Gazette photo by CHRIS DORST
Delegate Arley Johnson, D-Cabell, a survivor of the Buffalo Creek
disaster, recounts the flood to colleagues on its 25th anniversary Wednesday.
By Rick Steelhammer
STAFF WRITER
Twenty-five years to the day after he and his family scrambled up a Logan
County hillside to escape the killing waters of Buffalo Creek, images of
the man-made disaster remain vivid for Delegate Arley Johnson, D-Cabell.
"From the hill, you could see that water billowing over the banks,
all muddy and ugly and black with coal, and watch the houses crumbling
like matchsticks," he told colleagues in a dead-silent House chamber
on Wednesday.
In a brief speech to commemorate the Feb. 26, 1972, disaster that killed
125 people, Johnson, a second-term delegate and a Huntington mayoral candidate,
recalled seeing railroad tracks wrap around trees, trailers split in half
and a neighbor try to outrun floodwaters in his car before being forced
to swim to safety.
Johnson, his mother and eight brothers and sisters had only minutes of
warning before a wall of water hit their Amherstdale home - actually two
adjoining coal camp houses that the family intended to connect into a large
single residence.
"We only had time to get our clothes on and some of us were only able
to dress part way," Johnson recalled.
When the water receded, only an elementary school and Methodist church
were left standing in his community. Thirteen bodies were found there in
the muck and debris.
After fashioning litters from scrap two-by-fours, the bodies were carried
to the elementary school, where a temporary morgue was established.
"Black mud was caked over their faces and bodies," he recalled.
As the face of one of the smaller bodies was washed, Johnson realized he
was looking at a classmate named Anita.
"The fear I felt was something I'll always remember," he said.
"There were rumors that another, larger dam was about to break ...
I remember the screams as relatives recognized their relatives and friends
at the morgue."
Johnson's father hadn't returned from work in the mines at that point,
but he later turned up safe, after he drove his car up Blair Mountain to
escape the floodwaters.
The family later moved to Huntington, but whenever Johnson returned to
Logan County to visit, heavy rainfalls would force him to leave.
"I've been to a couple of oceans and a number of lakes since then,
but I still can't swim," he said. "I guess I'm a little scared
of water."
His family reluctantly accepted a $4,000 settlement in a class- action
lawsuit that stemmed from the disaster. "Why the state settled for
$1 million is beyond me," he said.
After reading the several books on Buffalo Creek that were printed in the
wake of the disaster, Johnson said he came to realize how completely government
failed to serve the best interests of the people both before and after
the flood.
"Now that I'm here and a part of government, I think I understand
a little better," he said.
"When we're making decisions, we don't always discuss what's best
for the people."
Instead, he said, legislators tend to think in terms of "the trial
lawyers are for it, or labor's for it, or the environmentalists or the
business community is for it."
"I hope and pray we'll spend more time trying to do what's right for
the people ... If heavy-handed special interest groups won't back off,
maybe we can stand up to them.
"At Buffalo Creek, we were not well-served. It would be nice if we
could make West Virginia a shining example of a place where the people
are well-served by their government."
Johnson's colleagues responded to his remarks with a standing ovation.