Some people who witnessed the 1977 Flood say it was like somebody dropped an atomic bomb on Johnstown.

On July 19th, Jim Fleming went to work. It’s a night the former steelworker will never forget.

“I was working at the pig machine in Lower Cambria. It was only my second day down there,” said Fleming.

The rain was coming down so hard he was late for work.

“I parked my van at the security building by the railroad station and walked under the stone bridge. It was lightning and raining so hard I didn’t want to walk any farther.”

Fleming said when he got to work he tried to tell his boss to let his co-workers go home. After a dirty look, Fleming said he and his co-workers went to the locker room. That’s when the power went out and all they could do was sit and listen to the pounding rain.

“We were in the locker room and the back door came bustin’ off its hinges. It was like a 4-5 foot wall of water,” Fleming remembered.

That’s when the steelworkers rushed out and climbed onto an overhead crane.

The torrential rains last for hours. Fleming believes there were about a dozen people on the crane. They spent a long, terrifying night listening to gas explosions and the sounds of homes being ripped apart.

As the sun came up on July 20th, Fleming went looking for his van. 

“Here it flooded down the parking lot and got stuck on a Chevy pickup truck that was submerged under about 10 feet of water,” said Fleming. “All that was sticking out was the back corner of my van.”

So all Fleming could doo was walk. His journey home is one he will never forget.

After trying to help deliver some bottles of water to the hospital, he remembers the looting in the city.

“They had reservists down there with their M-16’s with orders to shoot to kill.”

The danger was everywhere.

“There was a guy walking across from Walnut Street to Main Street.  I was going to try to warn him there’s probably a manhole cover open.”

That man disappeared before Fleming could utter a word. He said he was never seen again.

After a few weeks, Fleming made it back to work and months later he was able to repair his custom van.  At the time, Fleming was the president of the Flood City Van Club.

As a reminder of that tragic night, Fleming painted a high water mark on his van.

He still drives it today.