Gerald Stern's "The Buffalo Creek Disaster"
In February of 1972, a dam built of coal waste refuse collapsed, unleashing a torrent of water and waste, sludge derived from coal-mining and coal-washing operations. The 130 gallons of material, which attorney Gerald Stern describes as a “tidal wave of rampaging water” in his book The Buffalo Creek Disaster, killed 25 people immediately and left the four thousand survivors homeless, their lives devastated and their personal properties destroyed. Many of the survivors accepted the small offer that the coal company made. However, realizing that the failure of the dam was no mere ”act of God,” but rather represented real negligence and recklessness on the part of the coal company, a few hundred of the thousands of survivors banded together to form a class action lawsuit. They hired an out-of-state firm which they felt could not be swayed by the powerful coal companies. The Washington DC-based Arnold and Porter, for which Gerald Stern worked, took on the case. Although Stern had no prior experience dealing with similar cases, his work as an advocate for disenfranchised minority citizens of the American Deep South made him an ideal and idealistic lawyer representing the survivors of the Buffalo Creek disaster. Through a series of windfalls and setbacks during the course of the case, the survivors of Buffalo Creek successfully sued the coal company and years later received a $13.5 million settlement. The events of this story and the details of the landmark lawsuit are retold in Gerald Stern's book.
Following the disaster, which occurred in a section of rural Logan County, West Virginia, the coal company blamed nature, calling the dam failure an “act of God.” This vague term was meant to assuage the survivors of the disaster and ease the pain of losing their loved ones and friends. However, the collapse of a waste water dam was obviously no “act of God” and it became apparent that the only way to prevent the...