Speaker 1: No one talks about that. No one talks about how
Speaker 1: the fishing and that club went down him. You know what,
Speaker 1: there's a reason for that, Paul.
Speaker 2: I'm just be honest, that's a kind of a shitty take, because,
Speaker 2: like I mean, I'm paying top dollar to be in
Speaker 2: this hunting fishing club and fish. How good was that
Speaker 2: fishing here? Really good? Right? Damn it? Hey, I've at
Speaker 2: helms and welcome back to Snapfoo, a show about history's
Speaker 2: greatest screw ups, more specifically, a show in which I
Speaker 2: walk my wonderful guests through distinctly unwonderful moments from the past. Today,
Speaker 2: we'll be covering the infamous Johnstown flood of eighteen eighty nine,
Speaker 2: and our guest, Well, he's truly one of the best
Speaker 2: in the biz. And I mean that in both the
Speaker 2: general sense in that he's just an awesome dude, but
Speaker 2: also he is someone who is just constantly crushing it
Speaker 2: across like every platform in the whole business. You might
Speaker 2: know him from TV shows like The League or Black Monday,
Speaker 2: or his uber popular podcasts How Did This Get Made?
Speaker 2: And unspooled? Please welcome my very dear old friend, the
Speaker 2: great Paul Sheer Ed so.
Speaker 1: Excited to be here because honestly, it's the only time
Speaker 1: I've ever get any validation. You Just reading off those
Speaker 1: credits made me feel good. I'm like, oh wow, I
Speaker 1: mean I didn't even mention your book. You just had
Speaker 1: a You just wrote a book.
Speaker 2: I have a book. You know.
Speaker 1: Look, you and I are now authors, We are best
Speaker 1: selling authors.
Speaker 2: Very exciting, It is very exciting. I'm very proud of us.
Speaker 2: I was trying to think back to the origin of
Speaker 2: our friendship, and it just it falls into that huge
Speaker 2: basket of just wonderful people orbiting the UCB Theater in
Speaker 2: New York City around what like nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 1: Right in that area, because you know, it's it's interesting.
Speaker 1: There's certain people that like Jason Manzucas. Obviously we co
Speaker 1: host this podcast together. I know Jason for many years.
Speaker 1: But Jason was not somebody that was invited to my wedding,
Speaker 1: which is a crazy thing because we weren't that close
Speaker 1: at that point in our He's definitely a friend. He
Speaker 1: didn't get that cut. He didn't make that cut. I
Speaker 1: was at your wedding, you were, and the all the time,
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 2: Like, where is Jason? Why this is horrible. Meanwhile, Jason
Speaker 2: gave a toast at my wedding. As a matter of fact.
Speaker 1: It's wild to me that I talked to him all
Speaker 1: the time and he was somebody that was not that
Speaker 1: was just not a close friend at that moment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you're so right in that. I feel like
Speaker 2: there's so many people from that community that I they
Speaker 2: somehow like merged with our DNA at that time. It's
Speaker 2: like we we knew each other when we were just
Speaker 2: comedy Larva wriggling around.
Speaker 1: We were performing in an old strip club where sometimes
Speaker 1: you'd be doing a show and people would get up
Speaker 1: and leave and you're like, did I do a bad job? Like, no,
Speaker 1: they just thought they were coming to a strip club,
Speaker 1: and we're very confused for the first forty five minutes
Speaker 1: of the show. Exactly likely, this is great, but when
Speaker 1: are they going to take off their clothes?
Speaker 2: I remember there was a basement that you would get
Speaker 2: to through a trap door basically.
Speaker 1: And here the most rookiety wooden staircase all time to
Speaker 1: get down it.
Speaker 2: And you would go down there and it was like
Speaker 2: a grotto from from like sixteenth century Paris, wet brick
Speaker 2: walls and dirt floor.
Speaker 1: It was a it was a New York City catacomb,
Speaker 1: if you will, that's what it was. Oh, I mean
Speaker 1: you would see the craziest stuff and it was only
Speaker 1: one way in and one way out. Wait, somebody was
Speaker 1: giving haircuts down there, well, haircuts down there and on stage. Yeah,
Speaker 1: one of the one of the resident teachers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a legend, one of the originals.
Speaker 1: No audience, no audience, really crazy. That should have been
Speaker 1: its own show, the Haircuts. Weirdly, it would have found
Speaker 1: an audience too, I'm sure, actually more palatable than some
Speaker 1: of the shows that we did experiment with. Well as
Speaker 1: as one of the OG podcasters and one of one
Speaker 1: of the greats in the podcasting is thank you No
Speaker 1: truly like you've You've.
Speaker 2: Carked out such an awesome niche. It's been so cool
Speaker 2: to see you do a lot of shows in the studio,
Speaker 2: you do a lot of shows live on tour. Do
Speaker 2: you have a preference? I think yeah.
Speaker 1: For me, I think there's something really fun about when
Speaker 1: it's just Jason, June and I chatting with each other.
Speaker 1: I think that that's always really a blast and we're
Speaker 1: not playing for lass, but when we do it in
Speaker 1: front of an audience. It's I like that. I like
Speaker 1: the showmanship of it. I like I like getting out
Speaker 1: in front of an audience. I like finding where the
Speaker 1: jokes are, finding what they find funny, and kind of
Speaker 1: chasing that because sometimes also it can get almost so
Speaker 1: what I love about the studio is it's so casual
Speaker 1: that sometimes you are just having a conversation and maybe
Speaker 1: that's okay too, but like you forget like oh we
Speaker 1: gotta like hit some more jokes or or that one
Speaker 1: thing is funny, like and I didn't even think it
Speaker 1: was that fun. Well, are you ready? I'm thrilled. I'm
Speaker 1: such a fan of Nephu. The book was great, I
Speaker 1: loved the podcast. But the thing is is I also
Speaker 1: have experience with floods here because I'm not not a
Speaker 1: major flood but we've I've had some flooding issues in La.
Speaker 2: In La, you can't get over it.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously there's natural disasters are awful, but flooding
Speaker 1: is like it's infuriating because it's all there, but it's
Speaker 1: all wrecked and you can see it and you can't stop.
Speaker 2: It and it's and it's it.
Speaker 1: You feel like powerless as the water comes in and
Speaker 1: you're sleeping and I flooded. I mean I did also
Speaker 1: flood my own house too, and I have experience in floods.
Speaker 2: I'm excited. I'm concerned about you and your lack of
Speaker 2: water maintenance. So, as I mentioned before, we're going to
Speaker 2: be talking about the Johnstown flood of eighteen eighty nine.
Speaker 1: Not the Jonestown. Not the Jonestown. Different flood.
Speaker 2: Cool also different disaster, Yeah, very different kind of disaster.
Speaker 2: Do you know anything about the Johnstown flood? Never heard
Speaker 2: a thing? Okay? Oh good? Well, I mean not good.
Speaker 2: You should know better, honestly. Okay, sorry, but this will
Speaker 2: be fun because it's all fresh. Our story begins in
Speaker 2: central southwestern Pennsylvania, a bustling, bucolic little city. Now, just
Speaker 2: to orient you, Johnstown is about fifty two miles east
Speaker 2: of Pittsburgh. Founded in eighteen hundred by Swiss immigrant Joseph John's.
Speaker 2: It is nestled at the confluence of the Stony Creek
Speaker 2: and Little Conamaw rivers. Now just fourteen miles upstream from
Speaker 2: Johnstown on the Little Kanamau River is the South Fork Dam.
Speaker 2: You know, cue the spooky music, because that's going to
Speaker 2: be real important, real soon. I know you're you're from
Speaker 2: Long Island originally. Do you know this area at all?
Speaker 2: Like Western DBA, very familiar with this area. This is
Speaker 2: right in my wheelhouse. As far as places I know,
Speaker 2: likee from, like getaways as a family.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, look, I've been to sesame place, w
Speaker 1: whag is in Pennsylvania or Hershey Park.
Speaker 2: You got all the amusement parks dialed in? All right?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 2: Eighteen eighty nine, Johnstown is thriving. It was basically the
Speaker 2: rust Belt before it got rusty. Deal was king thanks
Speaker 2: to the mighty Cambria Iron Company. Nearby coal mines kept
Speaker 2: the fires burning, and the bustling, dense railroad lines all
Speaker 2: tied it together. This was a blue collar boomtown, and
Speaker 2: as a result, European immigrants were pouring in looking for work.
Speaker 2: The population exploded by roughly thirty thousand people in the
Speaker 2: mid eighteen hundreds. Now, on paper, Paul, explosive growth is great, right,
Speaker 2: But is it always good for a community?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: I know, is it just an efficient way to stress
Speaker 1: people out? I mean, I know this from many years
Speaker 1: of playing the SIMS video game. You can't field too quick.
Speaker 1: Things happen.
Speaker 2: You know you can't. You can't keep supply and demand.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a lot of jobs, but then you know
Speaker 1: there're enough sewage plants exactly.
Speaker 2: You know, things happens as someone who's known you a
Speaker 2: long long time. So many of us have been trying
Speaker 2: to pull you out of sim City. And I'm not
Speaker 2: even in the sims. I'm not even doing the people.
Speaker 2: I can't. I'm so worried about when sim goes VR
Speaker 2: and you'll, like, just you'll be so immersed. I got
Speaker 2: to put this baseball stadium somewhere. Well, you know, rapid
Speaker 2: growth can often lead to corner cutting as well, and boy,
Speaker 2: will that come into play, so watch out. At some point,
Speaker 2: the State of Pennsylvania, or as it's formerly known, the
Speaker 2: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, sold two of its major infrastructure assets,
Speaker 2: the Western Division Canal and the aforementioned South Fork Dam,
Speaker 2: to a private investor named Henry Clay Frick. All Right,
Speaker 2: I hope, I wish this is the origin of the
Speaker 2: term Frickin'. I don't know if that's true, but there
Speaker 2: will be good reason for it.
Speaker 1: Henry Clayflick does feel to me like a I don't
Speaker 1: know if this is the appropriate term, but like a
Speaker 1: robber baron.
Speaker 2: He has his name of it. Okay. He was like
Speaker 2: buddies with Carnegie and Melon and all those guys. So
Speaker 2: Frick was a rising industrial heavyweight in his thirties, juggling coal, steel,
Speaker 2: and of course the society clubs, with a knack for
Speaker 2: turning big risks into even bigger fortunes. Naturally, the steel
Speaker 2: tycoons first order of business upon this purchase was to
Speaker 2: convert the sleepy Lake Conomaw above the dam into wait
Speaker 2: for it, the south Folk Hunting and Fishing Club. Oh,
Speaker 2: because ye as we all know, rich people love to
Speaker 2: hang out with other rich people and just shoot things.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean you have to. I mean you know
Speaker 1: that's the thing. What are you going to do with
Speaker 1: your spare time about that?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 1: This is interesting though, because you're saying it's a working
Speaker 1: class town. That now is kind of it's kind of
Speaker 1: gentrifying itself in a way.
Speaker 2: Right. Yes, Now, this is fourteen miles upstream of Johnstown.
Speaker 2: So we're in and it's and it's a significantly higher elevation.
Speaker 2: We're maybe like five hundred feet higher in the mountains.
Speaker 1: Okay, and I guess thirteen miles in the eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 1: Is that's a that's a far day like right now
Speaker 1: a little bit. Yeah, that's yeah. We ain't got the
Speaker 1: model t yet.
Speaker 2: So yeah, it's like a resort and the lake is
Speaker 2: kind of dumpy when he buys it. But his goal
Speaker 2: is to is to really make it this beautiful place
Speaker 2: just for rich people to hang out and I guess
Speaker 2: scoff at poor people maybe, is that another one of
Speaker 2: their hobbies.
Speaker 1: It's perfect because you're high enough and you can look down. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can shoot a bird and then look down at
Speaker 1: the poor people and laugh at them as you eat.
Speaker 2: Yeah, your squab exactly. So to do this, to make
Speaker 2: this resort, Frick and his resort investor Buddies lowered the
Speaker 2: dam head to put a road across the top of it,
Speaker 2: which reduced the dam's safety margin. He also sold off
Speaker 2: the dam safety pipes and valves for scrap, and he
Speaker 2: did not replace them. He slapped a fish screen over
Speaker 2: the spillway to ensure good fishing. Yeah, they stocked this
Speaker 2: lake with lots of good fish, because keep in mind,
Speaker 2: it is a hunting and fishing club. Yeah, you got
Speaker 2: to have them. You if it's in the name, you
Speaker 2: got to make sure the fish are in the lake.
Speaker 1: Right, and you want to make sure it's easy to
Speaker 1: catch those fishes so you feel good about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you familiar stock that thing. Yeah. And now meanwhile,
Speaker 2: they're also just patching various leaks in this dam. It's
Speaker 2: a giant earthen dam with mud and straw and basically
Speaker 2: treating critical infrastructure like a summer tiki bar. Now this
Speaker 2: is all because some rich guys really really wanted a
Speaker 2: pretty lake, and they wanted it fast and cheap. And
Speaker 2: I don't know, this is a kind of horrifying pattern
Speaker 2: in class dynamics when rich people make terrible decisions like this.
Speaker 2: Do you think it's honest ignorance with maybe a dash
Speaker 2: of optimism bias, or is it just straight up willful negligence?
Speaker 1: You know, I never think that people truly are out
Speaker 1: to hurt other people. I don't think it's like, well,
Speaker 1: we're gonna flood this down because it doesn't make it's
Speaker 1: not good business sense. But I feel like you can
Speaker 1: you can talk somebody into a bad idea really quickly,
Speaker 1: where it's like, well, you know, we're just gonna lower that.
Speaker 2: It's already high, We're just gonna lower it a little
Speaker 2: bit we.
Speaker 1: Need a road across the top, and it's right, and
Speaker 1: then that's actually gonna help us. And it's a bunch
Speaker 1: of small things that make sense, but then when you
Speaker 1: pile them all together, it is disaster. The thing that
Speaker 1: I'm curious about that you said that really jumped out
Speaker 1: to me was like he took away the safety gauges
Speaker 1: of the of the damn.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there were pipes and valves built in that that
Speaker 2: were part of the release mechanism for for oh you know, it's.
Speaker 1: Like that's a hard one to kind of smooth over
Speaker 1: that for no reason.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, if you really dig into this, which
Speaker 2: I encourage listeners to read more about this. David mccullaugh
Speaker 2: wrote an incredible book about the John Sound flood, and
Speaker 2: it's pretty I'm like you, I want to give some
Speaker 2: benefit of the doubt, and because I think there's a
Speaker 2: ton of just optimism bias in people like this where
Speaker 2: it's just sort of like, I mean, this can't happen,
Speaker 2: and it's like or this is too that's too crazy
Speaker 2: to even contemplate that this whole massive dam could fail.
Speaker 2: Sorry spoiler alert, but we're gonna we're gonna get there.
Speaker 2: Wait a second. Yeah, Now, here's the good news is
Speaker 2: that this club, but once it was finished, was enormously
Speaker 2: successful and many of the richest men in the world
Speaker 2: joined this club, making it instantly profitable. Now, this was
Speaker 2: the largest reservoir in the country at the time. Okay,
Speaker 2: it's about two miles long, roughly one mile wide, and
Speaker 2: sixty feet deep. Lake Kanamah had basically become a summer paradise. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: fourteen miles downstream, Johnstown was churning away as the industrial
Speaker 2: little trooper town that it was, and to make room
Speaker 2: for this massive influx of workers that was occurring, the
Speaker 2: steel mills had begun dumping a lot of their slag,
Speaker 2: or the industrial refuge from the steelmaking process. They were
Speaker 2: dumping this slag into the river to build up more
Speaker 2: land where they could build more homes. Of course, this
Speaker 2: had the unfortunate effect of narrowing the river bed, which
Speaker 2: was sort of clogging it like an artery, and it
Speaker 2: just was making it more prone to flooding. Basically, Johnstown
Speaker 2: now had the cardiovascular health of a chain smoking borsch
Speaker 2: belt Loungejack.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we really are we're basically we've created like
Speaker 1: again spoiler alert the flood. We are creating the perfect
Speaker 1: the perfect storm, really like we're building it.
Speaker 2: Oh you stole my setup. Oh no, the perfect storm. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm just gonna read it anyway, but it's
Speaker 2: but no, you hit it right on the head. Basically,
Speaker 2: you've got an entire region undergoing massive, very short sighted
Speaker 2: infrastructure changes, and they are all of these things are
Speaker 2: coalescing into wait for it, say it, the per perfect storm,
Speaker 2: which is sadly the perfect metaphor because the actual perfect
Speaker 2: storm is about to hit. Uh. Do you ever feel
Speaker 2: that that movies and history both build tension the same way,
Speaker 2: Like everything kind of feels fine, and there's that that
Speaker 2: first act of a movie where you're just sort of
Speaker 2: building the Djenga tower and then.
Speaker 1: Just relaxed into it and you feel like nothing can
Speaker 1: go wrong. I mean, Titanic is a perfect example of it.
Speaker 1: James Cameron's Titanic. You're it looks what a wonderful film,
Speaker 1: what a beautiful boat, what great people?
Speaker 2: Yes? And then watch Out Yeah. Oh, and also Titanic,
Speaker 2: that's another, that's another great example of the class dynamics
Speaker 2: at play. The storm is upon us. A note to
Speaker 2: my sound editor, please add some sound effects and posts.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much. It's late day. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, ye,
Speaker 2: it's not very good. Yeah, you know, Michael Winslow, let's
Speaker 2: be a man. And you know what, I lost that
Speaker 2: part to bad in the reboot of course. All right,
Speaker 2: it's late. It's late May eighteen eighty nine. A low
Speaker 2: pressure system, that is that had formed over Nebraska and
Speaker 2: Kansas two days earlier, was now a massive storm directly
Speaker 2: over western central Pennsylvania, and it was for real, very scary.
Speaker 2: It was the heaviest rainfall ever recorded in the Eastern
Speaker 2: United States to date. Estimates say that six to ten
Speaker 2: inches of rain fell in twenty four hours. I always
Speaker 2: feel like those metrics are like, what, like, what does
Speaker 2: that mean? Six to ten inches isn't very tall. But
Speaker 2: then you're like, oh, I guess that is actually crazy
Speaker 2: relative to what was normal for the time. And here's
Speaker 2: the other thing is that there were still snow in
Speaker 2: the mountains, So the rain is falling on the snow,
Speaker 2: which is creating even more water coming from the fresh
Speaker 2: snow melt. Creeks and streams were quickly overrun, taking down
Speaker 2: trees and other debris. Even telegraph lines and rail lines
Speaker 2: were starting to come down. This is just from the rainstorm.
Speaker 2: We haven't even gotten to the real disaster yet. The
Speaker 2: next morning, it's May thirty first, the president of the
Speaker 2: Southfolk Fishing and Hunting Club, Elias Unger, awoke in itizzy.
Speaker 2: It was still pouring rain and as such that damn
Speaker 2: dam damn near was overflowing.
Speaker 1: Well, now what do you do, May, because this is
Speaker 1: the moment where you know, like this is the problem
Speaker 1: with the natural disaster. You can see it start to
Speaker 1: come right like this is it like this morning?
Speaker 2: He knows. But what can you do? You can't. You
Speaker 2: almost can't do anything to stop it at this point,
Speaker 2: can you? He tries. Hunger quickly gathered a group of
Speaker 2: men to unclog the debris. They'd put a fish strainer
Speaker 2: basically at the spillway to keep fish from leaving the lake,
Speaker 2: and so that was now completely clogged with debris and
Speaker 2: so no water was getting out of the lake. It
Speaker 2: was only rising. He sent one of his engineers, John Park,
Speaker 2: on a horse, down to the telegraph office.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: He wanted to issue a warning to the people of Johnstown.
Speaker 2: The damn was in danger of collapsing. Get out of there. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Now what the fantastic four new Glactus is coming there.
Speaker 2: Get out. Get out of the city, guys, get out
Speaker 2: of the city. I don't know what you're talking about,
Speaker 2: but yes, exactly. This was tricky for two reasons. Number one,
Speaker 2: I would think that if like under this kind of duress,
Speaker 2: like sending a telegraph message actually tapping the thing, oh,
Speaker 2: it must have been like like so hard to do, right,
Speaker 2: Like you're just like because you're probably shaking, you're trembling,
Speaker 2: and it's like, well.
Speaker 1: That's why you have to hire the best. It's like,
Speaker 1: you have to hire the best telegraph They have to
Speaker 1: be emotionless, you know, whether you're you're breaking up with
Speaker 1: your husband, you're telling somebody the loved one has died,
Speaker 1: or telling you that the an impending flood is happening.
Speaker 2: Well, to make matters worse, a telegraph line were down,
Speaker 2: Well they're down, so we're didn't even didn't even get there.
Speaker 2: No messages were sent to Johnstown. And even so there
Speaker 2: were people racing down on horses and stuff, telling people.
Speaker 2: But there had been so many false alarms that the
Speaker 2: damn was going to burst over the previous decades that
Speaker 2: that there was also a kind of like blase sense
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 1: This is the sky is falling kind of chicken little moment. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And this is why I think again, like we prepare
Speaker 1: a lot for something terrible. You know, you're always like
Speaker 1: ready for something bad to happen. And then I would
Speaker 1: say ninety five percent of the time the worst version
Speaker 1: doesn't happen, but you know, and then you're, oh, I
Speaker 1: prepared for nothing.
Speaker 2: I did all the things.
Speaker 1: So I can imagine here that they've probably had some
Speaker 1: moments like Okay, you know, they're not gonna they're not
Speaker 1: buying it.
Speaker 2: That's the whole cry wolf scenario. You get kind of
Speaker 2: tired of freaking out and who knows. But this one,
Speaker 2: this one was real and it was real, real bad.
Speaker 2: There was a lot of drama at the top of
Speaker 2: the damn. Some guys were trying to actually stack more
Speaker 2: material on the top of it, but they could feel
Speaker 2: the dam moving and so they got off and that
Speaker 2: younger guy was like, get out there, and they were like, no,
Speaker 2: we're not going. Is this like an earth dam? Yes.
Speaker 2: What's interesting about this type of dam is that when
Speaker 2: they do breach, it is almost always catastrophic because the
Speaker 2: flow of water instantly compromises the entire structure, and it
Speaker 2: begins just washing out the material of the dam as
Speaker 2: you can imagine. So at two point fifty pm, the
Speaker 2: dam is finally compromised and it collapses and the water
Speaker 2: just comes rushing out. Now, South Fork is the first
Speaker 2: little town to be hit by this flood. The town
Speaker 2: thankfully is on a little bit higher ground, but twenty
Speaker 2: or thirty houses were still destroyed. Tragically, four people were
Speaker 2: killed in South Fork. The rest of the citizens were
Speaker 2: able to get to safety and time, but this flood
Speaker 2: was just beginning and a word of warning, it's about
Speaker 2: to get real grim. I got to ask you, Paul,
Speaker 2: if you were in like Johnstown or South Fork that day,
Speaker 2: would you be the guy like calmly sandbagging or you
Speaker 2: the guy sprinting for higher ground like it's the last
Speaker 2: chopper out of Saigon.
Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting. My uh, my gut is always
Speaker 1: to be the calm sandbagger. My wife's job is to
Speaker 1: get the hell out, and that might be your job.
Speaker 2: But what what are you doing? Like, what's your what's
Speaker 2: your what is your adrenaline telling you to do?
Speaker 1: I always say that my wife and I are like
Speaker 1: kind of Kirk and Spock the way we look at
Speaker 1: things like, I'm I'm looking at it very logically, and
Speaker 1: my wife is like, let us go.
Speaker 2: Oh. I love that.
Speaker 1: I think in this moment, uh, you know, look, if
Speaker 1: my wife gets the urge to run, I'm going to
Speaker 1: be following her.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think at a certain point it's like, you know,
Speaker 2: when it's this insane and we're about to hear more
Speaker 2: about it, it's like, you just run best you can.
Speaker 2: The flood raced down the fourteen miles of the Little
Speaker 2: Konama River Valley, destroying everything in its path.
Speaker 1: I mean, how quickly in seconds is minutes? What have
Speaker 1: we got here?
Speaker 2: It's moving a lot faster than you can run. I'll
Speaker 2: put it that way, okay. At one point, the flood
Speaker 2: was briefly stopped by railroad bridge, but it eventually pushed
Speaker 2: past the bridge, gaining even more momentum. It raced through
Speaker 2: to more small towns with massive force, destroying literally everything.
Speaker 2: At this point, because the gorge is so deep, it's
Speaker 2: sort of like funneled, and the force of the water
Speaker 2: is so intense that it wipes these towns out to
Speaker 2: the bedrock. There is nothing but bedrock left in the
Speaker 2: wake of the flood, and then Johnstown residents heard a
Speaker 2: deafening roar before they saw it, but most even had
Speaker 2: no idea that this roar could be a flood. Suddenly,
Speaker 2: a massive wall of debris slammed into first the Cambria
Speaker 2: Iron Works. The water swept up railroad cars, barbed wire,
Speaker 2: which was a product of these steel of these steel plants.
Speaker 2: It then reached Gautier Wireworks, causing boilers to explode and
Speaker 2: emit black smoke, just making it a more nightmarish scenario.
Speaker 2: Just fifty seven minutes after the collapse of the dam,
Speaker 2: the flood reached the center of Johnstown, moving at a
Speaker 2: whopping forty miles per hour, and it was up to
Speaker 2: sixty feet high in some places. This wall of water
Speaker 2: and debris that was just like, you know, just rushing through.
Speaker 1: Even knowing everything that I know in the movies that
Speaker 1: I've watched, and many of them like Day after Tomorrow,
Speaker 1: great films, the but like that sixty feet of water, right,
Speaker 1: and it's like and you're not You're not an island.
Speaker 1: It's not a tsunami, but it is acting like ana
Speaker 1: in a way. It really is acting a lot like
Speaker 1: a tsunami and or an avalanche. It's sort of a
Speaker 1: combination of the two.
Speaker 2: And I remember, it's so funny because when I was
Speaker 2: a kid, you know, I would hear about tsunamis and
Speaker 2: I would be like, no big deal. I can swim.
Speaker 2: I can serve a good swimmer, you know, But like
Speaker 2: in this situation, you can't. Like, it doesn't even matter
Speaker 2: how how comfortable you are in the water, how good
Speaker 2: a swimmer you are, because there is it's barely water.
Speaker 2: It's just it's like debris. Yeah, you're you have a
Speaker 2: train wrapped in barbed wire heading for you, swimmer. Yes. Yes.
Speaker 2: Johnstown residents were either crushed by debris or caught up
Speaker 2: in the barbed wire, or drowned in their homes or
Speaker 2: places of work. Some folks were able to stay afloat
Speaker 2: on debris waiting for help. Most people in this situation,
Speaker 2: they're it's they're overtaken so quickly and there's so much
Speaker 2: panic and chaos that you're just grasping for anything that
Speaker 2: you can grab onto.
Speaker 1: But this is why I travel with two hundred pound
Speaker 1: weights on me at all times, just in case, you know,
Speaker 1: and keeps me ground.
Speaker 2: Know you're legendary in the rucking community.
Speaker 1: It's and it's a hard of go to restaurants things
Speaker 1: that goes out, but I'm ready for it.
Speaker 2: It's a pain for all of us who are friends
Speaker 2: with you, but yeah, it's very cool. We respect you
Speaker 2: for it. Thank you. Yeah, and this is kind of
Speaker 2: reminiscent of Rose in the Titanic, right, you brought in
Speaker 2: the Titanic. She found a chunk of something to cling to. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I feel like there was room for Leo to have
Speaker 2: climbed up on there. But it's a big debate. I
Speaker 2: don't know, Well, you know, what did you bring this up?
Speaker 2: This just came up.
Speaker 1: Now, obviously MythBusters put it to the test, but James
Speaker 1: Cameron was not happy with MythBusters and recently recreated the
Speaker 1: water temperature and the thing and basically proved that at
Speaker 1: the rate that Leo was hyperventilating and freezing, he could
Speaker 1: not have stayed that. Funny, it just I just saw
Speaker 1: it the other day, like he just did it the
Speaker 1: other debt. It's amazing, which is really funny to.
Speaker 2: Me, so fun weird, little I wouldn't may maybe not
Speaker 2: a fun fact, but little additional Titanic connection here is
Speaker 2: that our buddy Frick had actually canceled his Titanic ticket
Speaker 2: because his wife had had a sprained ankle and had
Speaker 2: to be hospitalized. So this guy, he can avoid a
Speaker 2: disaster here and there. Anyway, back in the middle of Johnstown,
Speaker 2: this is crazy. The Pennsylvania Railroad stone Bridge, which was
Speaker 2: this huge stone bridge in the middle of Johnstown. It
Speaker 2: became this kind of catch all filter which was so
Speaker 2: building up in this bridge was all of these twisted
Speaker 2: train rails and box cars and barbed wire and entire
Speaker 2: buildings and yes, sadly, of course, lots of bodies piling
Speaker 2: up against it, forming a temporary dam. Now, this dam,
Speaker 2: which was sort of catching the flood, redirected floodwaters upstream
Speaker 2: of the Stony Creek, which is the other river that
Speaker 2: kind of comes into the town of Johnstown. So now
Speaker 2: there's there's the flood is going upstream Stony Creek. It
Speaker 2: reaches a sort of a point where gravity then overtakes
Speaker 2: it again and pulls it back, unleashing ace, unleashing a
Speaker 2: second wave that floods back into the city from the
Speaker 2: opposite direction, which is just completely bonkers.
Speaker 1: It's almost overwhelming to even comprehend what is going on?
Speaker 1: It sounds like whoa but to be in it, to
Speaker 1: be there, It just seems like, well, no one can
Speaker 1: survive this. This is this is an insurvivable situation that
Speaker 1: you have presented.
Speaker 2: It is nuts. Now it's about to get even more nuts.
Speaker 2: If you were writing this script, Paul Scheer, and you
Speaker 2: wanted things to get even worse in this moment, what
Speaker 2: would you do?
Speaker 1: I mean, I want to break another dam. I want
Speaker 1: to I don't know, maybe a dual dams or gosh,
Speaker 1: I mean, come on, think it through a fire. We
Speaker 1: gotta have a fire. So we gotta have a fire. Okay,
Speaker 1: here's how things actually spiraled even more. Let's just throw
Speaker 1: in a completely new kind of natural disaster. The massive
Speaker 1: pile of flood debris at the Stone Bridge suddenly caught fire.
Speaker 1: At least eighty people were trapped inside the wreckage and
Speaker 1: killed just in this inferno. The fire raged for three
Speaker 1: full days, lighting up the ruins of the city, which
Speaker 1: is just heartbreaking and incredible. Well, I imagine there's also gasoline,
Speaker 1: there's things that there's oil in there, there's things that fire.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all the industrial waste of a big industrial town
Speaker 2: like piled up in there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's gonna that's gonna keep it going. And trees
Speaker 1: like trees, which is just fire fuel. It's just like
Speaker 1: a big old mass of tons of trees that had
Speaker 1: been ripped out. So we got black smoke, we got waves,
Speaker 1: we got fires. This is truly a nightmare of this
Speaker 1: is epic.
Speaker 2: It's epic.
Speaker 1: This is like going on the ride at Universe Studios
Speaker 1: where they recreate the earthquake.
Speaker 2: We're seeing of it. I'm gonna say it's a little
Speaker 2: worse than that, obviously, maybe k yeah, okay, all right, yeah,
Speaker 2: maybe they threw the the bag. So by the time
Speaker 2: this fire actually died out, the flood waters had receded,
Speaker 2: and Johnstown was left with a staggering thirty acre heap
Speaker 2: of wreckage. Oh my lord, in some places seventy feet
Speaker 2: high just the wreckage. This would take nearly three months
Speaker 2: to clear out. We have a famous image taken from
Speaker 2: the cleanup here. This is the Schultz family house. The
Speaker 2: six people living in that house survived. Wow. This is
Speaker 2: an iconic photo that a lot of people think just
Speaker 2: sort of captures the insanity. There's so much cognitive dissonance
Speaker 2: looking at that.
Speaker 1: It clearly went on a little bit of a journey,
Speaker 1: like this house is and not where it was, and wow,
Speaker 1: and the way that that tree goes through, like if
Speaker 1: you were picturing the house is like two eyes in
Speaker 1: a mouth. It's gone through one of the eyes of
Speaker 1: the top half of the windows there, and it's really yeah,
Speaker 1: oh it's massive.
Speaker 2: Oh he'll need a glass eye for sure. I mean,
Speaker 2: let's get into the aftermath. The magnitude of the Johnstown
Speaker 2: flood was unimaginable. It ended in seventeen million in damage,
Speaker 2: which is six hundred million today. And this is a
Speaker 2: Remember this is a town of thirty thousand people. It's
Speaker 2: not like New York City, Like this is just an
Speaker 2: epic wipeout for this town. Two thousand, two hundred and
Speaker 2: nine people were killed, which made it the largest loss
Speaker 2: of civilian life my lord at the time.
Speaker 1: All because a hunting and fishing club wanted to catch
Speaker 1: some fish a little bit easier.
Speaker 2: Well, I guess, yeah, but yeah, I mean did you
Speaker 2: taste those fishball? I mean, it was so easy to catch,
Speaker 2: so easy to catch those fish. The loss of life
Speaker 2: was epic, and it wouldn't be surpassed until nineteen hundred
Speaker 2: when the Galveston hurricane hit, which was also another topic
Speaker 2: natural disaster. This is crazy. There were even reports of
Speaker 2: the flood carrying bodies as far as Cincinnati, Ohio like
Speaker 2: way way down river. Reportedly, one baby survived on the
Speaker 2: floor of a house as it floated seventy five miles
Speaker 2: downriver from Johnstown.
Speaker 1: Isn't that like baby Moses? Didn't they put baby Moses
Speaker 1: in one of those like a little carrier in the water.
Speaker 1: Is that baby Moses?
Speaker 2: But he didn't wash away? They just hit him in
Speaker 2: the reeds.
Speaker 3: And my buddy, Yeah, this little baby washed away seventy
Speaker 3: seventy five miles away, and wow, and it was fine.
Speaker 2: And that little baby grew up to be me well ed. Ah,
Speaker 2: all right. So news spread rapidly to the surrounding areas,
Speaker 2: and support was provided in the form of clothing, disinfectants,
Speaker 2: fish bread, cigars, whiskey, and weirdly, twenty pounds of ham,
Speaker 2: among other useful items. There's a lot more to this
Speaker 2: recovery effort that I wish I could get into more,
Speaker 2: because it's incredibly beautiful and cool. But this is one
Speaker 2: of the first large scale rescue efforts by the American
Speaker 2: Red Cross and It's sort of like a huge scale
Speaker 2: disaster relief and it really kind of changed the game
Speaker 2: for disaster response.
Speaker 1: When you were saying this, I was starting to put
Speaker 1: together things. I remember, is this the first time that
Speaker 1: the Red Cross exists? Or no, the Red Cross didn't exist,
Speaker 1: but this is the first time they were called into action.
Speaker 1: I think it's the first time they were called into
Speaker 1: action in this capacity. Clara Barton was a huge part
Speaker 1: of this recovery effort and stayed in the region for
Speaker 1: a long period of time, kind of running logistics and
Speaker 1: just further cemented her legendary status as a humanitarian. There's
Speaker 1: a part of me it goes, do you I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess you have to rebuild on some level you
Speaker 1: have to, But should I mean, I don't know. It's
Speaker 1: like is it worth Is it worth rebuilding? Because it
Speaker 1: could all happen again? And this is kind of the
Speaker 1: same thing that happens in New Orleans when the dam
Speaker 1: broke in New Orleans? Is this too dangerous to do again?
Speaker 1: I mean? Or do they find a way to just go?
Speaker 1: You know what, We're gonna put more safety measures in yet.
Speaker 2: Paul, I think you're forgetting that we're as a species
Speaker 2: like we're basically cockroaches, Like we just we just got
Speaker 2: to make it work wherever the hell we are and
Speaker 2: uh acres and start going again. Yeah, you're asking questions
Speaker 2: that really have no place here, Paul. No, but but
Speaker 2: but there certainly were a lot of kind of infrastructure
Speaker 2: considerations that went into the redevelopment and rebuilding of John's
Speaker 2: Town and the entire region that had been rather carelessly
Speaker 2: handled and or completely overlooked obviously beforehand. The answer is, yes,
Speaker 2: they rebuilt. They felt the need to rebuild. It was
Speaker 2: a very strategic location for so many some of the
Speaker 2: industries at the time, and it was rebuilt a lot
Speaker 2: more safely. That did not prevent future floods. Unfortunately, there
Speaker 2: were future floods in Johnstown and still are time to time.
Speaker 2: But but it is it is much safer than, of
Speaker 2: course it was.
Speaker 1: But the fishing has gone down, and and that's why
Speaker 1: that's why I stopped, you know, being a member of
Speaker 1: that club, because the back when the fishing was good
Speaker 1: for a little bit, and they really you know, it
Speaker 1: went down here after that. No one talks about that.
Speaker 1: No one talks about how the fishing and that club
Speaker 1: went down.
Speaker 2: Now you know what, there's a reason for that, Paul.
Speaker 2: I'm just being honest.
Speaker 1: That's a kind of a shitty take, because, like I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm paying top dollar to be in this hunting fishing
Speaker 1: club and I've got a lot.
Speaker 2: Of auntish fishing really good, right, damn it? Okay, So
Speaker 2: let me just throw this out there, because in times
Speaker 2: of disaster or mass casualties like this, I think something
Speaker 2: incredible about human nature emerges. We raw for each other.
Speaker 2: We were just talking about some of the rescue efforts
Speaker 2: Claire Barton among others, and all of these incredible resources
Speaker 2: that just flooded into the region. Sorry for the terrible metaphor,
Speaker 2: but so much support came just kicked in from all around.
Speaker 2: We rally for each other, We come together, We help
Speaker 2: each other in these ways that might have seemed unthinkable
Speaker 2: just a day before a tragedy like this. Do you
Speaker 2: agree that this is such an incredible thing of humanity?
Speaker 2: Do you see it around you sometimes? And why is
Speaker 2: it so fucking rare? Not that it's rare, but why
Speaker 2: do we have to wait for disasters for this side
Speaker 2: of us to emerge?
Speaker 1: I you know, it's interesting. I will say that being
Speaker 1: in New York City during nine to eleven. It was
Speaker 1: I talk about this is like one of the most
Speaker 1: beautiful times post one to eleven in the sense of agreed,
Speaker 1: the way that the city came together neighbors and you know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of there's a lot of good will. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know we even see out here at the
Speaker 1: fires that happened this year, like there's a lot of
Speaker 1: how do we make a difference, how do we pull together?
Speaker 1: And you're right, and I think that ultimately we are society,
Speaker 1: you're cockroaches. We fall into patterns, and there are many
Speaker 1: people like a Claire Barton and many other wonderful people
Speaker 1: who devote their lives to making sure that everybody has
Speaker 1: the same access to whatever, and we just get selfish
Speaker 1: and we forget and we forget about it. And then
Speaker 1: every now and then we see a commercial or we
Speaker 1: hear about something, or we get caught up because we
Speaker 1: have a personal connection to it, and then we move
Speaker 1: into action. But every now and then, when there's something
Speaker 1: that is undeniable where everybody kind of kicks and it's it's.
Speaker 2: It's the best of us, yea, The worst of us
Speaker 2: can bring out the best of us. Now, of course,
Speaker 2: as soon as the floodwater was dry, people began to
Speaker 2: look for someone to blame for the tragedy, and it
Speaker 2: wasn't long before the town turned to the south Folk
Speaker 2: Fishing and Hunting Club, which you have to say, like that,
Speaker 2: the South Southfolk Fishing Hunting Con and of course our
Speaker 2: old friend Henry Clay Frick.
Speaker 1: Now here's the question that I got for you. If
Speaker 1: I'm Henry Frick, I'm like, maybe I should have gone
Speaker 1: on that Titanic because I don't want to face the
Speaker 1: wrath well of this town.
Speaker 2: He's gonna be fine, don't worry, Okay. Survivors of the
Speaker 2: flood sued the club. The American Society of Civil Engineers
Speaker 2: launched a massive investigation. It ultimately concluded that while the
Speaker 2: dam was modified to be less secure, it would have
Speaker 2: failed either way. Now, it should be noted that the
Speaker 2: American Society of Civil Engineers was bankrolled by legendary tycoon
Speaker 2: Andrew Carnegie. Wow Okay, okay, himself a member of the
Speaker 2: South Fork Hunting and Fishing Club. Of course he was.
Speaker 2: It was good fishing. So perhaps they were not the
Speaker 2: most neutral referee in this matter. And indeed, more research
Speaker 2: in recent times has very much questioned those findings. Still,
Speaker 2: the courts ultimately ruled the flood was merely a quote
Speaker 2: act of God.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, here's something that's interesting about it. This
Speaker 1: is a bona fide natural disaster that maybe in a
Speaker 1: way was worsened by damn precautions or maybe even staved
Speaker 1: off for I don't know, Like you don't know. I
Speaker 1: think that sometimes these are the things that change our lives.
Speaker 1: The Titanic is sent like created all these regulations, like
Speaker 1: these OCEHA regulations, these.
Speaker 2: Things that we would never have. I think you're being generous.
Speaker 2: Why am I on the side of the tacooons They
Speaker 2: shouldn't be on there. Always you're always thinking of for
Speaker 2: the for the moneyed interests. I just want to get that.
Speaker 2: I want to get that membership from back. Whether or
Speaker 2: not it was criminal, we can never know necessarily, but
Speaker 2: but that bad mistakes were made. There's more details about
Speaker 2: someone who was offering to make the necessary fixes to
Speaker 2: the damn in advance of of all of this, and
Speaker 2: and they were just like I would be to inconvenient
Speaker 2: for the club, so we're not going to do it.
Speaker 1: And well, yeah, because you don't want to have those
Speaker 1: people out there working. When you catch a fish, you
Speaker 1: don't bang and bang. Well, they probably have to drain
Speaker 1: the lake in order to make come here for peace
Speaker 1: of mind to get a bang bang bang bang bang.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly right. Well, either way, without a legal obligation
Speaker 2: to do so, Frick and the club never accepted responsibility.
Speaker 2: This is what This is a very common theme throughout
Speaker 2: my study of tafoos. Virtually no one ever is held
Speaker 2: accountable in any way. Frick, however, did go on to
Speaker 2: be embroiled in other controversies, and he even did a
Speaker 2: few good things. Also, he amassed the incredible Frick art
Speaker 2: collection in New York City. Oh it's the same risk
Speaker 2: that freaking guy. I love that art collection. Yes, the Frick.
Speaker 2: I took many trips to the Frick, and I enjoyed.
Speaker 2: I enjoyed the Frick, And now I am I am
Speaker 2: frustrated to know that what a scoundrel he might have been.
Speaker 2: But Frick was also part of the super Anti Union
Speaker 2: for that led to the violent homestead strike in eighteen
Speaker 2: ninety two. He even survived an assassination attempt during it.
Speaker 2: Not to tease you, but we will save that snapoo
Speaker 2: for another day. Ooh, I love that. Indeed, we were
Speaker 2: talking before about some of the ways the infrastructure was
Speaker 2: improved after the flood. This is interesting. Johnstown built an
Speaker 2: inclined railway in eighteen ninety, which allowed folks to easily
Speaker 2: go back and forth from the nearby town of Westmont,
Speaker 2: which was at a much higher elevation, safer from flooding,
Speaker 2: et cetera, as well as safer from the leftover pollution.
Speaker 2: Here's a photo of the incline railway. We look at that. Great,
Speaker 2: So there go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so they made some changes, some good changes. But
Speaker 1: here's let I say, like, for somebody like Frick, do
Speaker 1: you think that he feels any responsibility or when you're
Speaker 1: in that level, the reason why you're that successful there,
Speaker 1: the reason why you're that wealthy is because you don't ever.
Speaker 2: Navel gaze. You never you never think it's my fault.
Speaker 2: That is a great question, and it is one of
Speaker 2: the things that I never I just never understand about
Speaker 2: people who do like large scale, dastardly things, Like I
Speaker 2: think that in order to sort of persevere as a
Speaker 2: tycoon of this nature, like you have to have the
Speaker 2: most toxic coping mechanisms. You are never analyzing these things.
Speaker 2: You're never even considering the possibility that you might be culpable,
Speaker 2: except in the in the possibility that you might face
Speaker 2: legal repercussions, in which case you're like mounting your legal defense.
Speaker 2: And it is it is amazing the extent to which
Speaker 2: powerful and or wealthy people escape culpability, both literally and
Speaker 2: to your question, I think even in their own conscience.
Speaker 2: I think on some.
Speaker 1: Level every great leader, tycoon, even at fleet, has to
Speaker 1: have this ability to separate themselves from their actions, because
Speaker 1: I don't think you could go to bed at night.
Speaker 1: I always say that if every president has to be
Speaker 1: a little bit insane or at least narcissistic, because you're saying,
Speaker 1: I'm taking the whole world on my shoulders, and if
Speaker 1: people die you Eric, well, all right, I'll get them tomorrow.
Speaker 1: And you know, because you have to get back up.
Speaker 2: They will. People will die under your watch as a
Speaker 2: president person.
Speaker 1: And I think that's the thing that unites all these people,
Speaker 1: and for better and for worse, it's just a very
Speaker 1: I would even say Claire Barton probably is like that
Speaker 1: to a certain day.
Speaker 2: I have to keep on moving. I can't take on
Speaker 2: all this grief yeah. Yeah, So finally, Paul Yes, being
Speaker 2: a guy who dissects Hollywood's most baffling films, you will
Speaker 2: appreciate this. In nineteen twenty six, they actually made The
Speaker 2: Johnstown Flood as a silent disaster movie, and like any
Speaker 2: great disaster flick, the plot is shaky, but the special
Speaker 2: effects for the time were spectacular. Can we just see
Speaker 2: this one little clip? This is exciting.
Speaker 1: Whoa, Oh my goodness, I'm already love it. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: watch this entire special effectsh holy cow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a great mind blowing wow. So you
Speaker 2: can tell it's all done in miniature, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: And then and then watch how it's Watch how it's
Speaker 2: like superimposed or double exposed somehow some of the filmmaking.
Speaker 1: Wow, this is fascinating. I just been blown away by
Speaker 1: the amount of.
Speaker 2: Wow did how do they do that? That looks so real?
Speaker 1: That looks unbelievable. I don't even understand it because people
Speaker 1: are flying away too, and they're the thing people. The
Speaker 1: special effects that were going on in these early days
Speaker 1: are truly outstanding. You know, these sci fi movies, like
Speaker 1: when you think about what they had and what they
Speaker 1: were that looked amazing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Paul, how did this get made? I mean, and
Speaker 2: I don't mean that ironically in the way that you do.
Speaker 2: I mean, how did they actually do?
Speaker 1: And I Am going to get actually amazing podcast and
Speaker 1: do some research because I'm interested.
Speaker 2: Paul Sheer, this has been a goddamn delight. What a blast,
Speaker 2: What a fun blast. I just I love deconstructing with
Speaker 2: you about anything.
Speaker 1: What a gift this this is because every one of
Speaker 1: these it makes me feel smarter. I did not know
Speaker 1: about the Johnstone flood, and yes it was awful, but
Speaker 1: I feel good that these guys got some good fishing
Speaker 1: in and that you know, so that was a moral
Speaker 1: of it, right that.
Speaker 2: They go there was some good fishing the of course. No,
Speaker 2: I really do love it, appreciate how your brain works,
Speaker 2: and I'm really grateful that you came on and share
Speaker 2: happy to be here. Thank you Ed for having me.
Speaker 2: What a blast, of course. Cheers by Snapoo is a
Speaker 2: production of iHeart Podcasts and Snapoo Media, a partnership between
Speaker 2: Film Nation Entertainment and Pacific Electric Picture Company. Our post
Speaker 2: production studio is Gilded Audio. Our executive producers are me
Speaker 2: Ed Elms, Mike Falbo, Glenn Basner, Andy Kim, Whitney Donaldson,
Speaker 2: and Dylan Fagan. This episode was produced by Alyssa Martino
Speaker 2: and Tory Smith. Our video editor is Jared Smith. Technical
Speaker 2: direction and engineering from Nick Dooley. Our creative executive is
Speaker 2: Brett Harris. Logo and branding by The Collected Works. Legal
Speaker 2: review from Dan Welsh, Meghan Halson and Caroline Johnson. Special
Speaker 2: thanks to Isaac Dunham, Adam Horn, Lane Klein, and everyone
Speaker 2: at iHeart Podcasts, but especially Will Pearson, Kerry Leeberman, Nikki Etoor,
Speaker 2: Nathan Otowski and Alex Corral. While I have you, don't
Speaker 2: forget to pick up a copy of my book, Snafoo,
Speaker 2: The Definitive Guide to History's Greatest screw Ups. It's available
Speaker 2: now from any book retailer. Just go to Snaffoo dashbook
Speaker 2: dot com. Thanks for listening and see you next week.
Speaker 2: S