Narrator: On the morning of February 26, 1972, a gob-pile dam at the head of Buffalo Creek in Logan County collapsed after a week of heavy rain. Within seconds, 132 million gallons of water rushed downstream.

The flood roared for 17 miles, destroying cars, buildings, and power lines, leaving 4,000 of the valley's 5,000 residents homeless and killing 125 people.

Richard Grimes: "I was down there the day after the disaster, and I've never seen anything like it. There was a family there where only the children survived., but there were other places in the neighborhood where just the father survived, or just the mother survived. And the community was trying to put itself back together, saying 'Well, okay, put these two children over here. She can cook for them, and he can cook for this boy here and everything.' And maybe today we would have a smoother way of doing that, but here, the community was putting itself back together."

Narrator: National Guard units arrived to clean up.

Arch Moore: "Given the circumstances, given the . . ."

Narrator: Governor Arch Moore, who said West Virginia's image had taken a terrible beating from the media, closed Buffalo Creek to reporters.

Governor Moore: . . . "to say, yes, it could happen again."

Narrator: The owner of the dam, the Pittston Company, claimed the disaster was an act of God.

Kai Erikson: "The people of Buffalo Creek were outraged because they expected more from the coal company itself. That they would come to your aid like a neighbor does. And what the coal company did was to kind of gather behind a wall of lawyers and a wall of legalisms and wall of statements that made no sense to anybody on Buffalo Creek. And you would meet up and down Buffalo Creek, in those days, people who would say, 'You know, if only they had come to me and asked if I needed a cup of coffee, if only they'd offered my wife a dress, if only they had said, have you have a blanket? Are you cold? Can we make you warm?' But nobody came. Nobody did anything."

Narrator: Two years later, an official inquiry concluded Pittston had been negligent and forced the company to pay 13.5 million dollars to survivors of Buffalo Creek.

Kai Erickson: "Buffalo Creek was, for all practical purposes, a dead place, not just because so many people were dead but because many of the survivors afterwards described themselves as half dead or as dead. Because if the community dies, it's hard to think of yourself as fully alive."