Buffalo Creek Disaster Feb 26

FEB 26, 1972

Michael R Williams

Saturday morning February 26, 1972 was a cold, overcast, dreary, morning in Lundale West Virginia. It had rained nearly two inches in the last twenty four hours and the temperature was in the mid to upper thirties. Carol Hoosier along with her husband Ronnie and their two young daughters was at Ronnie’s parents’ house. Carols parents lived just next door to the Hoosiers in Lundale, a small community in the heart of the Southern West Virginia coal fields. Ronnie’s mother was preparing breakfast when a car horn began blowing frantically. Ronnie went outside to see what the matter was. Carol overheard her husband talking to the man in the car who was saying that the dam had broken. Carol immediately went next door to alert her parents. Carol woke her mother up but her father refused to get out of bed. Rumors of the dam breaking had circulated so many times before that people no longer took them seriously.

While still attempting to persuade her father, Carol heard a sudden roaring sound outside. She ran out to the porch where, to her horror, she saw a wall of black water thick with debris tearing through the community. She then heard Ronnie screaming to her from his parents’ porch “get to the car.” Carol ran to the car, as Ronnie had told her, where he joined her with their two children. Carols mother had run back into the house to get Carols father. With barely seconds to spare, Ronnie drove to the nearest road that went uphill. In a matter of minutes the flood waters had begun to recede. Ronnie, feeling that his family was safely out of harm’s way, proceeded back down to the community to see if he could help; to see if any of his daughters grandparents were left alive. When he returned he reported that he had located his parents, the Hoosiers. When Carol asked him if he had seen her mother and father he replied, “God bless them, their gone” (Deitz and Mowery 104) Peak water flow at Lundale W.V. was...