This is a limited free preview of this book. Please buy full access.
A beautifully and compassionately written book, it contends that the flood swept away much more than the material objects in the sixteen coal camps along the seventeen miles of the creek. The flood also damaged severely the mental health of its residents and the crucial social relationships they had with family, kin, neighbors, and friends. This damage was so extensive and profound that Buffalo Creek no longer existed as a viable social community. So complete was the destruction that Buffalo Creek might never recover—at least not on its own, and not back to where it was before February 26, 1972. It could not recover on its own because the survivors no longer could take care of their own daily needs, let alone those of others. Many people could not even care anymore about themselves, let alone about others. Anxiety disorders, depression, insomnia, and other psychological problems became commonplace. All of the social cohesion and social controls that had existed and that were essential for social order were hopelessly and perhaps permanently lost. Survivors came to believe that immorality was rampant in the forms of alcohol abuse, marital infidelity, child neglect, theft, and other forms of social conflict among their former neighbors. Virtually everything was deteriorating—that is, everything that had not died, been destroyed, or been grievously damaged by the flood and its aftereffects.
In addition to Kai Erikson’s book, and dozens of research articles in scholarly journals, three other authors published books and articles about Buffalo Creek that became well known, many years ago. One of those books is by a journalist, Tom Nugent, Death at Buffalo Creek: The Story Behind the West Virginia Flood Disaster of 1972. The other book, The Buffalo Creek Disaster, is by an attorney, Gerald Stern, who led a lawsuit on behalf of some of the flood’s survivors against Pittston Company and its subsidiary, Buffalo Mining Company. Both of those books generally concur with Erikson’s assessment of the flood’s damages to Buffalo Creek and its people. In many ways, Buffalo Creek no longer existed as a functional social community. The prospects were bleak for stable and fulfilling human social relations at Buffalo Creek in the future. These authors also concluded that the disaster occurred because of gross negligence on the part of senior officials of the coal companies and because Buffalo Creek’s residents were totally unaware of the danger posed by the coal-mine sludge ponds.