The Buffalo Creek Disaster

Author: Gerald M. Stern
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307388492
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 305

Book Description
The "suspenseful and completely absorbing story" (San Francisco Chronicle) of how survivors of the worst coal-mining disaster in history triumphed over corporate irresponsibility—written by the young lawyer who took on their case and won. 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. It was one of the deadliest floods in U.S. history. 125 people were killed instantly, more than 1,000 were injured, and over 4,000 were suddenly homeless. Instead of accepting the small settlements offered by the coal company's insurance offices, a few hundred of the survivors banded together to sue.

The Buffalo Creek Disaster

Author: Gerald M. Stern
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307783847
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 300

Everything In Its Path

Author: Kai T. Erikson
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 143912731X
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 308

Book Description
The 1977 Sorokin Award–winning story of Buffalo Creek in the aftermath of a devastating flood. On February 26, 1972, 132-million gallons of debris-filled muddy water burst through a makeshift mining-company dam and roared through Buffalo Creek, a narrow mountain hollow in West Virginia. Following the flood, survivors from a previously tightly knit community were crowded into trailer homes with no concern for former neighborhoods. The result was a collective trauma that lasted longer than the individual traumas caused by the original disaster. Making extensive use of the words of the people themselves, Erikson details the conflicting tensions of mountain life in general—the tensions between individualism and dependency, self-assertion and resignation, self-centeredness and group orientation—and examines the loss of connection, disorientation, declining morality, rise in crime, rise in out-migration, etc., that resulted from the sudden loss of neighborhood.

West Virginia's Buffalo Creek Flood

Author: William Edward Davies
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Dam failures
Languages : en
Pages : 40

Book Description

Death at Buffalo Creek

Author: Tom Nugent
Publisher: W. W. Norton
ISBN: 9780393332216
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 192

Book Description

A New Species of Trouble

Author: Kai Erikson
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 9780393313192
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 268

Book Description
In the twentieth century, disasters caused by human beings have become more and more common. Unlike earthquakes and other natural catastrophes, this 'new species of trouble' afflicts person and groups in particularly disruptive ways.

Prolonged Psychosocial Effects of Disaster

Author: Goldine C. Gleser
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 200

Book Description
Prolonged Psychosocial Effects of Disaster.

Buffalo Creek

Author: J. Dennis Deitz
Publisher: Mountain Memories Books
ISBN: 9780938985105
Category : Buffalo Creek (Logan County, W. Va.)
Languages : en
Pages : 285

Book Description

There is No Such Thing as a Natural Disaster

Author: Gregory Squires
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136084827
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 324

Book Description
There is No Such Thing as a Natural Disaster is the first comprehensive critical book on the catastrophic impact of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans. The disaster will go down on record as one of the worst in American history, not least because of the government’s inept and cavalier response. But it is also a huge story for other reasons; the impact of the hurricane was uneven, and race and class were deeply implicated in the unevenness. Hartman and. Squires assemble two dozen critical scholars and activists who present a multifaceted portrait of the social implications of the disaster. The book covers the response to the disaster and the roles that race and class played, its impact on housing and redevelopment, the historical context of urban disasters in America and the future of economic development in the region. It offers strategic guidance for key actors - government agencies, financial institutions, neighbourhood organizations - in efforts to rebuild shattered communities.

Last Ragged Breath

Author: Julia Keller
Publisher: Minotaur Books
ISBN: 1466843195
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 383

Book Description
From the night-black depths of a coalmine to the sun-struck peaks of the Appalachian Mountains, from a riveting murder mystery to a poignant meditation on the meaning of love and family, the latest novel in the critically acclaimed series strikes out for new territory: the sorrow and outrage that spring from a real-life chapter in West Virginia history. Royce Dillard doesn't remember much about the day his parents-and one hundred and twenty-three other souls-died in the 1972 Buffalo Creek disaster. He was only two years old when he was ripped from his mother's arms. But now Dillard, who lives off the grid with only a passel of dogs for company, is fighting for his life one more time: He's on trial for murder. Prosecutor Bell Elkins faces her toughest challenge yet in this haunting story of vengeance, greed and the fierce struggle for social justice. Richly imagined, vividly written and deeply felt, Julia Keller's Last Ragged Breath is set in West Virginia, but it really takes place in a land we all know: the country called home.