Summary of Gerald M. Stern's The Buffalo Creek Disaster

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 In the early 1960s, I traveled around Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana trying voting discrimination cases for the government. I was too shy to ask for something for myself, but I was always able to speak up for others.

#2 I was too shy to ask for something for myself, but I was always able to speak up for others. I ended up representing the Buffalo Creek survivors in a case that made me a folk hero in the hills of West Virginia.

#3 Charles Cowan, Jr. , the local football hero, was elected chairman of the Buffalo Creek Grade School committee that was going to file a lawsuit against the coal company.

#4 The Buffalo Creek disaster exposed the shortcomings of private law firms and how they fail to protect the little guy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Sep 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9798350001303

IRB Media

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Insights on Gerald M. Stern's The Buffalo Creek Disaster

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

I had once found my purpose in helping blacks in the South, but after I left the Justice Department, I joined a Washington, D. C. , law firm and helped corporations fight the government. I couldn’t see the end in sight, and I found my purpose in doing the day-to-day lawyering job well.

#2

I was assigned to represent the survivors of the Buffalo Creek disaster, and I was not excited about it. I had just won a multimillion-dollar verdict for disabled coal miners and widows against the United Mine Workers Welfare and Retirement Fund.

#3

The people of the Buffalo Creek Valley elected Charlie Cowan as their chairman, as he was the father of their local football hero, Charles Cowan, Jr. He was fifty-six years old, and had run his gas station at Amherstdale for twenty years.

#4

The coal fields of West Virginia are controlled by the coal companies, and the lawyers who represent them. So Charlie wanted a strong, independent law firm to represent the survivors of the Buffalo Creek disaster.

#5

The Buffalo Mining Company, which owned the dam, claimed that the break was caused by flooding, an act of God. But the people of West Virginia knew better, and responded by saying that it was a man-made disaster.

#6

The New York Times reported that I had said the responsibility was Pittston’s in the long range. I never made any such statement. I did say, as reported, that we were investigating.

#7

There was already extensive federal legislation on the books that addressed coal mine safety. The House Subcommittee on Mines and Mining, which had drafted the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969, called for the appearance before it of the Secretary of the Interior, who had been charged by Congress with the responsibility for enforcing the act.

#8

The state of West Virginia was held responsible for the disaster, since a specific West Virginia statute prohibited the construction of any dam or