And, in contrast to so many other disasters in U.S. history that involved coal mining, this disaster quickly captured national and international attention in the news media. Fortunately, it also attracted massive relief efforts and provoked a flurry of investigations by Congress, several federal agencies, and the state of West Virginia. It also led to some very famous research studies on the psychological and sociological consequences of disasters. And so it is not surprising that “the Buffalo Creek disaster” has become a common phrase and reference point whenever and wherever disasters are discussed in the United States, Canada, England, and many other societies.
I scan the landscape as the snow falls, slow and silent. Three steep ravines converge here. Each one bears a stream of fast-running, muddy water that seems angry and intent on getting away from this place. The middle stream is the most turbulent and troubling. It tumbles down from a jumble of railroad ties, broken branches, and truck tires. Then it rushes down along the ice-covered gravel road on which I am standing. Abandoned along the road are rusted-out metal tanks as large as barn silos, clots of broken railroad ties and twisted rails, and a three-story tipple for grading coal and loading it into dump trucks and railroad cars. There is no sign of human life here. There are no memorials or other indications that this place is more hallowed, or cursed, than any other place. And yet, somehow, it just feels different from the others. It almost feels…despised.
I notice a small square of plywood nailed ten feet up a telephone pole near the road.
BUFFALO MINING CO. #5 PREP PLANT PERMIT #0-98-83
Beneath it is a smaller sign, more recent, in neon orange with black letters: