The Pains of Catastrophe in the Flooding of Buffalo Creek, Virginia

Pain in the wake of catastrophe can be as elusive as pain in illness. Kai Erikson argues that the events of catastrophe such as the flooding of Buffalo Creek Virginia cause a syndrome which includes pains such as numbness, reliving of the event, familial loss, loss of community as well as many others. The problem that arises from such a catastrophe is how to handle the pain suffered by its victims. Veena Das and Elaine Scarry argue that pain is unshareable but it also calls for attention. Through an extensive look into Kai Erikson’s piece on the events that took place in Buffalo Creek and the leading literature on pain it becomes clear that recognition and generalizability of victims pain and suffering is impossible to validate and because of this disaster relief efforts are greatly impaired.

Buffalo Creek is a coal mining town in the Appalachia of Virginia. The town revolves around coal mining. Generations upon generations have benefitted from the plethora of coal the mountains provided. However, along with the plethora of coal came an immense amount of coal by-products one of which being coal slurry. Coal companies had for years dumped the massive amounts of toxin filled water-coal slush down the sides of the mountains into nearby streams and mountainsides. In Buffalo Creek, the Buffalo Mining Company “used more than a half million gallons of water a day to clean the four thousand tons of coal it loaded onto railroads (Erikson, 25).” The company used the landscape of the mountains and the left over debris which was compacted together by bulldozers to create a man-made impoundment, or “dam,” as the town-people called it. This man-made structure held back a whopping 132 million gallons of toxic coal sludge. By creatin...

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...s no wonder that the silt and sludge that was originally used to construct the impoundment itself still lingers throughout the town years after the disaster. Everything was left contaminated. Another detrimental blow to the community was the fallacy that they were safe. Before the flood, the people of Buffalo Creek felt safe in their neighborhood and their homes but that feeling of security was washed away with their towns. All that they are left with is the feeling of impending doom, many individuals reported in interview conducted by Erikson that they fear everything. One man even reporting that if there is just a storm warning it will keep him awake the entire night worrying about his looming destruction.

Along with individual and collective trauma, pain also arises in the legal formality and coldness shown to the survivors of the Buffalo Creek disaster.