Published: July 03, 2007 08:08 am      

Faces of the Flood: 'We just took it upon ourselves'

Latest in a series on the 1977 Johnstown Flood



Jim Kist wasn't caught in raging waters during Johnstown's 1977 flood, and he didn't handle any harrowing rescues.

But his story is a light-hearted snapshot of the dedication of local residents who pitched in - whether they were asked to do so or not.

It started with a broken muffler.

Annoyed that a friend's muscle car - a Ford Mustang Mach 1 - had been damaged at the busy intersection of Franklin Street and Valley Pike, the 19-year-old Kist and a handful of friends returned with picks and shovels.

They set to work on a thick layer of hard-packed, rocky mud left by the flood that made safe driving nearly impossible.

"It was terrible - rutted very bad," Kist said.

"We decided enough was enough. We were going to do something about it."

The close-knit group of Johnstown YMCA employees worked through the day and into the evening, directing traffic as they chipped away at the dried mud.

"Nobody knew who we were, but I will say that the people of Johnstown were very respectful," Kist said.

Eventually, city police arrived. Kist speculates that they had been notified by a curious onlooker.

But instead of shooing away the teens, the cops began to direct traffic for them.

"They understood that it had to be done," Kist said.

The group's work was immortalized in a picture that ran July 29, 1977, in The Tribune-Democrat.

Kist has a pick in his right hand and a crutch under his left arm, the product of a childhood battle with polio.

The newspaper caption said he was an aid worker hired by the federal government. But Kist simply was a recent high-school graduate who was fed up with mud.

"We just took it upon ourselves," he said.

Kist's life was not untouched by the flood. A friend's sister died, and his grandmother's and uncle's homes were severely damaged.

"I think everybody was in disbelief," he said. "After you get over the disbelief, it just kind of kicks in again."

The "it," he explains, is the will to keep going and get on with life - whether by digging out an intersection or rebuilding a house.

Kist's grandmother, the late Margaret Burkett, returned to her Coopersdale home after the flood. She didn't want to live anywhere else.

"That was where she was going to stay."