Failure_Of_Buffalo_Creek_Dam

Failure Of Buffalo Creek Dam Introduction: On February 26, 1972 125 people were killed, 1,000 injured, and 4,000 were left homeless all because an earth dam failed, destroying the valley of Buffalo Creek. In 1960 Buffalo Mining Company, a part of Pittston Coal Company, built its first dam to block waste from the mining operations. A second dam was then built in 1966 six-hundred feet upstream. In 1970 Pittston Coal took over and a third dam was built, which by 1972 was sixty feet in height. It was a disaster waiting to happen, more and more waste kept being dumped, building up pressure behind three different dams. In 1967 there was a break in one of the dams creating minor flooding. In 1971 the dam located furthest back failed, however the second dam stopped the water from flooding. One would think this would be an eye opener to the coal company that something terrible could happen, but they continued to dump waste without updating the existing dams. The Failure: Ponds and streams, which were also used as settling ponds for the water cleansing plant, were rising behind the first dam. Snow and rain were causing this rapid rise and the dam, water, dams, pressure, buffalo, creek, company, coal, waste, pittston, failure, design, built, force, been, never, mining, failed, drainage, behind, 1972, time, state, should, first, analysis, taken, system, safety, point, pipes, feet, even, engineering, construction