25 Years Later, Memories of Deadly Buffalo Creek Flood Haunt Survivors

Melvin M. Wiley vividly recalls the water, and the coal, and the cold, and the death along Buffalo Creek 25 years ago.

Wiley was 16; he volunteered to search for friends and neighbors after a 30-foot wave of water, coal and debris came crashing down the hollow. It wasn’t long before he found a high school friend crushed beneath a telephone pole. Over the next three days, he would see many more corpses.

“I found I don’t know how many people dead. There was greasy, black dirt all over them,” he said. He wrung his hands.

They died quickly. Within 20 minutes, not too long after sunrise on that Saturday morning--Feb. 26, 1972--125 people were killed, more than 1,000 homes were damaged or destroyed, and about 4,000 people were left homeless.

It was weeks before all of the dead were found. Seven never were.

Experts said it did not have to happen. For years, Buffalo Mining Co., a subsidiary of Pittston Coal Co., had dumped coal mine refuse across the hollow and the stream, until it formed a dam. For years, there were rumors that this dam might burst.

Then, 4 inches of rain fell in 24 hours. About 135 million gallons of water, coal and mud backed up behind the dam, until the pressure became too great and the dam gave way, sending a great wave down the 18-mile valley deep in Appalachia, about 60 miles south of Charleston.

On that morning, the hollow was abuzz with talk of danger, but many just rolled over in bed.

“It was like the boy who cried wolf,” Wiley said. “They all heard it before, so few believed it when it really happened.”

A.J. Ellis heeded the warning. Even 25 years later, he needs a handkerchief for his eyes as he talks about it.

Working at his gas station far down the hollow, Ellis telephoned his wife, Gladys, to remind her to keep an eye on the creek. The Ellis family lived about six miles up the hollow.

Out the window, his wife saw the water rising rapidly. Then the wave headed straight for their split-level house, and she grabbed her five children and ran to higher ground.

“She refuses to talk about that day,” Ellis said.

The Ellises’ house was reduced to jagged pieces of wood floating down the creek, swept away like so much else.

Most of the houses were yanked from their foundations and thrown into a jumble, often rooftop to rooftop, where the hollow opens and the land flattens at the Guyandotte River. Some terrified survivors climbed onto their roofs and rode their homes downstream.

What was left? Not much.

Most of the hollow’s 5,000 residents had connections to the mines, living in row upon row of inexpensive houses, some still owned by the coal companies. Many families improved them. “There was a real sense of community and pride,” said Glenna Wiley, Melvin’s mother.

But in a flash the hollow’s 16 tiny communities nearly vanished.

“Some of the older people returned,” Glenna Wiley said. “Most stayed away and have never come back.”

Only a few houses and trailers remain. Tammy Osborne stayed because she said it is the only home she has ever known. She was 10 when the flood hit, watching cartoons on television when the power went off, “and I knew the dam had burst. I just knew it,” she said.

Osborne lived in one of the homes above the dam, but most of her relatives lived below.

“I lost 11 family members,” she said. “I just think that they should’ve made everyone evacuate. The company should’ve warned people.”

Others agreed. More than 600 people sought $64 million in a class-action lawsuit. Pittston settled for $13.5 million. The state sued Pittston for $100 million to recover reconstruction costs. It received $1 million.

Much has changed since 1972. There are far fewer coal mines in the hollow these days. And the disaster prompted new laws for how coal mines dispose of wastes.

There is a small memorial at the bottom of the hollow, built by the Wileys just last year. Names of the dead are engraved on granite. The Wileys thought it would be a comfort, but few survivors visit it.

“Once they get the nerve to come here and look at it, they’re OK,” she said. “They drink Cokes and start talking about it.”