Water. It gives life, adds beauty to the scenery, and it’s great to kayak on. But, when it comes at you in a 40 foot high wall…you’re doomed.

Earlier this summer, we visited the National Park Service’s Johnstown Flood Memorial, and viewed the terrifying video which begins and ends, in otherworldly detail, with images and narration centering around the Grandview Cemetery, where many of the 2,209 victims who were confronted with a deadly wall of water on May 31, 1889 found their final resting place.

On later visit to Johnstown, we decided to visit the cemetery and pay our respects to those victims. We expected some sort of interpretation (a brochure maybe?) to be available, but since none was, we drove around until we found a sizable (over 700 it turns out) number of small white unmarked graves.

That many plain white gravestones with no inscriptions is rather unnerving, but also mesmerizing. I found I had to break my eyes away from their undulating pattern. After viewing the mass site from various angles, we walked around to see where other victims might be buried.

We found whole families of known victims, which was also disturbing. Seeing the same death date on five or six family members’ gravestones brings that day of horror home.

The water tooketh away. From this vantagepoint in history, we can only imagine the reality — as with many disasters, man made or natural. (The Johnstown Flood was some of both). And honor those who were lost.