Buffalo Creek 30 Years Later - Have We Learned the Lessons?

It did not come like a stealthy thief in the night – it came on a rainy Saturday morning 30 years ago with a roar like a hundred freight trains, the hounds from Hell, the very embodiment of Death.

When it was gone, at least 125 West Virginia men, women, and children were dead. The youngest was 3-months-old; the oldest, 82. Three infants were not positively identified, so badly were their little bodies mangled. Seven of the dead were never found.

Feb. 26, 1972, forever changed West Virginians' attitude toward King Coal.

That was the day that three improperly-constructed, inadequately-inspected, business-as-usual coal slurry impoundment dams owned by the Pittston Coal Co. collapsed, sending millions of tons of black water, coal sludge and mud hurtling down the narrow, twisting confines of Buffalo Creek in Logan County.

More than 500 homes in 15 small communities were destroyed, another 500 homes were damaged, some 1,000 vehicles wrecked, and 523 people were injured when a wall of sludge that some witnesses said was 30 feet high steamrollered down the valley.

There were 53 dead in Lundale, near the head of Buffalo Creek; 18 in the hamlet of Saunders, which literally disappeared under millions of gallons of semi-liquid coal wastes; 25 from Lorado; five in Amherstdale; only one in Kistler, near the end of the rampaging sludge.

Pittston Coal called it "an act of God." Former Gov. Arch Moore, on his last day in office, quietly accepted a pittance of a settlement. The people who were left alive on Buffalo Creek got the shaft from a disorganized state government, indifferent federal officials and politicians who sought to gain personal advancement at the expense of people who were too emotionally traumatized to comprehend what had happened to them.

This is one of the costs of coal that the West Virginia Coal Association doesn’t like to trumpet in its slick television commercials or glossy billboard ads.

Buffalo Creek has been called one of the worst man-made disasters in history. One survivor, testifying at one of the innumerable hearings into the tragedy, caustically observed that if Pittston Coal was blaming God, why hadn’t she seen God up the hollow on the bulldozers that were shoving coal waste and rock down the mountain to block the creek?

Lundale after the tragedy

Ultimately, some good did come out of the Buffalo Creek tragedy. The federal SMCRA law, called simply "the promise" by coalfield residents, put limits on how coal companies could build their impoundment and refuse dams. There were supposed to be engineering studies, construction standards, regular and thorough inspections.

Supposed to be. As recent events have shown, the coal companies still do pretty much what they want to in West Virginia, state and federal government officials waffle around and flail spastically as they attempt to protect the residents, and the survivors who still call Buffalo Creek home tremble or gaze fitfully at the sky every time it starts to rain.

So take a moment to reflect on the true costs of King Coal. The ghosts of Buffalo Creek will thank you.