a town in northwest Alabama where a man committed a Crime that would spiral out of control. 35 years.

[Johnny Knoxville]

That's how long Elizabeth Senate's family waited.

[Ed Helms]

For justice to occur.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

35 long years. I want to figure out why this case went on for as long as it did, why it took so many bizarre and unsettling turns along the way, and why, despite our best efforts to resolve suffering, we all too often make suffering worse.

[Maggie Freeling]

He would say to himself, turn to the right, to the victim's family and apologize. Turn to the left. Tell my family I love him. So he would have this little practice. To the right. I'm sorry. To the left. I love you.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

From revisionist history, this is the Alabama Murders. Listen to revisionist history, the Alabama murders on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Ed Helms]

All right, so news spread rapidly to the surrounding areas, and support was provided in the form of clothing, disinfectants, fish bread, cigars, Whiskey, and weirdly, £20,000 of ham, among other useful items. There's a lot more to this recovery effort that I wish I could get into more because it's incredibly beautiful and cool, but this is one of the first large scale rescue efforts by the American Red Cross, and it's sort of like. Like a huge scale disaster relief. And it really kind of changed the game for disaster response.

[Paul Scheer]

When you were saying this, I was starting to put together things. I remembered, is this the first time the Red Cross exists or. No, the Red Cross did exist, but this is the first time they were called into action.

[Ed Helms]

I think it's the first time they were called into action in this capacity. Clara Barton was a huge part of this recovery effort and stayed in the region for a long period of time, kind of running logistics and just further cemented her legendary status as a humanitarian.

[Paul Scheer]

There's a part of me that goes, do you. I mean, I guess you have to rebuild on some level. You have to, but should. I mean, I don't know, it's like, is it worth. I mean, is it worth rebuilding? Because it could all happen again. And this is the kind of the same thing that happens in New Orleans when the dam broke in New Orleans. Is this too dangerous to do again? I mean, or do they find a way to just go, you know what, we're gonna put more safety measures in. Yeah.

[Ed Helms]

Paul, I think you're forgetting that we're as a species, like, we're basically cockroaches. Like, we just. We just got to make it work wherever the hell we are and clean.

[Paul Scheer]

Out that 30 acres and start going again.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah. You're asking questions that really have no place here, Paul. No, but, but, but there certainly were a lot of kind of infrastructure considerations that went into the redevelopment and rebuilding of Johnstown and the entire region. That had been rather carelessly handled and. Or completely overlooked obviously beforehand. The answer is yes, they rebuilt. They felt the need to rebuild. It was a very strategic location for so many industries at the time. And it was rebuilt a lot more safely. That did not prevent future floods. Unfortunately, there were future floods in Johnstown and still are from time to time. But it is much safer than of course, it was.

[Paul Scheer]

But the fishing has gone down. And that's why I stopped being a member of that club. Because back when the fishing was good for a little bit and they really, you know. Yeah, it went downhill.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Yeah.

[Paul Scheer]

After that, no one talks about that. No one talks about how the fishing in that club went downhill.

[Ed Helms]

You know what? There's a reason for that, Paul. I'm just gonna be honest. That's a kind of a shitty take.

[Paul Scheer]

Because, like, I mean, I'm paying top dollar to be in this hunting fishing club. I've got a lot of hunting.

[Ed Helms]

How good was that vision?

[Paul Scheer]

Really good. Really, really good.

[Ed Helms]

Damn it. Okay, so let me just throw this out there because in times of disaster or mass casualties like this, I think something incredible about human nature emerges. We rally for each other. We were just talking about some of the rescue efforts. Claire Barton, among others, and all of these incredible resources that just flooded into the region. Sorry for the terrible metaphor, but so much support just kicked in from all around. We rally for each other. We come together. We help each other in these ways that might have seemed unthinkable just a day before a tragedy like this. Do you agree that this is such an incredible thing of humanity? Do you see it around you sometimes? And why is it so fucking rare? Not that it's rare, but why do we have to wait for disasters for this side of us to emerge?

[Paul Scheer]

You know, it's interesting, I will say that being in New York City during 9 11, it was. I talk about this as like one of the most beautiful times post 911 in the sense of the way that the city came together. Neighbors and, you know, there's a lot of. There's a lot of goodwill.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah.

[Paul Scheer]

And, you know, we even see out here at the fires that happened this year, like there's a lot of, how do we make a difference? How do we pull together? And you're right. And I think that ultimately we are society. We're cockroaches. We fall into patterns. And there are many people like Eclair Barton, and many other wonderful people who devote their lives to making sure that everybody has the same access to whatever. And we just get selfish and we forget and we forget about it. And then every now and then, we see a commercial or we hear about something or we get caught up because we have a personal connection to it, and then we move into action. But every now and then, when there's something that is undeniable, where everybody kind of kicks in, it's.

[Ed Helms]

It's the best of us. Yeah. The worst of us can bring out the best of us. Now, of course, as soon as the floodwater was dry, people began to look for someone to blame for the tragedy. And it wasn't long before the town turned to the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, which you have to say like that. The South Fork South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, and of course, our old friend, Henry Clay Frick.

[Paul Scheer]

Now, here's the question I got for you. If I'm Henry Frick, I'm like, maybe I should have gotten on that Titanic because I don't want to face the wrath of this town.

[Ed Helms]

He's going to be fine. Don't worry.

[Paul Scheer]

Okay?

[Ed Helms]

Survivors of the flood sued the club. The American Society of Civil Engineers launched a massive investigation. It ultimately concluded that while the dam was modified to be less secure, it would have failed either way. Now, it should be noted that the American Society of Civil Engineers was bankrolled by legendary tycoon Andrew Carnegie.

[Paul Scheer]

Wow. Okay.

[Ed Helms]

Okay. Himself a member of the South Fork Hunting and Fishing Club.

[Paul Scheer]

Of course, he was.

[Ed Helms]

It was good fishing. So perhaps they were not the most neutral referee in this matter. And indeed, more research in recent times has. Has very much questioned those findings. Still, the courts ultimately ruled the flood was merely a quote, unquote, act of God.

[Paul Scheer]

Well, you know, here's something that's interesting about it. This is a bona fide natural disaster that maybe in a way was worsened by dam precautions or maybe even staved off for. I don't know, like, you don't know. I think that sometimes these are the things that change our lives. The Titanic created all these regulations, these OSHA regulations, these things that we would never have.

[Ed Helms]

I think you're being generous.

[Paul Scheer]

Why am I on the side of the tycoons? I shouldn't be on the side of the. You're always.

[Ed Helms]

You're always sticking up for the. For the moneyed interests.

[Paul Scheer]

Just want to get that. I want to get that membership back.

[Ed Helms]

Whether or not it was criminal, we can Never know necessarily but, but bad, bad mistakes were made. There's more details about someone who was offering to make the necessary fixes to the dam in advance of, of all of this. And, and they were just like ah, it would be too inconven club. So we're not going to do it.

[Paul Scheer]

And well yeah, because you don't want to have those people out there working when you catch fish. You don't want these people banging, banging on them.

[Ed Helms]

Well, they probably have to drain the lake in order to make coming here.

[Paul Scheer]

For peace of mind to get a bang bang, bang, bang bang. Yeah, exactly.

[Ed Helms]

Well either way, without a legal obligation to do so, Frick and the club never accepted responsibility. This is, this is a very common theme throughout my study of snafus. Virtually no one ever is held accountable in any way. Frick however, did go on to be embroiled in other controversies. And he even did a few good things also. He amassed the incredible Frick art collection in New York City.

[Paul Scheer]

Oh yeah, it's the same Frick.

[Ed Helms]

That Fricking guy. I love that art collection. Yes, the Frick. I took many trips to the Frick and I enjoyed the Frick. I enjoyed the Frick. And now I am frustrated to know that what a scoundrel he might have been. But Frick was also part of the super anti union forces that led to the violent homestead strike in 1892. He even survived an assassination attempt during it. Not to tease you, but we will save that snafu for another day.

[Paul Scheer]

Ooh, I love that.

[Ed Helms]

Yes indeed. We were talking before about some of the ways the infrastructure was improved after the flood. This is interesting. Johnstown built an inclined railway in 1890 which allowed folks to easily go back and forth from the nearby town of Westmont, which was at a much higher elevation, safer from flooding, et cetera, as well as safer from the leftover pollution. Here's a photo of the incline railway.

[Paul Scheer]

Well, look at that. So there you go. Yeah, so they made some changes, some good changes. But here's what I'm gonna say. For somebody like Frick, do you think that he feels any responsibility or. When you're in that level, the reason why you're that successful, the reason why you're that wealthy is because you don't ever navel gaze. You never think it's my fault.

[Ed Helms]

That is a great question. And it is one of the things that I never, I just never understand about people who do like large scale dastardly things. Like I think that in order to sort of persevere as a Tycoon of this nature, like, you have to have the most toxic coping mechanisms. You are never analyzing these things. You're never even considering the possibility that you might be culpable, except in the. In the possibility that you might face legal repercussions, in which case you're like mounting your legal defense. And it is amazing the extent to which powerful and or wealthy people escape culpability, both literally and to your question. I think even in their own conscience.

[Paul Scheer]

I think on some level, every great leader, tycoon, even athletes, has to have this ability to separate themselves from their actions. Because I don't think you could go to bed at night. I always say that if every president has to be a little bit insane or at least narcissistic, because you're saying, I'm taking the whole world on my shoulders 100%. And if people die, you're like, well, all right, I'll get them tomorrow. And you know. Cause you have to get back, which they will.

[Ed Helms]

People will die under your watch as a president, 100%.

[Paul Scheer]

And I think that's the thing that unites all these people. And for better and for worse, it's just a very. I would even say Clara Barton probably is like that to a certain degree. I have to keep on moving, take on all this grief.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah, yeah. So finally, Paul.

[Paul Scheer]

Yes.

[Ed Helms]

Being a guy who dissects Hollywood's most baffling films, you will appreciate this. In 1926, they actually made the Johnstown Flood as a silent disaster movie. And like any great disaster flick, the plot is shaky, but the special effects for the time were spectacular. Can we just see this one little clip?

[Paul Scheer]

This is exciting.

[Michael Lewis]

Whoa.

[Paul Scheer]

Oh, my goodness. I'm already loving. I'm going to watch this whole entire thing.

[Ed Helms]

Look at these special effects.

[Paul Scheer]

Holy cow.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah. This is.

[Paul Scheer]

This is great.

[Ed Helms]

This is mind blowing. Wow. So you can tell it's all done in miniature.

[Paul Scheer]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ed Helms]

And then. And then watch how it's. Watch how it's like superimposed or double exposed somehow some of the filmmaking.

[Paul Scheer]

Wow, this is fascinating. I just am blown away by the amount of.

[Ed Helms]

Wow, look at that. How did they do that? It looks so real.

[Paul Scheer]

That looks unbelievable. I don't even understand because people are flying away too. And here's the thing, people, the special effects that were going on in these early days are truly outstanding. You know, these sci fi movies, like, when you think about what they had and what they were, that looked amazing.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah. Paul, how did this get made? I mean, and I don't mean that ironically in the way that you do. I mean, how did they actually do this?

[Paul Scheer]

I wanna talk and I am gonna get off this podcast and do some research. Cause I'm interested.

[Ed Helms]

Paul Scheer, this has been a goddamn delight.

[Paul Scheer]

What a blast. What a fun blast.

[Ed Helms]

I just, I love deconstructing with you about anything.

[Paul Scheer]

What a gift this is because every one of these, it makes me feel smarter. I did not know about this the, the Johnstown flood. And yes, it was awful, but I feel good that these guys got some good fishing in and that, you know, so that was the moral of it, right? That they. There was some good fishing, but there was a cost in it, of course.

[Ed Helms]

No, I really do love and appreciate how your brain works and I'm really grateful that you came on, shared it with us.

[Paul Scheer]

So happy to be here. Thank you, Ed, for having me. What a blast.

[Ed Helms]

Of course.

[Paul Scheer]

Cheers. Bye.

[Ed Helms]

Snafu is a production of iHeart podcasts and and Snafu Media, a partnership between Film Nation Entertainment and Pacific Electric Picture Company. Our post production studio is Gilded Audio. Our executive producers are me, Ed Helms, Mike Falbow, Glenn Basner, Andy Kim, Whitney Donaldson and Dylan Fagan. This episode was produced by Alyssa Martino and Tori Smith. Our video editor is Jared Smith. Technical direction and engineering from Nick Dooley. I our creative executive is Brett Harris. Logo and branding by the Collected Works Legal review from Dan Welch, Megan Halson and Caroline Johnson. Special thanks to Isaac Dunham, Adam Horne, Lane Klein and everyone at iHeart podcasts, but especially Will Pearson, Kerry Lieberman, Nikki Etor, Nathan Otoski and Alex Corral. While I have you, don't forget to pick up a copy of my book, the Definitive Guide to History Greatest Screw Ups. It's available now from any book retailer. Just go to snafu-book.com thanks for listening and see you next week.

[Johnny Knoxville]

Hello, America's sweetheart. Johnny Knoxville here. I want to tell you about my new true crime podcast, Crimeless Hillbilly Heist from Smartless Media, Campside Media and big money Players. It's a wild tale about a gang of high functioning nitwits who somehow pulled off America's third largest cash heist.

[Ed Helms]

Kind of like Robin Hood, except for the part where he steals from the rich and gives to the poor.

[Paul Scheer]

I'm not that generous.

[Johnny Knoxville]

It's a damn near inspiring true story for anyone out there who's ever shot for the moon, then just totally muffed up the landing.

[Ed Helms]

They stole $17 million and had not bought a ticket to help him escape.

[Paul Scheer]

So we're sitting like, oh God, what do we do?

[Michael Lewis]

What do we do?

[Ed Helms]

That was dumb. People do not follow my example.

[Johnny Knoxville]

Listen to Crimeless Hillbilly Heist on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

[Maggie Freeling]

The murder of an 18 year old girl in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved for years until a local housewife, a journalist, and a handful of girls came forward with a story.

[Paul Scheer]

America, y' all better wake the hell up. Bad things happens to good people and small towns.

[Maggie Freeling]

Listen to Graves county on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to binge the entire season ad free. Subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts.

[Eva Longoria]

This is an I Heart podcast.