‘We’re celebrating . . . the inspiring story of how the community faced the worst and came back.’

You’d almost think the flood was something to celebrate, something along the lines of Christmas or Elvis’ birthday, the way folks here are carrying on.

There are signs and laughter and souvenirs everywhere. In shops downtown, you can buy vials of “genuine” imitation floodwater and T-shirts and limited-edition plates and key rings--all commemorating the flood that killed 2,209 people here a century ago.

Johnstown is marking the 100th anniversary of its own destruction by throwing a summer-long party.

But let’s be clear about one thing: “You don’t celebrate a flood,” said Richard Berkert, director of the Johnstown Flood Museum. “You come to grips with it. . . .

“Really, what we’re celebrating, in part, is the inspiring story of how the community faced the worst and came back. . . . It’s a celebration of the city.”

It also is an expensive and well-orchestrated campaign to change Johnstown’s image, spark economic development and turn this town of 32,000 people into a major tourist attraction.

When people think of Johnstown, said Richard Dill, director of the Johnstown Flood Centennial Office, they think of floods and out-of-work steel workers.

There are good reasons for this. The flood of 1889 still ranks as one of the nation’s worst disasters--and historically one of the most significant, since it was popularly depicted as a classic case of the rich, through indifference, wreaking havoc on the working masses.

Johnstown was washed away when a dam broke and sent 40-foot waves crashing through the Conemaugh River Valley.

The dam had formed a lake that was used by the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, whose members included wealthy people such as Andrew Carnegie, Richard Mellon and Henry Clay Frick--everybody who was anybody at the time in nearby Pittsburgh.

The dam had been inspected in 1881 and found to be structurally weak, but the club’s leadership did not take the steps necessary to reinforce it adequately.

Still, the 1889 flood--immortalized in songs and a Hollywood silent movie--is merely the most famous of the town’s disasters. In 1936, Johnstown was hit by a flood that caused $41 million in damages and killed 25 people, and another flood, in 1977, caused $350 million in damages and killed 80 people.

As if this were not enough calamity for one town, in 1982 the steel mills here started laying off workers. The local Bethlehem plant’s labor force has dwindled over the last decade from 12,000 to 2,500. In the first quarter of 1983, Johnstown’s 26.6% unemployment rate was the highest in the country. Now the rate is down to about 7%.

Dill, who worked on the “I NY” campaign in New York City, was hired to work public-relations magic on this quaint town of hills and rivers and churches.

About $10 million, mostly federal and state funds, has been spent on the centennial project, which starts Wednesday and is expected to attract between 500,000 and 1 million visitors to the area this summer.

The money has been spent on visitor centers, museum improvements, a laser light show and commissioning Pittsburgh composer David Stock to write a symphonic overture.

Part of the money also was used to commission 10 abstract works in steel by James Wolfe, a New York sculptor who has been working on the project at an abandoned mill at the Bethlehem plant since January.

The other day, Wolfe was an incongruous sight as he put the finishing touches on his airy, colorful pieces in the center of the dark, cavernous mill.

“For a studio, what more could anybody ask?” said Wolfe, whose works are on display at the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington. “I really don’t want to leave. I don’t want to go back to my studio.”

His work for Johnstown, which incorporates images of traditional steel-working tools such as hammers, anvils and drill bits, has a festive spirit. “I’m trying to put lightness into the sculpture and defy the properties of steel,” he said.

The words “lightness” and “defiance” could almost serve as mottoes for the town.

Berkert, the museum director, said of the flood: “Within months, people were working out of temporary businesses and living in temporary homes. Within a couple of years, the city was reconstructed. Within 20 years, they doubled their population and quadrupled the amount of steel from Johnstown. So, the city came back famously.”

In a show of confidence in the town’s future, Crown American Corp., a development firm, hired renowned architect Michael Graves to design it a $25-million headquarters downtown, which is to open soon.

The spirit that helped Johnstown bounce back is perhaps best summed up by a sign displayed last week in a bookstore window:

“This town will not die.”

Researcher Tracy Shryer, in Chicago, contributed to this story.