| Moments Of Clarity Are Not What You're Learned Or Been Told, Not How You Want Things To Be, But How They Really Are
By Bob Weaver 2002
"Power is poison" - Henry Adams
I started writing this column because my friend, Charleston Daily Mail
columnist Dave Peyton recently commented about defining moments in his
life, more particularly the Buffalo Creek disaster which left 118 dead, seven
forever missing, 1,100 injured and 4,000 homeless.
It was February, 1972 and Pittson Coal, America's largest independent
producer at the time, said the disaster was an "Act of God."
I have harbored experiences and feelings of that disaster for many years.
Peyton was there, frustrated by Governor Arch Moore's ban on journalists,
which lasted one week, to prevent "irresponsible reporting."
I had just graduated from my National Guard unit in Spencer, the 1092nd
Engineers, as they were activated to help with the disaster, and I somehow
felt compelled to follow them to the coal fields.
I left my funeral home in
Spencer, telling myself I would assist with the embalming and do my
part.
After the first night, playing a minor role in the basement embalming room in
the South Man Elementary School, I too began a defining moment which
has forever changed my views of politics and power in West Virginia.
Helping
Duke and Jim embalm, I began to stare into the faces of the lifeless bodies
of the young and the old, encrusted with blackened mud which had been
difficult to remove by the "hose crew" in a tiny tent behind the school.
It was then when I looked into a father's face wrought with despair, choking
back tears as he knelt on the concrete floor of the school gym to identify his son.
Reposing on
an army surplus litter was the embalmed, lifeless body of his 8-year-boy.
A state policeman pulled the plastic sheet from the child's body, the ongoing
ritual of identification as survivors came to claim their dead.
A few minutes
before, James Lowry, a Charleston mortician and myself had carried the
victim up the basement steps and placed him in the long row, which
eventually numbered 118.
The father embraced the child, clutched him to his chest and rose slowly to
his feet. He uttered incoherent words, sobbing and crying, becoming lost in the pain of
the moment.
Standing a few feet away, refreshed by a half-pint of peach
brandy, I stared toward the man as he carried the child toward the outside
door.
A state policeman started to stop him, and I said, "Let him go. He'll be
back."
He took the child across the narrow driveway and ascended the steep wooded Logan
County hill.
In slight view, he sat down under a barren tree and began to
speak to his dead son. I went
to my cot in an upstairs classroom and finished the brandy, a normal
behavior, being a practicing alcoholic at that time in my life.
When I returned to the gym, the child
had been returned to the cot.
The words of Pittson Coal continues to ring, "The dam was
incapable of holding the water God poured into it," despite the U.S.
Department of Interior warning state officials in 1967 the dam had problems,
along with 29 other impoundments.
West Virginia officials cited Pittson for
failure to secure the dam, but never followed up.
Pittson's poor reputation for safety resulted in 5,000 violations at their sites,
with fines levied at $1.3 million. They fought the citations, and paid only
$275.
Today's incarnation of Pittson, Massey Coal, has been fined billions of dollars for safety and environmental offenses. They have also played a head turning game with the culpable government officials, but finally reached a minuscule pay-off of a few million.
Later I learned, following the pouring rains in 1972, Pittson officials and workers monitored
the ill-fated dam every two hours, concerned the impoundment was
becoming "soggy."
They turned away two Logan deputy sheriff's who had
heard there might be problems, and maintained silence.
Pittson gave no
warning when the water started pouring over the dam.
Residents of the long hollow felt there might be problems, and many took to
the hill. An Amherstdale resident said "I felt like you could reach out and
slice the silence," before 132 million gallons of black waste water rushed
down the valley creating a 15-20 foot wall of water.
Then, the most irresponsible unconscionable and statement
was made by Governor Arch Moore: "The only real sad part is that the State
of West Virginia has taken a terrible beating (clean-up costs) that is worse
than the disaster."
He remained a sold-out leader, who was eventually jailed for taking bribes.
He announced the rebuilding of model replacement communities,that never happened. Gov. Moore made lots of announcements of things that never happened.
He
announced the building of a modern expressway up the devastated valley. It never happened.
Moore had great political skills, promising and impressing, but he was often
an empty promiser.
Moore, now aged, still gets standing ovations at political gatherings.
My embalming associates, after three days of work, "borrowed" a Jeep and
went on an after-midnight tour of the destroyed valley.
I contemplated that
night, driving around the twisted debris of Amherstdale, Lundale and Lorado,
that that the cover-up had started.
Accountability was a dirty word and human life
was not essential to corporate coal.
By the end of my stay, I had moments of clarity, a turning point of conscience that Dave Peyton has described as a blessing with a curse, that never goes away.
See A RETURN TO BUFFALO CREEK: 1972 - “Oppression Done Under The Sun”
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