| Chapter 1: | Buffalo Creek Before, During, and Soon After the Flood |
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Table 1.1. (continued)
| Deputies Mutters and Doty drive along Buffalo Creek warning some residents about danger. | |
| 0600H | Steve Dasovich inspects dam #3 with Jack Kent and orders him to have a ditch and pipe installed at dam #3 to divert rising water and relieve pressure on the dam. |
| 0630H | Dasovich returns to Lorado, encounters deputies Doty and Mutters, and reassures them that the dam has been secured. |
| Dasovich then phones his boss in Dante, Virginia, I. C. Spotte, the president of BMC, and reports on the situation. Spotte approves Dasovich’s decisions. Dasovich then reassures some concerned residents of Lorado that the situation is secure and that the mines will operate during the day. | |
| 0750H | Heavy-equipment operator Dennis Gibson arrives at dam #3 and is alarmed to find that it has “gone soft.” He speeds through Three Forks and other coal camps honking his horn and warning residents to evacuate the area. |
| ****** 0800H ****** | Dam #3 collapses, releasing thousands of tons of sludge water and debris that explode through dam #2 and dam #1, smash into the settlement at Three Forks, and surge down Buffalo Creek towards the other fifteen settlements. “THE BUFFALO CREEK DISASTER” has begun. |
| 0830H | Garland Scaggs, a miner for Amherst Coal Co. in Lundale, phones radio station WVOW in Logan and reports that the dam has broken at Buffalo Creek. Radio newsman Bill Becker confirms the news by talking with Scaggs, then reports it to the outside world (with the location of the dam mistakenly at Lorado rather than at Three Forks), just as phone service is knocked out when the flood wave hits Lorado. “The dam at Lorado has broken. Get out of low-lying areas immediately. This is Bill Becker.”8 |
| 1100H to 1200H | The flood wave and most of the floodwater rushes into the Guyandotte River, without major downstream flooding. 1200H |
| Local rescue units and West Virginia State Police arrive in town of Man and start organizing rescue and relief efforts. | |
| 1500H | Logan Sheriff’s Office and West Virginia State Police establish temporary morgue in Man High School in south Man. |
| Governor Moore’s office issues a statement that calls the flood a “major disaster” and requests emergency assistance from the White House. | |
| National Guard and U.S. Army Corps of Engineer units arrive in town of Man with bulldozers, trucks, and other heavy equipment and start searching for survivors and bodies and clearing piles of debris from roads and bridges. |