This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. The Buffalo Creek flood was one of the worst disasters in West Virginia’s long and tragic history of calamities, both natural and man-made. Dennis Prince, the 52‐year‐old coal mine electrician who is the chief plaintiff in Prince v. Pittston, fled from his trailer with his family when they saw “a housetop” going down Buffalo Creek. Another 1,100 were injured, and about 4,000 were left homeless. Spring 2012 Erikson KT. See the article in its original context from. The litigation Stern wrote about arose from a 1972 disaster when a dam collapsed on the Buffalo Creek in West Virginia causing 125 deaths, 1000 destroyed homes and hundreds of injuries. Another narrative tells how a 70‐year‐old retired miner and his wife heard someone yelling, “Water! It may now also be one of the most complex. Civil Procedure CHARLESTON, W. Va., Apri 17—More than 600 survivors and victims of West Virginia's worst flood disaster—the inundation last year of the narrow, densely populated valley of Buffalo Creek by a 50‐foot wall of sludge and water that broke through a defective coal company dam—sued the Pittston Company today for $64‐million. One Saturday morning in February 1972, an impoundment dam owned by the Pittston Coal Company burst, sending a 130 million gallon, 25 foot tidal wave of water, sludge, and debris crashing into southern West Virginia's Buffalo Creek hollow. Note: You must have the Acrobat Reader plugin (free) installed on your computer in order to view the documents. Note: You must have Real Play plugin (free) installed on your computer in order to view this video document. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. The Buffalo Creek Disaster: The Story of the Survivors' Unprecedented Lawsuit, by Gerald M Stern (New York: Random House, 1976). Now Available! http://www.real.com/realplayer. If you have any problems or questions, please email the web page administrator at dginsberg@kentlaw.edu. Hall until late next fall. 3 on the Middle Fork was born out of the age-old practice in the coalfields of disposing of waste material and that it was constructed without utilizing technology developed for earthen dams and without consulting professionals qualified to design and build such a structure. The Buffalo Creek Disaster is more than a story about heroes: As the title suggests, the book is a matter-of-fact yet dramatic tale authored by the leading plaintiffs’ lawyer in the case. “Pittston Coal neglected to warn The Mining Bureau, the National Guard, the State Police, and even the Logan County Sheriff’s office. It was one of the deadliest floods in U.S. history. The Buffalo Creek Disaster1 is a story of an unfortunate accident that occurred on February 26, 1972 in Buffalo Creek Valley, WV, as a result of the collapse of a coal company’s waste refuse pile. email: sales@earlyone.com phone: +374 11 20 20 27. The town’s entire water system was ripped out. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. Logan County, West Virginia is home to a small area called the Buffalo Creek Hallow. 565 W. Adams St., Chicago, Illinois The Buffalo Creek disaster (dam break), which occurred in 1972, is one of the best studied disasters: a 59% PTSD lifetime rate was found among the victims, with 25% still meeting PTSD criteria some 14 years after the event [17]. Death at Buffalo Creek: The 1972 West Virginia Flood Disaster, by Tom Nugent (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1973). The Buffalo Mining Co. started to offer immediate but rather small cash payments as compensation primarily for loss of property but the residents of Buffalo Creek wanted to obtain recovery for communal and psychological losses suffered by them in the disaster. When Stern was deciding to file the This disaster was a result of negligence by both the Buffalo Mining Company and the Pittston Company - the former owned by the latter. 312.906.5280, © 2001-12 The village of Buffalo Creek on the banks of Buffalo Creek was devastated by the flood. Learn vocabulary, terms, and more with flashcards, games, and other study tools. Mr. By the time the Feb. 26, 1972, flood was over, 125 people had been killed. When the house crashed into a school building and stopped three miles down the valley, she was naked and black with coal dust from her struggles. Human relationships in this community had been derived from traditional bonds of kinship and neighborliness. The following documents are included in the file: Click here for the Adobe Acrobat file of Buffalo Creek documents. In an instant their house floated off its foundations, spinning and colliding with other houses, and water borne railroad ties crashed through the windows. Buffalo Creek Disaster. In a few short minutes, the dam virtually disappeared, and a torrent of water began a 17-mile trip down the narrow Buffalo Creek valley in rural Logan County, West Virginia. Chicago-Kent Home Page, © 2001-12 The suit against the owners of what the state has called an illegally constructed dam, built of porous coal mine waste material, is one of the largest court actions of its kind—both in terms of damages claimed and in the number of plaintiffs. Due to the amount of carelessness and irresponsibility involved, people have deemed the disaster “man-made.” The Deposition of Claudio Ferguson video -- Click here to view the video. The fire station, which straddled the creek, was completely destroyed. Prof. Joan Steinman, Video Deposition In New York City, a spokesman for Pittston, the largest independent coal producer not affiliated with a major petroleum corporation, said the company would have no comment on the new filings in the damage suit. On February 22 1972 the Pittston Coal Company's Slurry Dam Number Three had been declared 'satisfactory' after inspection, despite having been built on accumulated coal waste created by large-scale strip mining rather than bedrock. Define. Chicago-Kent College of Law, Illinois Institute of Technology Prince says that his wife, with a broken leg, could never gain the rooftop of the sinking, disintegrating house—telephone poles by then were coming through the second‐floor windows “like torpedoes”—and Mrs. The Adobe Acrobat file available below contains copies of original documents used in the Buffalo Creek civil case. Chicago-Kent College of Law, Illinois Institute of Technology, Memorandum of law in support of the defendant's motion (pages 26 - 38), Plaintiff's notice of taking depositions (pages 39 - 49), Defendant's response to plaintiff's request to produce documents (pages 50 - 60), Defendant's interrogatories (pages 61 - 67), Plaintiff's first answers to defendant's interrogatories (pages 68 - 88), Plaintiff's notice of motion to order production of documents (pages 88 - 101), Defendant's memorandum in opposition to plaintiff's motion to order production of documents (pages 102 - 106). Loss of communality at Buffalo Creek. Start studying Buffalo Creek Disaster. 60661-3691 125 people were killed instantly, more than 1,000 were injured, and over 4,000 were suddenly … The two telephone‐book‐sized volumes of survivors’ statements contain hundreds of narratives of the disaster in the words of witnesses. Contact our Support team. Pittston executives are to answer pretrial questions put to them by Gerald R. Stern, the plaintiffs’ lawyer, in a series of closed interrogations next month. The survivors of the Buffalo Creek disaster suffered both individual and collective trauma, the latter being reflected in their loss of communality. On February 26, 1972, a huge earthen dam constructed by a coal company without any engineering input collapsed. The Adobe Acrobat file available below contains copies of original documents used in the Buffalo Creek civil case. The area was that of life‐long traumatic and psychic damage to the plaintiffs, described as “survivor syndrome.”. The first‐person narratives described the horrors of the sudden flood, its immediate aftermath and the 14 months of “concentration camp life” by uprooted Buffalo Creek residents in “temporary” trailer‐camp housing. The Buffalo Creek Disaster • Buffalo Creek Hollow was a small valley that consisted of about seventeen coal communities which were adjacent to Buffalo Creek • When operation of the mine commenced in 1945 the practice dumping of slurry, or coal mining waste into the hollow also began. There were bodies in the water, “black and red” with coal sludge and blood, his report says. Unthinkable: Tips for Surviving a Child’s Traumatic Brain Injury written in an easy-to-read bulleted format, will help parents, caregivers, friends and health care professionals navigate through the new terrain of an injured child and guide them step-by step through the recovery process! New Award – Winning Release! The Buffalo Creek Disaster is the story of how Gerald Stern and his colleagues solved problems for clients who had been harmed when a coal company’s refuse pile failed, resulting in massive flooding in Buffalo Creek Valley in West Virginia. Learn Buffalo Creek Disaster Stern with free interactive flashcards. Much of the once‐thicklysettled, 18‐mile long valley is still as scoured and barren as it was after the 150 million gallons of gritty, coal‐laden water swept down from the collapsed dam at its head, in the mountainous coal fields of Logan County. Using straightforward language, Stern provides the reader with a window through which the world of … It comprised the most horrifying chronicle of death and survival yet to emerge from the muchreported Buffalo Creek disaster. On February 26, 1972, a sludge dam on the Middle Fork of Buffalo Creek in Logan County gave way, unloosening a torrent of thick, murky water that claimed at least 118 lives, left seven persons missing, destroyed hundreds of homes, and left thousands homeless. 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