The Buffalo Creek Disaster

The Buffalo Creek Disaster PDF Author: Gerald M. Stern
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307388492
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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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

The Buffalo Creek Disaster PDF Author: Gerald M. Stern
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307388492
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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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

The Buffalo Creek Disaster PDF Author: Gerald M. Stern
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307783847
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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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.

Everything In Its Path

Everything In Its Path PDF Author: Kai T. Erikson
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 143912731X
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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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.

Prolonged Psychosocial Effects of Disaster

Prolonged Psychosocial Effects of Disaster PDF Author: Goldine C. Gleser
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 1483265706
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 189

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Book Description
Prolonged Psychosocial Effects of Disaster: A Study of Buffalo Creek disseminates the findings of an investigation into the psychosocial effects of a specific disaster - the collapse of a slag dam that inundated the valley of Buffalo Creek in West Virginia on February 26, 1972. Based on interviews with more than 600 men, women, and children for whom psychic impairment was claimed, this volume examines the relationships between the individual disaster experiences of the survivors and their later psychological functioning. Comprised of nine chapters, this volume begins with an overview of the psychosocial consequences of disasters and an account of the Buffalo Creek disaster itself, along with the subsequent lawsuit against the coal company. The next chapter explains how the psychopathology and stress of the survivors were scaled and gives some information regarding the reliability and validity of the data. Symptoms, sleep problems, family disruption, and traumatic dreams are considered. The findings on these data and the follow-up studies are discussed. The final chapter contains a summary of the findings and proposes specific suggestions as well as a model for future disaster studies. This book will be of most practical importance to mental health scientists and clinicians working with the victims of stress and disaster, and should also be of considerable interest to social and behavioral scientists and, more generally, to administrators of government activities.

Death at Buffalo Creek

Death at Buffalo Creek PDF Author: Tom Nugent
Publisher: W. W. Norton
ISBN: 9780393332216
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description


A New Species of Trouble

A New Species of Trouble PDF Author: Kai Erikson
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 9780393313192
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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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.

There is No Such Thing as a Natural Disaster

There is No Such Thing as a Natural Disaster PDF Author: Gregory Squires
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136084827
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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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.

Buffalo Creek

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

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Book Description


Tennessee Coal Mining, Railroading & Logging in Cumberland, Fentress, Overton, and Putnam Counties

Tennessee Coal Mining, Railroading & Logging in Cumberland, Fentress, Overton, and Putnam Counties PDF Author: Jason Duke
Publisher: Turner Publishing Company
ISBN: 1563119323
Category : Coal mines and mining
Languages : en
Pages : 132

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Book Description
Tennessee Coal Mining, Railroading & Logging in Cumberland, Fentress, Overton & Putnam is a fascinating look back at life in the early 1900s in four counties of the northern Cumberland Plateau area of Tennessee. Featured inside is a wealth of old photographs--more than 200 in the book's 120 oversize glossy pages--maps, and descriptions. Emphasis is placed primarily on the coal camps such as Wilder in Fentress County, with great detail concerning the railroads that served the coal mining communities.

Strange as This Weather Has Been

Strange as This Weather Has Been PDF Author: Ann Pancake
Publisher: Catapult
ISBN: 1582439915
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
A West Virginia family struggles amid the booms and busts of the Appalachian coal industry in this “powerful, sure-footed, and haunting” novel with echoes of John Steinbeck (New York Times Book Review). Set in present day West Virginia, this debut novel tells the story of a coal mining family—a couple and their four children—living through the latest mining boom and dealing with the mountaintop removal and strip mining that is ruining what is left of their hometown. As the mine turns the mountains “to slag and wastewater,” workers struggle with layoffs and children find adventure in the blasted moonscape craters. Strange as This Weather Has Been follows several members of the family, with a particular focus on fifteen–year–old Bant and her mother, Lace. Working at a motel, Bant becomes involved with a young miner while her mother contemplates joining the fight against the mining companies. As domestic conflicts escalate at home, the children are pushed more and more frequently outside among junk from the floods and felled trees in the hollows—the only nature they have ever known. But Bant has other memories and is as curious and strong–willed as her mother, and ultimately comes to discover the very real threat of destruction that looms as much in the landscape as it does at home.