In less than 3 weeks, February 26 will mark the 40 year anniversary of one of the worst coal mine related disasters in modern U.S. history. That morning, after several days of rain, a coal sludge impoundment dam at a Pittston owned mine in Logan County, WV, gave way. The sediment pond it held back, situated at the head of a long hollow carved by Buffalo Creek, cascaded down stream, destroying two other earthen dams below, and sending the mixture of water, sludge, tailings rushing down the length of the valley. After scoring the sides of the steep hollow, and devastating the small coal towns in its path, the flood finally subsided some 15 miles and 3 hours later when the water reached the Guyandotte River at the town of Man, WV.
There were about 5,000 people living in the communities along Buffalo Creek, places like Kistler, Robinette, Stowe, Lorado and Pardee. The flood killed 125 of them, injured 1,000, and left 4,000 of them homeless. Some of the bodies were washed 40 miles downstream. Some of them were never found. A few were impossible to identify. For the survivors, the trauma was multi-dimensional...physical, financial, emotional and even psychological.
The disaster received national attention, and resulted in an unwelcome spotlight being shined on West Virginia's coal industry. Investigations were launched and Pittston Coal lawyered up. To the outrage of the survivors and, indeed, most W. Virginians, the company's immediate response to the disaster was to claim it was "an Act of God", for which they weren't responsible.
What happened there was not the work of a capricious God. It was the hand of Man that killed those people. Yet, the more things change, as they say, the more they stay the same. Just last week, at the annual West Virginia Coal Association's Mining Symposium, the attorney representing W. Virginia in its lawsuit against the federal EPA's efforts to restrict mountaintop removal addressed the crowd and quoted Scripture in his defense of the practice:
Every valley shall be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
and the rough places a plain.
Isaiah 40:4
Coal Mining in this area of Logan County didn't start until 1945 when the Lorado Mining Company opened a mine near the head of Buffalo Creek. Within a couple of years they were dumping 1000 tons of mine refusal into the creek, forming several "gob piles." Aside from sedimentation and other heavy metals, one of the worst pollutants associated with surface mining is acid runoff from sulfates in the exposed/disturbed earth and rock. By 1954 there was enough concern by state regulators about the downstream impact from the mine that they requested Lorado to come up with a plan to "contain" their waste. This resulted in several years of foot dragging and little else.
Finally, in 1960, Lorado got the state off its back by submitting a plan to construct one or two earthen containment dams upstream from the gob piles, to trap the waste water and sediments from their mine operation. They began dumping mine refuse across the valley and dammed up the creek. 6 years later, under new owners, construction began 600 ft upstream on a second dam, again using mine refuse. Also that year (1966), a similar type of dam slumped and broke apart in Wales, UK, resulting in a flood that killed 147 people. The tragedy in Wales prompted federal safety regulators at the Bureau of Mines to begin inspecting similar dams throughout the Appalachian coal region.
Federal regulators knew these dams dotted the countryside in Appalachia, but they didn't have any comprehensive list of them. State officials couldn't be counted upon to provide the info, either, due to incompetence, lack of records and the cozy relations they kept with the coal companies. The United Mine Workers filled the void, send a call out to their field offices to ask the members to report any dams in their communities that fit the description or seemed unsafe. The UMW created its own list of dams, many of which were built without any permitting or inspection process at the state level, and sent that list to the Bureau of Mines. The two dams on Buffalo Creek were listed as posing a danger.
A good link that includes a chronology of historical events which led up to the flood, as well as personal accounts from those who were there:
http://www.marshall.edu/...
The first hint of trouble to come came in the Spring of '67, after heavy rains. The almost finished number 2 dam overflowed and a section of it washed out. The now inundated number 1 dam did the same thing, resulting in a relatively minor flooding of Buffalo Creek. The inspection that the event caused cited deficiencies in the dams' construction that required correction, and the mine company widened the two dams by adding more refuse and installed 30" overflow pipes on both dams, calling it good. Over the next two years, two more of these dams are built upstream...each using the same method, simply dumping mine waste across the hollow and building it up. No engineering plans were ever developed or submitted to WV state authorities. Pittston purchased the mine in 1970 before the last 2 dams were completed, but saw nothing of concern in their design and continued work on them. In Spring of 1971 more coal refuse had to be added to both the #2 and #3 dams after they slumped and began releasing polluted water downstream.
The events of February 26, 1972 are chronicled in the following video from a TV program called Modern Marvels. It also does a good job of showing just what these dams look like for those of you who've never seen one. The video which follows it is of one of the survivors, and is a more gripping, more emotionally raw account of how the disaster effected her. The rest of this diary will look at the aftermath of this flood, and the toll it took on the lives of the communities and people it touched. The first person accounts of survivors in their own words are taken from an outstanding series that the Charleston Gazette ran on the 25th anniversary of the disaster: http://wvgazette.com/...
Shattered Lives
Barbara Elkins was 7 when the flood happened, and she and her two sisters lost their mother:
"We ran to the back door, but the water was already on the front steps. Dad tried to get us up to the loft. He tried to get mommy up there but he couldn't. He was putting her up there, and then the house just came down like toothpicks. We all just started drifting with the water. We were all hanging onto Daddy, and this big old car came and hit Daddy in the side and knocked Mommy loose from him. And I was hanging onto her. Me and Mom got separated. "Daddy had those two," Barbara said, pointing to her sisters. "He found a little bank and put them on it. The last time we saw Mommy, she was going down the river hollering for help."
Carol Hoosier: "I still can't sleep when it rains."
"I heard someone tell my husband Ronnie he thought the dam was going to break. My parents lived next door, so I left and went over there because they were still in bed. I remember my dad got a little mad with me. He liked to sleep late on Saturday. My mother and I went to the kitchen, and when we got outside, the water was in the road. There was nothing but boards and water. I thought what we were looking at was debris from the road, but it was the house that was breaking up.
By the time I came out with my mother, my husband was there and he said to get in the car, now! My mother pulled loose from me and went into the house for dad. I started thinking they had time. When we got in the car to leave, I saw a 20- or 30-foot wall of water coming around the corner, and then it started spreading out, taking everything in its path. I saw a car going down the creek, floating like a pop bottle, it had that much force. We went up to the Amherst mine road - that's the only thing that saved our lives. When we got on the hill and looked back, everything was gone.
I had a lot of guilt because I thought I left my parents there. I had to see a doctor to cope with their deaths. ... There were a lot of feelings ... People felt guilty because they were alive and others were dead.
I had never seen the dam. My dad always told us that if that dam breaks, it would wipe Buffalo Creek off the map. Yet the morning I tried to get him up, he said, "This is Saturday, let daddy sleep. Nothing is going to happen. Every time it rained, people said the dam is going to break, and nothing ever happened.
My parents were 47, younger than I am now. My father worked his whole life in the mines, and to think he got killed in bed. ... The water was like a bulldozer. My husband found our bathroom door, and that's it. They never did find my father's car, not even a piece of it. They said many people in the water didn't have any clothes on.
I was the oldest of four sisters. My husband and grandfather identified my mother. They didn't find my father for a while. I didn't look at them.
When there's a lot of rain, that's what's on your mind. The other night there was a lot of rain and I went downstairs. I still can't sleep when it rains."
Yale sociologist Kai Erickson wrote a book about the impact of the flood on the lives and psyches of the survivors, entitled "Everything in its Path." He described the psychic trauma that afflicted the survivors as a kind of "disaster syndrome", and survivors' guilt was one of its characteristics. Those who lived in the winding hollow formed by Buffalo Creek often survived merely due to which side of the creek their house was on. As the wall of water rushed down stream it would wash away the houses on the right side of the creek as the creek bent to the left, and then take the houses on the left side further down when the next bend was to the right.
Erickson's book, though seminal in some ways as a sociological study, has been criticized by many for being an example of "blaming the victim." In it, he describes a mountain culture that had already been degraded and eroded over the years due to the economic and social impacts of poverty and an almost sole dependence upon the coal industry for the region's livelihood. His conclusions focus rather pessimistically upon the obstacles to a government response posed by a culture of individualism and lack of community building skills he saw as endemic to the Appalachian region.
For more on the concept of "survivor's syndrome", the basis for later damage claims in a class action suit:
http://www.arnoldporter.com/...
Immediate Response
Then Gov. Arch Moore (Republican) was the first W. Virginia governor to be reelected to a second term after the state did away with its one term limit on the office. Elected in 1969, he served until 1977, when allegations of corruption doomed his reelection prospects. He was, as my Mom would say, as crooked as a dog's hind leg...and wholly in the pockets of Big Coal. Immediately after the tragedy, Moore's first response was to seal the area off with National Guard troops and to try to prevent reporters from gaining access to the area. He viewed the disaster as twofold...beyond the obvious tragedy for those who lived there, it was a black eye upon the face of the Coal Industry and occasioned an unwelcome spotlight upon the relationship between state lawmakers and the coal barons they served.
Gov Moore appointed a commission to investigate the causes of the flood, and to the ire of the miners and inhabitants of the effected communities, packed it solely with industry friendly members. Community organizers complained bitterly, but were largely ignored. They formed their own investigative committee to look into the disaster. Surprisingly, however, Moore's commission concluded that there was no Act of God involved in what transpired there...it was due solely to the preventable actions of the mining companies who had operated in the hollow over the past 30 years.
However, no indictments were filed against Pittston. A Grand Jury looking into the charges leveled against the company returned not a single criminal indictment against the company. Special prosecuting attorney Dean Willard Lorenson of the West Virginia University School of Law commended the jury, "It has been a noble exercise in American justice."
Federal authorities and the Red Cross mobilized to provide temporary housing for the thousands left homeless. Years later, some were still living in those trailers that had been initially provided.
The Lawsuits
Some 625 survivors filed a ground breaking Class Action lawsuit against Pittston, handled by atty Gerald Stern. Pittston tried to settle for $3 million, but eventually agreed to pay out half of their operating profits for the year 1972, which came to $13.5 million. Stern took $5 million as his fee, and the plaintiffs divided $8.5 million between them
A second class action suit, on behalf of 325 juvenile survivors, resulted in an award of $4.8 million. The original demand was for $225 million. The juvenile plaintiffs were paid out upon reaching the age of 18, and received about $2800 each...enough, perhaps, to buy a new car. Donald Johnson, one of those who received the settlement upon coming of age, later recalled:
"A lot of the kids got their money and turned to drugs. All of a sudden, they had all this money. They went wild," Johnson said. "Back before the flood, nobody around here even knew what pot was."
The State of West Virginia filed its own suit against Pittston Coal Co., originally demanding $100 million. Emblematic of the state's refusal to stand up against the industry, however, Governor Moore inexplicably settled with Pittston for the ridiculous sum of $1 million.
Promises, Promises...then Crickets
Gov. Moore, then in the midst of a reelection campaign, pledged to build 10 redevelopment projects for Buffalo Creek. Few were either completed on time or even materialized. The main road up the hollow was repaved, terminating at the now closed mine. It was called "the road to nowhere." A few model homes were constructed upon former gob piles, but the 750 new homes promised were never completed...only some taciturn apartment buildings. Community organizers along the hollow tried to incorporate their small towns, so that they would have local taxing authority to fund redevelopment. Logan County's Board of Supervisors voted the proposals down, protecting the absentee land owners from having to pay any property taxes. Long time Robinette resident Jack Vernatter later observed to reporters:
"If either one of you all would've told me that I couldn't have got anything from my state, or if my government would've lied to me, you would've had me to fight. Right now, brother, she's up in limbo. I'll tell you -- they'll all lie to you, every one of 'em will give you a nice talk and they'll put a picture on there that, by God, you can almost see it in the dark. But it's not there, folks."
That sense of cynicism and loss of faith in government persists throughout much of the electorate in the state to this day. Nobody puts much stock in what a candidate from either party has to say...they've been lied to too often. Who knows
what they vote for nowadays.
Buffalo Creek Today
Surprisingly, perhaps, many survivors of the flood returned to settle in the area that held so many tragic memories for them. It was, after all, their home. Saunders, the town situated directly below the dams, was wiped out completely and no longer exists. Other towns, further downstream, are still there...and still populated by those who lived through the disaster.
One article from the Charleston Gazette series paints this picture:
Why the survivors returned to the scene of so much horror is unexplainable, but return they did. Today the hollow is a scaled-down and more modern version of its past self. Folks keep to themselves a lot more, and there's an odd quiet that pervades from Kistler to Pardee, but residents of Buffalo Creek who lived through the flood are like the members of an exclusive club. They can talk to scores of curious outsiders about what they experienced, but no one can understand like a "club" member.
"After it washed my house away, I had a place all picked out in Tennessee," recalls Charles Crum of Lorado. "Why I didn't go and decided at the last minute to rebuild here, I can't tell you. I just don't know."
As he walks down a Lorado side street, Crum pauses to let a neighbor walk on ahead. "He lost his wife in the water," he says softly. "It's not good to talk about it around him. It still hurts, I know."
http://wvgazette.com/...
From an excerpt in "Everything in its Path", the author quotes one resident:
"People here are not like they used to be. Only people who were in the flood realize that it's not rudeness when you have to ask them to repeat something simply because you weren't listening, your mind was somewhere else. Or you forget to ask them to come back again when they leave after a visit. Or, as happens every day, you start to say something and forget what it was, or just walk away while someone is still talking to you. Or you start looking for something you know you have and then remember, `That was before.'"
Epilogue
Governor Arch Moore was term limited in 1977, and was accused in federal court of extorting $25,000 from a bank holding company. He was later acquitted of the charges, but in 1990 he pleaded guilty to five felony counts involving obstruction of justice, mail fraud, extortion and misuse of funds. He served 2 years of a 5 year prison sentence. While still Governor, Moore repeated asked the Army Corps of Engineers to perform recovery work at the State's expense. When presented with the bills, totaling $3.7 million, Moore hid them in a file and never paid them. Gov Rockefeller, who succeeded Moore, was shocked to discover them later.
Daniel Dasovich was the lead engineer at the Pittston mine in 1972, and made the fateful decision not to alert authorities or people in the downstream communities of the disaster that he clearly saw developing. In fact, just hours before the shaky dam that he had been nervously watching for two days fell apart, he reported to Logan County authorities that everything was okay and under control. He died in a 1977 small airplane crash at the Logan airport, along with his 10 yr old son and the plane's pilot. The pilot's daughter later confessed to a reporter that
her family always wondered if the craft was shot down by one of the many people who felt great bitterness toward Dasovich.
Oval Damron, then the Logan County prosecutor, never pursued charges against the mining company for illegally constructing the dams when he was made aware of it well before the tragic flood occurred. He later said failure to get a state dam license was only a misdemeanor, and the one-year statute of limitations for prosecution had lapsed. He said Buffalo Mining couldn't be charged with negligent homicide because "there's no way to put a corporation in jail." It was later revealed that the man who originally owned the mine and constructed the dams before selling out to Pittston was a major supporter and contributor to Arch Moore.