{"id":5583,"date":"2026-07-16T08:38:45","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T12:38:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/?p=5583"},"modified":"2026-07-16T08:38:45","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T12:38:45","slug":"tie-down-your-whistle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/16\/tie-down-your-whistle\/","title":{"rendered":"Tie Down Your Whistle"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast<\/em>,\u00a0click here<\/a>
\u00a0

It was called America’s Great Calamity.

Before 9\/11, Hurricane Katrina, and the catastrophic hurricane at Galveston, Texas in 1900, nothing seemed so horrible as the Johnstown Flood.\u00a0\u00a0

On May 31, 1889, an earthen dam high in the Allegheny Mountains of western Pennsylvania gave way, sending most of Lake Conemaugh, a three-mile-long reservoir, cascading down a narrow valley inhabited by 32,000 people.\u00a0

There had long been worries about the dam.

Some of those who lived along the 15 miles of that valley believed it was only a matter of time before the half-century-old barrier built by amateurs would fail.

Others were more like modern-day residents of southern California who have been assured that a major earthquake is long overdue:\u00a0“I suppose that will happen, but probably not today.”\u00a0\u00a0

Some comforted themselves that a handful of experts had predicted that even if the dam were breached, it would only raise the water level of Johnstown’s local streams by about two feet.

Those experts were badly mistaken.

After days of torrential spring rains, the lake began to over-top the dam. At noon on Memorial Day, telegrams were sent down the valley warning of imminent collapse.\u00a0Those who received the telegrams read them but failed to sound a general alarm.

By and the large, the people who were most in position to prevent a disaster were reluctant to make consequential decisions.\u00a0\u00a0

At 3:10 pm the center of the dam fell away, releasing what can only be described as a tsunami on land.

The water raced down the valley towards Johnstown, collecting everything in its path.\u00a0The 40-foot-high wall of liquid debris was crammed with trees, boulders, splintered houses, railroad cars (including 30 locomotives), the corpses of domesticated animals, and soon enough human corpses as well.\u00a0\u00a0

The bustling steel industry community at the end of the valley had no warning and no chance.\u00a0

Before it was over, at least 2,200 people were dead, including every member of 99 families.\u00a0Hundreds of the mangled bodies were never identified.\u00a0Hundreds of others were never found.\u00a0The remains of two victims weren’t discovered for 17 years.\u00a0

In the midst of the horror, heroes emerged.\u00a0\u00a0

One of them was John C. Hess, who piloted Engine No. 1124 of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company.\u00a0His job on May 31 was keeping the rail lines open, since the incessant rain had already triggered local floods and landslides.\u00a0

Hess and his crew were trying to clear debris from the tracks near the hamlet of East Conemaugh, a rail center between Johnstown and the dam, when he heard that “the lake’s broke.”\u00a0The water would be upon them in minutes.

Hess knew that several trains filled with unsuspecting passengers were sitting at East Conemaugh waiting for the tracks to re-open.\u00a0He opened up his throttle and raced, in reverse, in their direction.\u00a0

Most important of all, he tied down his steam whistle, letting it sound a continuous blast.

This was a warning that everyone in 1889 understood.\u00a0\u00a0

In his book The Johnstown Flood<\/em>, historian David MCullough notes that a locomotive whistle “was a matter of some personal importance to a railroad engineer. It was tuned and worked (even ‘played’) according to his own particular choosing.\u00a0The whistle was part of the make-up of the man; he was known for it as much as he was known for the engine he drove.”

Engineers knew how to play simple tunes on their whistles. They might sound their whistle “to aggravate a cranky preacher in the middle of his Sunday sermon, or to signal hello through the night to a wife or friend.”\u00a0

But there was nothing playful about tying down the cord. A continuous whistle blast meant only one thing: Something is seriously wrong.\u00a0Run for your lives<\/em>.\u00a0 \u00a0

The train passengers and crew members immediately began to do just that.\u00a0Almost all of them got to high ground before the water slammed into East Conemaugh, careening their shattered rail cars miles down the valley.\u00a0\u00a0

John C. Hess’ warning almost certainly saved hundreds of lives.\u00a0\u00a0

Sounding a word of warning isn’t easy.\u00a0What if you’re wrong?\u00a0Then you’ll look like a fool.\u00a0It can be a thankless job, too.\u00a0The authorities who lived in the vicinity of Johnstown didn’t really want to hear that their families and properties were in danger.

The bearers of jarring or inconvenient news are never the life of the party.

The prophet Ezekiel was given the thankless job of warning God’s people that their lives had run off the rails.\u00a0The blast of his “whistle” is heard throughout the Old Testament book that bears his name. and so is the record of what happened to his listeners when they concluded, “I suppose that will happen one day, but probably not today.\u00a0And certainly not to me.”

Have you been called to deliver a message that others are reluctant to hear?

It’s hard to speak the truth in our family rooms, even when we see trouble coming.\u00a0It’s hard to raise our voices in the boardroom, even when we feel certain that the dam is about to break.\u00a0

What can we do?

Ask God for help \u2013 especially his gifts of wisdom, discernment, and courage. Speak humbly but firmly.\u00a0Invite others to test why you’ve come to your conclusions.\u00a0

But when it’s clear there’s a disaster coming and nothing will stop it, there’s only one thing to do:\u00a0

Tie down your whistle and let it blast.\u00a0

Then leave the outcome to Him.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here\u00a0 It was called America’s Great Calamity. Before 9\/11, Hurricane Katrina, and the catastrophic hurricane at Galveston, Texas in 1900, nothing seemed so horrible as the Johnstown Flood.\u00a0\u00a0 On May 31, 1889, an earthen dam high in the Allegheny Mountains of western Pennsylvania gave way, sending most of Lake Conemaugh, a three-mile-long… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5584,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1149,1150],"class_list":["post-5583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crisis","tag-warning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5583"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5583\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5585,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5583\/revisions\/5585"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}