Gazette photo by LAWRENCE PIERCE
Carol Hoosier escaped from the raging waters at Buffalo Creek 25
years ago today. Her parents did not, leaving the 52-year-old with a guilt
that has taken many years to work out.
At first, Carol Hoosier said she did not want to discuss
the Buffalo Creek disaster and what it did to her family.
But then the words poured out. With her eyes wide and with tears rolling
down her cheeks, she recalled every second of the flood.
Hoosier, 52, still lives on Buffalo Creek, and she owns a grocery store
at Robinette, a few miles down the hollow from where the Pittston Coal
Co. dam broke in 1972. She also works for the Logan County Sheriff's Department.
As she told her story recently to Gazette reporter Jack McCarthy, she had
to stop frequently to try to regain her composure.
"IT'S SOMETHING you don't forget, and it took a lot of years to learn
to live with.
"We woke up early that day. ... I heard someone tell my husband Ronnie
he thought the dam was going to break. My parents lived next door, so I
left and went over there because they were still in bed. I remember my
dad got a little mad with me. He liked to sleep late on Saturday.
"My mother and I went to the kitchen, and when we got outside, the
water was in the road. There was nothing but boards and water. I thought
what we were looking at was debris from the road, but it was the house
that was breaking up.
"By the time I came out with my mother, my husband was there and he
said to get in the car, now! My mother pulled loose from me and went into
the house for dad. I started thinking they had time.
"When we got in the car to leave, I saw a 20- or 30-foot wall of water
coming around the corner, and then it started spreading out, taking everything
in its path. I saw a car going down the creek, floating like a pop bottle,
it had that much force.
"We went up to the Amherst mine road - that's the only thing that
saved our lives. When we got on the hill and looked back, everything was
gone.
"I had a lot of guilt because I thought I left my parents there. I
had to see a doctor to cope with their deaths. ... There were a lot of
feelings ... People felt guilty because they were alive and others were
dead.
"I had never seen the dam. My dad always told us that if that dam
breaks, it would wipe Buffalo Creek off the map. Yet the morning I tried
to get him up, he said, "This is Saturday, let daddy sleep. Nothing
is going to happen."
"Every time it rained, people said the dam is going to break, and
nothing ever happened.
"My parents were 47, younger than I am now. My father worked his whole
life in the mines, and to think he got killed in bed. ...
"The water was like a bulldozer. My husband found our bathroom door,
and that's it. They never did find my father's car, not even a piece of
it. They said many people in the water didn't have any clothes on.
"My husband's grandmother lived four houses above mother and dad's
and that house stood intact. She was fine.
"I was the oldest of four sisters. My husband and grandfather identified
my mother. They didn't find my father for a while. I didn't look at them.
"When there's a lot of rain, that's what's on your mind. The other
night there was a lot of rain and I went downstairs. I still can't sleep
when it rains.
"It took years to adjust. I had a really hard time. I had a 13-year-old
sister at home when mom and dad were killed. She lived with me. I raised
her. I was 27. I had two first cousins and an aunt killed.
"There is still a lot of bitterness, not because it could have been
avoided, but because they could have got the people out.
"The coal company just waited too long to alert the people. They didn't
want people to be frightened, and they didn't want to get sued.
"They had people there all night, but they didn't tell any of us.
If they sent people and said, 'We think it's best for you to evacuate'
... but they didn't do that. I'm still bitter about it. You can replace
houses, but you can't replace families.
"People were moved to communities with people they didn't know. You
live around some people all your life, then, they disappear. People went
wild with the money they were getting in settlements, drinking.
"We lived in Green Valley all summer. Then we bought a trailer and
moved to land owned by former Logan Sheriff Ralph Grimmett's family. We
stayed there until the settlement and moved back.
"Buffalo Creek got shortchanged. People had to relocate. They promised
model communities. They put in cuts and sewer systems that were too high.
Our water and sewer bills were too high.
"With my mom and dad, we settled with an attorney. Another lawyer
took care of me.
"I thought of leaving but my husband works for Amherst. You live where
you work. Almost everybody stayed - up Huff Creek in Wyoming County or
wherever.
"People talk about it when they come in the store - what they were
doing, what it was like.
"Everybody that lived up there - I think it had an effect on them.
Even on kids not born yet. It's something you see on television - it couldn't
happen to you.
"It's like you got cheated out of part of your life."