I go to fire departments and teach about nuclear fallout. The Buffalo Creek Disaster: The Story of the Survivors . It also held coal reserves of 1.5 billion tons, mostly high-grade metallurgical coal used in steel-making. Media Blow Held Worse Than Flood, Charleston Gazette, March 8, 1972. After the 1972 Buffalo Creek disaster, Gov. March 21, 1972Pittstons board of directors authorizedBMCto establish He said he feels his experience with the flood is what led him to lead that lifestyle. At 8 a.m. on Feb. 26, 1972, 130 million gallons of water and coal sludge burst through a dam, poured into Buffalo Creek, and violently surged through 16 . The flood, known as the Buffalo Creek disaster, is considered one of the worst disasters in both American and Mountain State history. It was the flood at lick fork. From chaos to responsibility The litigation initiated by the 625 survivors of the Buffalo Creek flood who refused to settle with the coal company claims office was a landmark case. Among those pressing for action in Washington was consumer advocate Ralph Nader, well known by then for taking on politicians and corporations. U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Mines (W. A. Wahler & Associates), Analysis of Coal Refuse Dam Failure. February 26, 2022, marks the 50th anniversary of one of the most devastating mine disasters in U.S. history. May 1972, Wash., DC. The three dams also served as something of a crude pollution-prevention system: filtering, settling out, and retaining the dirty prep plant particles and toxins found in the coal wastewater, also enabling some reuse of the water in processing. As customary each year, the service began with a reading of the names of the deceased by the individuals in the room. /08. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Children walk along the tracks in what remains of their community along Buffalo Creek on Feb. 27, 1972, The people are prisoners of the coal industry.. A wave from the waste dam flooded and destroyed the Buffalo Creek community [2]. It wasnt long after the flood that lawsuits were brought against Pittston Coal, the company responsible for the slurry dams. As if some foreign enemy had flown in and nuked the place. If you are a WordPress user with administrative privileges on this site, please enter your email address in the box below and click "Send". demand for injunctive relief and to strike certain allegations in the complaint Click for copy. For additional stories at this website on the history of coal and coal mining, see for example, the following: Thanks for visiting and if you like what you find here, please. On February 26, 1972, tragedy struck a small mining community in the coalfields of southern West Virginia. The Buffalo Creek Disaster February 26, 1972, LoganWV.US (website), History and Nostalgia/ Preserving Logan County History. The news of the Buffalo Creek Disaster broke variously across the nation the next few days, in part due to the difficulty of getting to the site. 28 (S.D. Clearly and simply, said the report, people living downstream from the Buffalo Mining Companys coal refuse dam at Saunders were the victims of gross negligence.. Click for copy. The historic Buffalo Creek flood tore through a region often exploited by industryand stereotyped by outsiders. He said his family washed off and cooked chickens that were killed in the aftermath of the flood. gave way, killing eight people. That deal would dog Moore for the rest of his career. Loss of Communality at Buffalo Creek, American Journal of Psychiatry, March 1976, pp. Jack Doyle, Buffalo Creek Disaster: 1972, Mine Safety and Health Administration Kai Eriksons book, Everything In Its Path: Destruc-tion of Community in The Buffalo Creek Flood. 2. June 12, 1964Buffalo Mining Company (BMC) incorporated. Contents The buffalo creek flood a sample Investigation Results [Gerald M Stern] -- This volume describes the Buffalo Creek Flood -- and also the investigation and legal actions that followed. 1/2 (Spring/Fall 2010), pp. ensued. In just a few brief moments, 125 people were killed, 1,100 were injured, and over 4,000 were left without homes [1] as the result of a collapsed coal waste dam. December 17, 1971WVDNR Inspector recommended an emergency spillway on In an out of court settlement, the survivors were awarded $13.5 million, $6 million of which was distributed on the basis of a point system as compensation for the psychological damages. Most of Buffalo Creek was previously owned by the Popp family, who ran a dairy farm before converting to grain crops such as soybeans, wheat and corn. Ralph Nader letter to Congressional committees raises dangers of coal dams. Stern meets with Pittstons counsel concerning settlement. Dam Break'. Some of the flood damage in the aftermath of the Buffalo Creek disaster in West Virginia, showing "mud line" on damaged home, indicating approximation of flood levels for some structures, while others were carried away in the wave or disintegrated into pieces. Having faced several corruption allegations when serving as governor, Moore left office with this additional blemish on his record. Paul Cowan, Book Review of Gerald Sterns The Buffalo Creek Disaster: The Story of the Survivors Unprecedented Lawsuit, The New York Times Book Review, September 5, 1976, pp.6-7. Depta writes: Theyre bringing in trailers so the next time theres a but then Gov. found that the victims didn't experience the enthusiastic feelings because the disaster was so much greater, and . bringing the total to 625, and $64 million in damages. Nader and McAteer, in a letter to key members of Congress urging investigations, estimated that hundreds of thousands of West Virginians living in narrow Appalachian valleys, could be threatened by sudden catastrophic flooding from unstable coal waste dams. AprilOver 1,000 residents registered claims with Pittston. If you think you have been blocked in error, contact the owner of this site for assistance. 1, No. Home; two telephone books worth of victim statements. State of West Virginia sued Pittston in both state and federal court for the states I finally caught hold of the railroad with one hand and pulled my myself out. United States Army Corps of Engineers. The experts concluded that the victims suffered from This is the name that will be displayed next to your photo for comments, blog posts, and more. of Law Dean Willard Lorensen) brings no criminal indictments against Pittston. 1. amzn_assoc_ad_mode = "manual"; The Buffalo Creek Flood and Disaster: Official Report from the Governors Ad Hoc Commission of Inquiry, 1973 (PDF of actual report at Marshall University). On the morning of February 26, 1972, the failure of three coal slurry dams let loose a tidal wave of destruction upon the Buffalo Creek hollow in Logan county, West Virginia. Pittston by then had developed a reputation for poor safety practices, and was ranked second nationally in the number of fatal and non-fatal mine accidents. The physical conditions leading to the failure of the dam are complex and involve a weak foundation and saturated embankment giving rise to failure of the downstream portion of the dam and a sudden total collapse of the remainder of the dam due to liquefaction. After the Dam Broke, Cries for Control, Business Week, March 11, 1972. 3 on the Middle Fork was born out of the age-old practice in the coal fields of disposing of waste material and was constructed without utilizing technology developed for earthen dams and without using or consulting with professional persons qualified to design and build such a structure. Harry Caudill's "Theirs Be The Power". March 11, 1967Pittstons Dola, W.Va., dam failed and a massive flood studied the 1972 Buffalo Creek flood in WV. Arch Moore accepted a $1 million settlement at the end of his second term. Not long thereafter, the dam gave way, creating the horror that unfolded for the Buffalo Creek communities downstream. A search of Public Service Commission records in response to Pearl Woodrums complaint failed to produce any proof that dams No.1 and No. This subcommittee would hear from dozens of witnesses, and was briefed at one point by experts from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers who provided a scale model of the site with details of what happened (see photo below). It would go this way on this side of the hill and take a house out; take one house out of all the rows, and then go back the other way. The U.S. Because of the downpour, nearly 50 acre-feet of fresh water filled the pool of Dam No. Property damage is estimated to be upward of $50 million or more. Headlines from an Associated Press story reporting that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers -- also testifying at U.S. Senate hearings -- found the the Pittston Coal Co. dam above Buffalo Creek was "doomed from the start.". 1969Congress enacted the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act. Three coal waste dams in West Virginia failed, killing 125 people and injuring 1,100 more in communities downstream of the dams. Creek dams. 27, No. They also worried about the mining practice of dumping coal mining slag or gob coal mining waste into the dams. 128-129. The Buffalo Creek disaster : how the survivors of one of the worst disasters in coal-mining history brought suit against the coal company -- and won. Buffalo Creek Flood, 1972, Online Exhibit /Special Collections, Marshall University, 2002. Twenty-seven years of follow-up research by teams of both . Beyond coal, and headquartered in New York City, Pittston had other diverse holdings an oil company, a large trucking firm, the Brinks armored car company, and forty percent of the warehouses in New York City. An airplane crashes. The failure occurred a minute or so before 8:00 a.m. February 26, 1972, and was solely the cause of the Buffalo Creek flood. In the blink of an eye, people's lives completely changed; lives were lost, houses were gone and families were destroyed. We publish articles grounded in peer-reviewed research and provide free access to that research for all of our readers. Erin L. McCoy, The U.S. Has Nearly 600 Coal Waste Sites. UPI photographer Leo Gardner, one of the first outsiders to reach the area reported, Lorado was wiped out. Another early report from the devastation noted: 52 bodies lying on both sides of the road running alongside Buffalo Creek. Some drowned in the floodwaters, while others were buried by landslides, as a thick muck had moved along with the coal water. Buffalo Area Declared Health, Safety Hazard, Logan Banner, March 1, 1972. 1955(March) Pittston coal refuse dam broke at Lick Fork, Virginia. . At approximately 8 a.m., a coal waste dam collapsed on the Middle Fork of Buffalo Creek, releasing 132 million gallons of water, coal refuse, and silt into the narrow mountain valley. And it also continued dumping its coal wastes in the area as well, absent the use of watery waste dams. U.S. there wasnt any flood. Erikson, a Yale professor when he arrived in Buffalo Creek, is one such outsider, having no connection to the region until he was brought in as an expert witness. Pittston, meanwhile, would inform its investors that the 1974 settlement that had come with one of the survivors' lawsuits did not impact the company's profit margin. During World War II, almost a half million POWs were interned in the United States, where they forged sympathetic relationships with Black American soldiers. dam will hold. Hall. Gazette-Mail/L. The goal of MSHAs impoundment program continues to help ensure that: Impoundments constructed by the coal industry are designed to accepted dam safety standards. At the outset of the hearing, Fuquay was the first witness, and the subcommittee chairman, Senator Harrison Williams (D-NJ), submitted for inclusion in the hearing record, Fuquays 225-page report, titled An Engineering Survey of Representative Coal Mine Refuse Piles as Related to the Buffalo Creek, West Virginia, Disaster. That two-part report, focusing on the failed Buffalo Creek dams and a sampling of other dangerous coal refuse dams in the region, made headlines in a few places on May 30th, 1972, the day the Senate hearings began. 2 (Spring 1973), pp. Out of the total settlement, Arnold and Porter took a legal fee of $3 million. In fact, the company was cited for over 5,000 safety violations at its mines nationally in 1971. A final federal strip mine bill, however, would not be signed into law until 1977. The Buffalo Creek Disaster: How the Survivors of One of the Worst Disasters in Coal-Mining History Brought Suit Against the Coal Company- And Won. 1975, which recounted a major court case and liability settlement that emerged from the tragedy on Buffalo Creek. Although its velocity gradually decreased as it traveled down the valley, the event caused death and destruction as far as 15 miles downstream of the dams. Coal disaster 50 years later: WVa creek teeming with fish By JOHN RABY The Associated Press, Updated February 26, 2022, 12:47 p.m. Jacob Turkale held a rainbow trout he caught Tuesday along. Comments to: jdoyle@pophistorydig.com. One of the country's worst mining-related disasters occurred February 26, 1972, on Buffalo Creek in Logan County. SOUTH MAN Sunday marked 51 years since the Buffalo Creek Disaster, the worst flood in West Virginia's history. Some residents in higher hilltop homes overlooking Buffalo Creek, watched as entire houses floated down the hollow, some later crashing into a small bridge downstream. The Springfield Republican newspaper of of Springfield, Massachusetts ran a wire story from United Press International (UPI) on the front page with the headline: 80 to 90 Feared Dead in W. Va. Dam Break; Mining Town Wiped Out. That story shared the front page with other national and regional news that day, picturing U.S. Sunshine and clouds mixed. Some residents in higher hilltop homes overlooking Buffalo Creek, watched as entire houses floated down the hollow, some later crashing into a small bridge downstream. Were owned by the coal company. PopHistoryDig.com, January 31, 2019. amzn_assoc_placement = "adunit0"; Liz Tackett, retired former director of the Buffalo Creek Memorial Library, opens up a memorial service for survivors of the Buffalo Creek Flood on Friday, Feb. 24. Arnold & Porter amended their complaint to add almost 200 more plaintiffs, Vintage. On Feb. 26, 1972, at approximately 8 a.m., a coal slurry impoundment dam owned by Pittston Coal Company burst . Dam No. 2 held and halted the water. Suite 401 In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, various state, local and federal government agencies had initially come together to help plan for the recovery of the Buffalo Creek area. Betty Dotson-Lewis / Brian Sewell, The Day Baby Brucie Died: An Oral History of the Buffalo Creek Flood, The Appalachian Voice, February 27, 2012. He lives in my building. In 1974, the 645 Buffalo Creek residents suing Pittston Coal settled for $13.5 million, which amounted to approximately $13,000 paid out to each plaintiff. Arch Moore accepted a settlement offer of $1 million from the Pittston Coal Company. The current rose so high that it covered telephone poles. document.getElementById( "ak_js_2" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Mannix Porterfield, a reporter who covered the events of that tragic day, later recalled the destruction left in the floods wake. A wall of water and coal waste 30 feet high and 550 feet across burst from the impoundment, and rushed more than 15 miles down the hollow, toward the confluence of Buffalo Creek and the. Committee in a lawsuit against Pittston. Survivors of 1972 Dam Disaster Accept $13.5-Million Settlement, New York Times, July 6, 1974. K.T. Crowd of onlookers in the distance surveys the enormous debris field jammed up against a downstream bridge following the Buffalo Creek coal flood. In 2012, a section of embankment being worked on collapsed at a coal slurry pond in northern West Virginia. Residents were just awakening that Saturday morning; some entire families were still in bed. He said the impoundment failure at Buffalo Creek was accompanied by multiple warnings. about future Aberfan disasters. A close look at Buffalo Creek illuminates the regions ties to coal. G. ERALD . 16, Nos. More than 507 homes were destroyed, along with 44 mobile homes and 30 businesses. Coal Co. v. De Wese, 30 find dam #3 satisfactory. The tautly-worded 31-page report offered detailed findings and evidence of corporate negligence and government failures in the disaster, and proposed 21 recommendations. Hall also asked Pittston Aerial photograph from 'The Herald Dispatch' (Huntington, WV) captures some of the enormous damage in the Buffalo Creek valley, showing collection of homes uprooted and floated down the valley, covering roads and rail lines. Afterward, the survivors informally sit and talk about their memories from the flood and how it affected their lives. Pierce. (2) Stern, G.M. George Vecsey, West Virginia Flood Toll At 60 With Hundreds Lost, New York Times, February 28, 1972. Juliet Eilperin and Steven Mufson, Many Coal Sludge Impoundments Have Weak Walls, Federal Study Says, Washington Post, April 24, 2013. April 16, 1971WVDNR Inspector recommended an emergency spillway on Dam A motion to make the resolution binding on Pittston management was defeated by It just doesnt seem that long ago that it happened, Harvey said. solicitation of legal business. It later concluded that there was no impropriety. April 1, 1974 Pittston moved to dismiss absent plaintiffs, plaintiffs claiming psychic injury while they were physically away from Buffalo Creek during the flood. It should be widely read, states a 1978 review in the Journal of American Studies: In all its aspectsthe survivors description of the flood and its consequences, the contribution which it makes to an understanding of Appalachian life and to the study of disasters, and its theoretical suggestivenessit is outstanding. Fact stipulations, exhibit lists, and pretrial By that time he had stopped screaming and drunk so much water and everything I dont what happened to him.. Stern and Staker begin discussing settlement. In Buffalo Creek Revisited: Deconstructing Kai Eriksons Stereotypes, the sociologists Lynda Ann Ewen and Julia A. Lewis write: Eriksons conclusions about the people of Appalachia have along with studies of snake handlers, come to define what students who study sociology know about all of Appalachia. They assert that Erikson validates the national perceptions of Appalachians as peculiar, isolated, and backward and that Everything in Its Path has become a part of the social construction of the modern stereotype of Appalachia.. Feb 28, 1972, The Logan Banner of Logan, WV reports on the search for victims, relief effort, and first-hand accounts. Pierson said he still feels a bit of anger over the aftermath of the flood. In the early days of the European settlement of Australia, especially during the 1800's, it was common for large numbers of Aboriginal people (men, women and children) to be massacred by the white settlers, including by police and soldiers. One resident had even written to the governor a few years earlier saying if something wasnt done about the dams, were all going to be washed away.We saw the water lift up our house. Hope Wanes for 94 Listed Missing in Logan; Known Flood Dead is 88, Charleston Gazette, March 4, 1972. Report of the Citizens Commission to Investigate the Buffalo Creek Disaster, Disaster on Buffalo Creek: A Citizens Report on Criminal Negligence in a West Virginia Mining Community, Charleston, West Virginia, 1972. I teach it. Article Citation: about her fears that the dam would collapse. In March 1967, a partial collapse at one of the dams caused some flooding in the hollow, alarming residents already concerned about the structures. A U.S. Geological The pool behind Dam No. Stereotypesparticularly the white trash stereotypes depicting Appalachians as lazy, ignorant, and hopelessallow for the continued exploitation of Appalachia by industry. I didnt want to drown. When the water set it down again, it just flattened out on the ground. In eastern Kentucky in 2000, the bottom of a coal impoundment ruptured into an abandoned underground mine, flooding two streams and poisoning a water supply. One of the country's worst mining-related disasters occurred February 26, 1972, on Buffalo Creek in Logan County. The association used settlement money to start fixing the creek. (AP Photo/John Raby), My dad and brothers all were fishermen and miners, Harvey said. (WCHS) MAN, W.Va. (WCHS) . #3 in his inspection report. The people he encountered, Breiding said, were thankful that somebody still remembered, because its something that has been buried in many peoples memories and buried in the past. As William Faulkner wrote in Requiem for a Nun: The past is never dead. Judge Hall ruled that the plaintiffs survivor-syndrome claims might exceed $10,000 Wordfence is a security plugin installed on over 4 million WordPress sites. The water is tranquil in the pools where the trout like to hide. . At a protest meeting held in the Buffalo Grade School in Accoville a month after the flood, an older woman stood up and shouted out: Ive lived up at the top of the hollow for a long time. We do not see this as a disaster in a vacuum, he said, but a series of events of coal dominating the lives of West Virginians.. Ben A. Franklin, New York Times News Service, Dam Failures Common: Whos Liable for Flooding, Charleston Gazette, February 28, 1972. The Buffalo Creek Disaster of 1972. In addition, coal wastes have also been dumped into abandoned deep mines and used to reclaim strip mines. February 28Pittston employee distributes warning memorandum previously A roadside historical marker describing the Buffalo Creek coal impoundment disaster is shown Feb. 22, 2022, in Man, W.Va. Fifty years ago in West Virginia, the collapse of an coal-waste impoundment unleashed a torrent of black water into a narrow valley. Click here to stay informed and subscribe to. Refuse Dumps at Coal Mines, discouraging the use of coal refuse dumps as dams. Or something else altogether? According to one assessment at the time: These impromptu structures were hardly dams in any technical sense They were simply piles of coal waste, clay, shale, red dog, and other by-products of the coal preparation process, dumped off the back of trucks and bulldozed to an even height. Disaster at Buffalo Creek. You will then receive an email that helps you regain access. Pittston, meanwhile, would inform its investors that the 1974 settlement that had come with one of the survivors lawsuits did not impact the companys profit margin. At the time, the EPA called it the worst environmental disaster in the southeast United States. The coal company called it an act of God (sound familiar?). July 14, 1970West Virginia Department of Natural Resources (WVDNR) Inspector Buffalo Creek Disaster marks 47th anniversary Logan Banner On Feb. 26, 1972, a coal waste dam collapsed on the Middle Fork of Buffalo Creek, releasing 132 million gallons of water, coal refuse and silt into the narrow mountain valley. Chance of rain 100%. For as it turns out, there are coal waste impoundments, and coal waste disposal methods, of many kinds. Construction is carried out according to the approved plan. amzn_assoc_ad_type = "smart"; 1 (Apr., 1978), pp. (BMCs) dam #1 fails causes a steam explosion and damaging the Saunders community Murder in Appalachian, The Nation, March 20, 1972. Jack Spadaro, a mine safety investigator and environmental specialist, has made it his life's work to prevent such disasters from happening again. . They just had this blank stare of resignation One of my co-workers said people in those coal communities are used to being battered by this and that. Choose wisely! Youve still got but it was gone, just like being somewhere and a volcano went off and wiped out your entire village, and even after it was all over with, they went through there and tore out our little road and destroyed all of our little communities, and the people that wanted to couldnt even move back to where they used to live at., It hurts, Hall said. In the last week of his second term in 1977, Moore accepted a $1 million payment from Pittston Coal Company to settle accounts from the Buffalo Creek Disaster. Arnold and Porter noticed Pittstons president and vice-presidents depositions amzn_assoc_region = "US"; . 79-100. the increased regulation cost might bankrupt it and became open to buyout. Brittany Patterson, The Cautionary Tale of the Largest Coal Ash Waste Site in the U.S., AlleghenyFront.org, June 22, 2018. All we had was the clothes on our backs and I prep, I put back not a lot of food, but as much as Janet (his wife) will let me, and I prepare for nuclear war. Those parts of the book are the choices regarding: who to name as defendant; what court to file in; and what type of suit to file. Many in the downstream communities were keenly aware of the unstable nature of these impoundments, and expressed their concern to government officials. In fact, there had already been signs of trouble at the dams, which should have raised alarms and efforts at corrective construction. As of 1987, Pittston was still among the ten largest coal companies in the U.S. Pittston failed to obtain an independent engineering opinion on the Buffalo Jamie Goodman/Brian Sewell, Remembering Buffalo Creek, The Appalachian Voice, February 21, 2012. Before that, I was terrified.. Three days later, on February 25, with heavy rain, the water behind dam No. Buffalo Creek, whose habitat was destroyed along a 17-mile (27-kilometer) stretch, is teeming with trout again, after a steady, coordinated effort by Harvey and others to get back what they once had and share it with future generations. The. The commission consisted of nine men with ties to the coal industryor a vested interest in proving that Pittston Coal and state regulating agencies were not responsible. process loss claims without admitting any responsibility. Arch Moore agreed to a $1,000,000 settlement just days. George Vecsey, Memories of a Disaster, GeorgeVecsey.com, February 22, 2012. 0 ratings 0% found this document useful (0 votes) The tragedy resulted in a $13.5 million class action settlement, and led to the 1973 Dam Control Act. I watched them crumble. Approximately 550 homes were destroyed, and another 900-plus were damaged. Earl Lambert, From The Mountainsides: Many Saw It Happen, Logan Banner (Logan, WV), February 28, 1972. The Buffalo Creek . Tom Price, Who Killed Buffalo Creek?, Rolling Stone, January 3, 1974. February 26, 2022, was the 50th anniversary of the Buffalo Creek Flood in West Virginia that killed 125 people and left 4,000 homeless. Of the worst disasters in U.S. history in damages aftermath of the road running alongside Buffalo Creek Disaster the... Into the dams aftermath of the worst flood in WV coal used in steel-making a but Gov... S worst mining-related disasters occurred February 26, 1972, on February,... For taking on politicians and corporations had moved along with the coal water Safety Act by for! Interior, Bureau of mines ( W. A. Wahler & Associates ), February 28, 1972 dad and all!, pp each year, the company was cited for over 5,000 violations... To buyout known by then for taking on politicians and corporations Ralph Nader, known! 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