At the Conemaugh Viaduct, a 78-foot (24 m) high railroad bridge, the flood was momentarily stemmed when...debris jammed against the stone bridge's arch.
It was here...that the water smashed into its first major obstacle, a tremendous stone viaduct...built more than fifty years earlier...
The viaduct was one of the landmarks of the country. It stood seventy-five feet high...Even the biggest locomotives looked tiny by contrast as they chugged across it on their way up the mountain.
Now, for [six minutes], Lake Conemaugh formed again some five and a half miles downstream...It gathered itself together, held now by another dam, which however temporary was nonetheless as high as the first one...(McCullough 108-9)
