In March 1936, melting snow and relentless spring rain caused significant flooding in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, killing 25 people and resulting in more than $41 million USD in damages. The state’s legislators acted quickly, passing a temporary 10 percent tax on all wine and liquor sold in Pennsylvania to help pay for the area’s recovery. Within six years, the town’s losses were covered, but the tax never went away. In fact, the 10 percent tax became a 15 percent tax in 1963, and it was increased again in 1968 to 18 percent, where it remains today. Since 1936, this tax has netted about $15.4 billion USD — almost $300 million USD a year — for Pennsylvania. Since 1997, there have been over a dozen bills introduced to repeal or reduce the tax, but none has been passed.
Poplava državne pomoči:
Pred poplavo v Johnstownu iz leta 1936, ki jo pogosto imenujejo poplava na dan svetega Patrika, je bilo deževje, ki se je začelo 9. marca in se nadaljevalo do 22. marca. Potop je bil tako močan, da je predsednik Franklin D. Roosevelt v letih 1936 in 1937 sprejel glavno nacionalno zakonodajo o obvladovanju poplav.
Novembra 1943 je Gilbert Van B. Wilkes iz inženirskega korpusa ameriške vojske poročal voditeljem Johnstowna, da je problem poplav rešen. Johnstown je začel promovirati mesto kot »brez poplav«.
Zgodovino Johnstowna je zaznamovala vrsta tragičnih poplav. Poleg poplave leta 1936 je mesto prizadela velika poplava leta 1889, ki je ubila osupljivih 2,209 ljudi. Leta 1977 se je zgodila še ena katastrofalna poplava, v kateri je umrlo 84 ljudi.