Published: July 03, 2007 07:45 am      

Faces of the Flood: 'We're not leaving here'

Second in a series on the 1977 Johnstown Flood



Edna Mae Cook prayed while her two youngest children sang hymns.

In another bedroom at the family's South Fork home, Wayne Cook could only watch as rushing floodwaters and tumbling debris pummeled his home.

"All I was concerned about (was), 'If we go, we go together,' " he said.

Wayne had transformed his Amsite Road frame house into a brick home in 1974. That fortification saved his family on the night of July 19, 1977, when water from the normally tranquil Sandy Run engulfed the structure.

That night, heavy rains brought severe flash-flooding to the Johnstown region.

The next morning, 85 people had died and communities had been torn asunder by rushing waters.

The Cooks' oldest son had planned to sleep in the garage with friends that evening. But he migrated indoors when nasty thunderstorms led to pooling water.

Not long after, the teen delivered a warning to his sleeping father.

"He came running upstairs, and he said, 'Dad, there's water in the parlor,' " Wayne said.

Wayne said he descended the stairs to find a few inches of water, then returned to the bedroom to dress. "I came back down, and by then it was up to my knees," he said.

Wayne, his wife and their four children moved to the second floor. It was too late to leave.

The water came in two surges, with the second and more violent waves arriving when Sandy Run Dam failed in the early hours of July 20.

By then, the Cooks' home was in the middle of a river. The water dug deep channels on either side of the house; debris smashed windows and tore away doors.

"It was just like a train going through," Edna Mae recalled about feeling the structure vibrate beneath her.

Timber flew down the river "like darts," Wayne said. The water had backed up against Route 869 above the family's backyard, then began to peel away the road.

Wayne watched as a section of concrete rose up and split in two. Half disappeared beneath the waves, while the other half slammed into his home.

Somehow, the Cook residence withstood the storm's onslaught. But there were many battle scars: The garage was gone, three cars were lost and debris had torn through the side of the house. A giant tree was lodged in the muddy kitchen; the newly furnished living and dining rooms were ruined.

Later, a government inspector tried to condemn the structure.

"I told them, 'Well, you'll have to carry me out, because we're not leaving here,' " Wayne recalled.

The family faced a nearly unfathomable cleanup job.

But, as it turned out, the Cooks didn't have to handle it by themselves.

As the water receded, a wave of volunteers rolled in. As many as 25 people showed up each day to help put the pieces of the family's life back together.

Some were friends, including a local businessman who supplied hundreds of tons of fill for the yard and even showed up driving a grader early one morning.

Some were strangers who had seen an article about the Cooks in The Tribune-Democrat. They continued to arrive even after Wayne returned to his job at an Ebensburg insurer.

"Before you knew it," Edna Mae said, "there was somebody on the front porch."

Although he received plenty of help,

Wayne did not stand idly by. He painstakingly labored to clean and repair his damaged, warped home.

His tasks included slowly straightening a support beam in the basement as he burned a potbelly stove day and night to dry the floors.

It took three years of work, he estimates, to fully restore his property.

Three decades later, Wayne still gets tears in his eyes when he recalls the generosity that followed the flood.

"It's just hard to imagine how good people can be. It just totally amazes you."