BY TOM LAVIS
The Tribune-Democrat
July 11, 2007 11:36 pm
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Latest in a series on the 1977 Johnstown Flood
It has been 30 years, but former newspaper photographer Chuck Mamula’s eyes still fill with tears as he recalls an interview with a woman who lost her husband and two sons in the 1977 Flood.
After 12 inches of torrential rain delivered a knockout punch to his hometown, Mamula and his photo staff at The Tribune-Democrat worked tirelessly to capture the emotion and images of the devastation left in the wake of the raging waters.
None was more heart-wrenching for Mamula than the encounter he and a reporter, the late Bob Sefick, had with Beverly Smith of Dale Borough, who had lost her husband, Jim, and two sons, Troy, 8, and Todd, 7.
The journalists made their way to Smith’s parents’ home in the 8th Ward just days after the flood.
“I remember all of us choking back tears as she told of her son being ripped from her grasp in the violent waters,” Mamula said.
The bodies of her husband and sons were quickly identified.
“She showed us the locket she had been wearing that night, the only possession she salvaged,” Mamula said. “Inside was a picture of her two sons in their baseball uniforms, their images forever frozen in time.”
The boys were buried in the same casket wearing their Little League uniforms.
Mamula, 58, was employed 22 years as a Tribune-Democrat photographer, last serving as chief photographer. He left the newspaper in 1988 to start his own business.
He and his wife, Dawn, along with their infant son, Chris, were living in Johnstown’s West End at the time of the flood.
“I remember all the lights out in the West End around midnight,” Mamula said.
He got a call around that time on July 19 from the night-side editor at the office asking him to go outside and determine how bad things were because there were reports of high water.
He made his way to Fairfield Avenue and D Street and notified the editor that, while there was pooling water, St. Clair Run was running a “little above normal.”
Little did he know how much worse things were about to get.
“That was the last call I made on our phone for about the next six weeks,” he said.
While Mamula’s family escaped the flood with little damage, the devastation that he witnessed July 20 has haunted him for three decades.
After spending hours in Morrellville, he was able to meander his way downtown before the water completely receded.
He tried to reach the newspaper offices, but the downtown was flooded.
As the water retreated, Mamula’s first contact with victims occurred near Haynes Street, where he took a photo of a policeman and a nurse in a rowboat in an attempt to get her to work at Lee Hospital.
“Those days immediately after the flood were absolutely like flying by the seat of our pants,” Mamula said.
With The Tribune-Democrat building flooded and knee-deep in mud, Mamula learned that the paper had set up a makeshift newsroom facility at WJAC-TV in Upper Yoder Township.
He made his way there and teamed up with reporters to hit the streets.
Mamula and his staff of photographers began an odyssey that kept them working nonstop for three or four days after the flood.
“We worked hour after hour and stopped only when we got to a point where we couldn’t go any further,” Mamula said. “We saw things that few others saw.”
He recalled how he and WJAC-TV videographer Ray Clites hitched a ride on a helicopter to check on the towns and villages downriver from Johnstown.
“We flew over the village of Robindale and saw people waving frantically at us,” Mamula said.
They landed and discovered that they were the first outsiders the townspeople had seen in two days.
As they were leaving, residents implored them to tell someone of their plight.
“They told us that they were in trouble and needed help,” Mamula said.
Mamula and other photographers went beyond the call of duty to record the images for posterity.
Bob Donaldson, now with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, had gut-wrenching images from Hornerstown, where he became stranded on the night of July 19.
The late Merle Agnello worked his way to Tanneryville once he heard things were pretty bad there.
“Merle was very resourceful and got to Tanneryville somehow,” Mamula said.
One of Mamula’s photos shows the marquee of the Main Street theater, which was showing “The Rescuers,” a Disney animated film.
“How’s that for irony?” Mamula said.
Mamula remembers the leadership displayed by then-Mayor Herb Pfuhl in the days immediately after the flood.
“I also admired the work the Mennonites did when they came to help dig the people out,” he said. “There were small groups of them everywhere and they worked tirelessly in knee-deep mud and sweltering heat.”
Mamula often wonders what happened to the people he met during the flood.
Five years ago, he was shooting a reunion portrait of the Greater Johnstown High School class of 1967 when a woman approached him and introduced herself.
“It was Beverly Smith,” Mamula said. “We spoke awhile and she told me she that she couldn’t live in the past and she had found a new life for herself.”
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