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II. COMMUNICATION PATTERN OF THE RUMOR AND DENIAL
The information which follows come s primarily from one to
two hour interviews with thirty-one key individuals in and around Port
Jervis. These individuals were chosen on the basis of their official
positions, participation in disaster work, and their nearness (hypothe-
sized or actual) to the central path of the Saturday night rumor. These
persons are listed in Appendix B. In addition, approximately a dozen
informal interviews were held with Port Jervis officials who were per-
ipherally involved in the action, and with officials of nearby Matamoras
whose activities affected the Port Jervis situation.
The story from these interviews is, on the whole, fairly con-
sistent; there are some discrepancies which require inference on the
part of the investigators. Where such discrepancies occur, they will
be noted. We will attempt here to give a statement summarizing these
interviews. In the detailed account which follows the summary, addi-
tional consideration is given to the action at various official centers.
A 0~ View
There is a good deal of concrete information which points t
a general atmosphere of uneasiness on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
On Saturday night there were numerous rumors coming into Port Jervis
from nearby towns, largely transmitted by telephone. Shortly before
midnight, a false report came in which resulted in the exodus of a size-
able portion of the population.
The main source of this false report was a message from out-
of-town transmitted over the radios on the fire-trucks which were
pumping out cellars and homes in various parts of the city. The mes-
sage was quickly picked up and passed on by one or more fire-trucks,
individual firemen, and by neighbors and friends warning each other
by word-of-mouth and by phone. Some people in cars rode through the
streets shouting that everyone must get out.
Residents began to seek confirmation by going to City Hall,
where the Fire and Police Headquarters are located. Others went to
Civil Defense Headquarters, to fire houses, f~re-trucks, and to
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individual policemen
centers, while some
~ ~At. ~
and fir emen. Othe r s telephoned tines e and other
tuned their radios to the local station, WDT C.
M ally people, however, started malting immediate preparations for
flight to high ground.
Most of the official centers, Police, Fire, and Civil Defense,
took delaying action while they made contact by raclio with the Wallen-
paupack Dam or source s near the Dam. In other words, with the ex-
ception of the message from out of town which went to the various f~re-
trucks, there was no spreading of the rumor by officials during the
period] of seeking verification. The principal message transmitted to
residents during this period was that it might weH be a false report,
that they were checking with the Dam, and that residents should wait
for office a] wor d.
A similar decision was made inclepenclently of other agencies
at Fire, Police, and Civil Defense Headquartersi i. e., We decision to
check win the Dam and to tell residents to wait for confirmation from
this source. In addition to this independent decision, there were joint
decisions made by these agencies when they began actively to commun-
i =~ - with ^~= He
~ , , ~ ,
~ ~.~ .__. After the denial of the report came through,
*obese agencies transmitted it to one another, to the local radio station,
and directly to the public in various ways. Two communications chan-
nets were used by officials for verification: telephone and short-wave
r adio.
B. Detailed Account
The reader will find it easier to follow the action if he refers
to the schematic comm~,nicat~on chart while reading this account.
Of the thirty-one key respondents, over half specifically men-
tion that people were concerned with the river or Dam and describe
rumors which circulated prior to the Saturday night episode. Three of
these added that rumors concerning the Dam had circulated in previous
years. There is some evidence that such rumors were in circulation
concurrently with the particular report which gained momentum and
swept through Port Nerves.
The manager of the local power copy and the ticket agent
at the Erie Railroad Station both reported numerous cads on Thursday
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Representative terms from entire chapter:
port jervis
-a
cry
-
j-oF
5~eL
8! ~
_
J
As/
~ / in./ ;
f ~ A. lo.
_ _ ~
~ =~ ,
_
$/
and Friday asking if the Wallenpaupack Dam had really broken. A city
official, a theatre manager, the Police Chief, a fire-radio operator,
the Mayor, a ham Calico operator, and a member of the WDLC staff all
mentioned rumors about the Dam which they heard on Friday and
Saturday. The statement that the Dales gates were going to be opened
to relieve pressure was circulated, in part by the Police Chief. This
message, which was designed to give reassuring information, may
have been ambiguous and potentially threatening to inhabitants. A sub-
stantial portion of the resident sample reported hearing previous
rumor s. Many other s reported wide spread speculation as to what
would happen If the Dam broke.
In addition to the rumors with a general flood referrent, the
Police Chief en c! the ham radio operator reported a typhoid epidemic
rumor which was squelched before it gained momentum when the City
Health Officer gave counter-information on the radio.
The report which spread through Port Serves on Saturday night
appears to have originated in Sparrowbush, New York, a rural com-
mun~ty a few miles west of Port Jervis. At about 10:30 Saturday night,
a stranger ran into a restaurant there and told the owner (who is also
a volunteer fireman) that the Wallenpaupack Dam hacl broken. He
added that firemen in a community up lib e river were evacuating every-
one. The restaurant owner's telephone was out of commission because
of the flood. He went with three orbed men to the highway and began to
stop cars to warn them of the impending danger.
The second car stopped fortuitously was that of the Sparrow-
bush Fire Captain, who went to the fire house ant] radioed} to the Fire
Base Radio in Port Jervis. When he announced, "Emergency -- Stand
by!, '' the air was cleared and all radios in the fire houses, fire head-
quarters, and or the fire-trucks, were held open for the message. He
then reported that he had been stopped by firemen from l~u~nberiand
(one of whom was the restaurant owner) and was told that the Wallen-
p aup ack Dam had gone out.
In Port Jervis, the Fire Chief was on a fire-truck in the
flooded area pumping out a cellar when he heard thi s r eport. He noti -
fiec] the radio operator at Headquarters to ask for a repeat and for
identification of the sender of the message. The Sparrowbush Fire
Captain repeated the message and identified himself. The Port Jervis
14
Fire Chief immediately told his radio operator to check with the Dam
through the Midclletown Fire Base Radio Station.
During this period, the Port Jervis chief fire radio operator
heard the report on a monitor set arid rushed to headquarters to assist
in the communication. When he arrived, he received a telephone call
from a resident stating that one or more fire-trucks which had received
the Sparrowbush message were driving through town, sounding their
sirens, and shouting for people to get out because the Dam had broken.
He decided independently to broadcast to the fire-trucks that he thought
the report was false and that headquarters was checking on it. He also
issued specific instructions to the errant fire-trucks mentioned above:
"You have been given no orders to do what you are doing. Cut it the
hell out and get back to the fire truck house. " This was at about 11:15
p. m.
By this time, the rumor had gained considerable momentum.
Cars were in the streets, and people were clamoring for everyone to
get out of town. Residents were waking their neighbors, and groups of
people were descending on City Hall, fire houses, Civil Defense Head-
quarters, and other centers in the city. In all probability, the rumor
was also being carried into the city in cars and through telephone calls
from outside.
In Matamoras, for example, a car-full of people came through
the main street shouting for everyone to get out. Someone in the com-
munity hear] this, ran to the fire house, and blew the fire siren before
anyone there knew what he was doing. To at least some of the people
in this town the siren meant impending flood, largely because officials
had made an announcement to this effect cluring the flood to which they
had just been exposed. A mass evacuation then took place in this town
too . The Matamo r a s s i r en c ould be he ar d in the r' ve r -f r ont s e c ti on
of Port Serves; it may have had the effect of sensitizing residents to a
threatening message.
The Police were at this time working either in cooperation
with the Fire radio, or were making parallel efforts to check on the
authenticity of the report through the Middletown Mutual Aid System.
They got in touch with the Port Jervis Civil Defense Headquarters by
telephone and asked them to check for verification at the Dam with the
Civil Defens e shortwave radio facilitie s .
15
The false report was first transmitter} to Civil Defense Head-
quarters when Mrs. A., a Civil Defense official, called a friend} on
another matter. The friend said, "I can't talk to you because there is
a sound truck outside telling us to evacuate because the Dam has bro-
ken. I'm packing to leave. " Mrs. A. rang off and went to the short-
wave radio in the next room.
There she met the chief radio operator and his assistant. The
operators had just received a short-wave message from Police Head-
quarters asking themto verifythe report that "The Wallenpaupack
Dam has broken. " They now looked at a map to find the closest place
to the Dam. They decided that they should have two sources of infor-
mation and should try to contact (1) the Dam superintendent and (2) the
Scr anion Electric Power Co company. The radio operator fir st told his
assistant to try to call Scranton Electric.
Before this time, he had been in contact with a ham radio
operator in Port Jervis, who had established a relay channel through
which he could radio Wallenpaupack Dam authorities. From Wednes-
day to Saturday the ham operator had periodically radioed the latest
news on the condition of the Dam to Civil Defense Headquarters. For
this reason the Civil Defense operator tried to radio the ham to ask
him to use his channels to get through to the Dam. He was unable to
reach him by radio, but finally got him on the telephone and asker] him
to do two things: (1) to try to radio the Dam for verification, and (2) to
activate the emergency Army short-wave radio network. He cautioned
the ham operator not to mention on the air that the Dam may have bro-
ken. He said, 'Just ask for the condition of the Dam. "
The ham operator then tried to radio the Dam, but was unable
to e stablish contact through his r egular channel. He r adioed the Army
and told them to activate He network, s eying " We' r e not sure, but it
may be a rumor. " He then telephoned Civil Defense and told them to
try to reach the Dam through their own channels, since he himself had
been unsucc e s sful.
By this time, the Civil Defense office had been mobbed] by
people asking for verification, and asking what they should do if the
Dam had really broken. As one person there put it, "It was as if a
firecracker had been set off in the office. . . "
16
contact.
Mrs. A. asker] people to wait for verification, and told them
that the report was being checked at that moment. She felt considerable
compunction about this, because she assumed that she was cutting down
their time to escape provided the report was true. She looker] at the
map again, and estimated that there would be two hours time before the
water reached Port Jervis. In light of this judgment, she continued to
tell people to wait for verification, although she still experienced some
anxiety about her own decision.
At this point, one radio operator received a telephone call
from Police Headquarters saying that they had gotten through to the
Dam and that the report definitely was false. The other radio operator
had contacted Scranton Electric by radio, and a few minutes later he
reported that Scranton Electric denied that there was anything wrong
with the Dam.
Mrs. A. immediately transmitted this information to the wait-
ing people. She informed them that she had two official sources of dis-
c onfir mation, and she r elate s that p e ople we r e imme cliately c elm e d and
left for their homes. At this same time, Civil Defense officials were
in telephone contact with the local radio station, although it is not clear
whether CD or WDL`C initiated the communication. At any rate, WDLC
had already received the denial from Police Headquarters when the
communication took place, and was preparing to go on the air.
During all this time, the Director of Civil Defense for Port
Jervis had been home asleep, after having worked day and night for CD
during the flood emergency. He was awakened by his wife who heard
frightened people yelling in the streets. He got ares sed and drove down
to Civil Defense Headquarters, but would seem to have arrived after
most of the decisions at that center had been made.
Civil Defense, then, made the following decisions after re-
c eiving the Are at me s s age:
(~) to seek verification from two official sources,
(2) to check He proximity of the threat to s ee if they could
afford to ask people to wait for verification,
(3) to tell people to delay action while awaiting information,
and
(4) to disseminate the denial to as many people as they could
17
The officials of WDL`C, the local radio station, were also
taking certain actions at this time. The station had gone off the air at
its usual time, 11:00 p. m., and no one was on duty. The Program
Director heard the rumor from a friend and went to WDL`C. One
announcer received a telephone call from a friend informing him of the
Dam break. He went directly to Police Headquarters and conferred
tenth the chief. Another announcer received the word from an official
.
~ ~ . , ~ ~ . ~ ~
at Civil Delense Headquarters when he went there to report for flood-
relief duty. He then went to Police Headquarters where he met the
other announcer. The announcers received the denial message from
the Police (chief and carried th,S information with them to the Station
Manager of WDLC. At 12:10 p. m., the Station Manager put the station
back on the air to di s s emirate the denial me s sage. We shall r eturn to
this after seeing what was going on elsewhere in the city at this time.
When the false report first started circulating, many people
called the local railroad station asking whether or not the report was
true. Many of the callers were employees of the railroad. One of the
people on duty helped to spread the rumor by stating that it was true
as far as he knew. The other (at another phone in another part of Abe
station) referred the calls to the Police. This employee caller] the
Police himself (as soon as he could get a line through) and received the
report that they "had no knowledge of the Daffy having broken and thought
it was a rumor " The railroad man then conveyed this rather ambigu-
ous message to all subsequent callers. Among organizations which
had Heir own communications systems, this was the only one which
was able to supply information as to whether people employed by such
organizations will turn to them during emergency periods. (3) The
other organizations . such as the power company and the telephone
We do
find, however, that in the case of the railroad, at least 20 per cent of
Hose who called the ticket office to check on the rumor were railroad
employee s.
v ,
company, dice not have information bearing on this question.
At approximately 11: 30 - 11:40 p. m., the denial me s sage
Police, Fire, and
annarentlv the fir st
came in from the loam through various channels to
_ O
ators immediately informed
Civil Defense Headquarters. The Fire Radio was ~ ~ ,
to receive the denial through the Mid~etown Base Station. The oper-
informed the Fire Chief, who was still out in town
on one ot the trucks. The Fire Chief directed his radio operator to
tell the people that the rumor was false, while he headed out of town to
18
stop a convoy of fire equipment which was coming into Port Jervis to
assist in the cleanup. He had been informed of a tremendous jam of
cars on the highways -- in some cases two-abreast on a two-lane
highway -- and wanted to stop the convoy before it became hopelessly
entangled. The radio operator went outside and, using the fire-truck
loudspeaker, broadcast the denial message to the crowd in the street
in front of Headquarters. Finding this quite effective, he returned to
the short-wave radio, ordered all fire-trucks to turn up their loud-
speakers, and used the truck radios as a public address system. He
continued to broadcast this denial until 12:20 a. m., at which time the
populace seemed to have calmed down fairly well.
At about the time the Police got the denial, the announcers
from WDL`C arrived at Police Headquarters. The Police Chief con-
veyed the denial to them and suggested that WDL`C go back on the air.
The announcers went back to the broadcasting station. In the meantime
the Chief personally spoke to the gathering crowd at City Hall and d~s-
patched officer s to stop people on foot and ire car s who were spr eading
the rumor. The Police radio operator also called Civil Defense to in-
form them that they had received the denial, and that Civil Defense
could dis continue attempts to verify.
WDL`C went back on the air at 12:10 a. m. and began broad-
casting the denial. The fir st me s sage was: " Ladie s and gentlemen:
The rumor that has been going around that the Wallenpaupack Dam
broke is riot true; it is nothing but a rumor. We have been in contact
with Dam officials. i' This message was alternated with record and
organ music for about fifteen minutes. In the meantime, one of the
announcers edited the message carefully to eliminate all references to
the Dam, water or flood, fearing that someone might tune in on the
message only long enough to hear the word ''Dam" and then run. After
one or two short messages: "It is only a rumor. It is NOT true, "
this message was developed: "Ladies and gentlemen. It is only a
rumor -- it is NOT true. There is no need for anyone to be up on
mountains or high places. It would be best if you returnedhome and
did not spread the rumor. " This me ssage was repeated at intervals
while the restraining time was filled by music.
Since many of the people in town were thought to know and
tru s t c e r fain of th e anno unc e r s, the Stats on Manag e r and two anno un c e r s
took turns reading the denial message. At 1:15 a. m., they also played
19
a four -minute one -way conver sation with the Dam superintendent, who
r eported that the gate s had been opened for a few minute s at 9: 30 p. m.
to relieve pressure, but that everything was in fine shape. In addition,
they broadcast an interview with a river official who gave out reassur-
ing information. The denials continued to be broadcast until 2:43 a. m.,
when, in consultation with the Police, it was decided that the town had
quieted down and little more needed to be done.
During the preceding period, officials at WDL`C took other
positive action in spreading the denial message. They contacted the
local paper, asking them to r eque st AP in New York to spr ead the
denial. They also called CBS-TV and radio in New York, since these
stations reach Port Jervis, and asked them to assist in the denial
broadcast. Finally, they contacted Civil Defense and the Sparrowbush
Fire Department requesting assistance in communicating the denial to
those who did not have radios or (lid not have them tuned in. One pe-
culiar thing stands out in all this. A few key respondents reported a
broadcast in which they were asked to turn up the volume of late radios
so that other s might hear the me s sage. Only one s ample re spondent
reports such a broadcast, and no person at WDL`C reports such a mes-
sage going out over the air.
This, then, is a detailed sketch of the actions taken at various
official centers during the rumor period. It is interesting to note that
it did not occur to any of the officials interviewed at Police, Fire, or
Civil Defense Headquarters to leave their posts and flee. None of the
key interviewees reported full belief in the false report, which may
account for the fact that they did not think of flight. However, some
of them stated that "I was elected to stay here, " or "I was up all
night and was too tired. . . "
Summary
An examination of the information from official sources leads
to the following general conclusions:
( 1 ) Independent decisions to verify the false report by con-
tacting officials at or near the Dam were undertaken at the main com-
munication centers; Fire, Police, and Civil Defense Headquarters.
(2 ~ None of the official s at the main co mmunication c ente r s
disseminated the false report while waiting for verification.
20
(3) Officials at a semi-official center were called upon for
verification by at least some of the employees there, and in some
cases these individuals disseminated the false report while awaiting
· a. .
ver~cat~on.
(4) No official at any of the main communication centers re
ported considering flight during the period of belief or the period of
waiting for verification.
(5) After receipt of the denial message, all agencies actively
attempted to disseminate the denial to the population through various
media such as loudspeaker, radio, and face-to-face communication.
(6) The Fire and Police Departments and the local radio
station were lib e primary agents in the public communication of the
denial message.
21
