Heat Wave vs. Buffalo Creek

Introduction Activities that we participate everyday belong to the community and belong to the community. We live in a world that associates and shares how common interests are shared with specific groups. The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast the differences and similarities of the methods viewed from the floods of Chicago Heatwave and Buffalo Creek. The main differences are historical grounds, relationships with the land, physical / social vulnerability, problematic development, choices we make, and media coverage.

To understand how the concept of Durkheim is applied to the disaster of Buffalo Creek, you first need to understand something about Buffalo Creek in West Virginia. Prior to the 1972 earthquake, Buffalo Creek was a typical coal mine community with about 5,000 people. This situation has changed over the years, the population rising and falling with the periodic coal boom and the population actually increased to two to three times the current size of 1972. Most of people going in and out are temporary shortly after work. However, among the people who left there are people living throughout the life, and "There are more young people growing in this area" (23) The reasons they leave are the reasons for all young people leaving this type of community Is the same. Therefore, before the flood on February 26, 1972, residents of Buffalo Creek received a very high level of social integration and social supervision.

In 1972, the reservoir failed in the center of Buffalo Creek, West Virginia, 15 to 20 feet of waves moved at a speed of 7 feet per second, flattening the town 15 miles. Of the more than 5,000 people, 125 were murdered, 1,121 were injured, and more than 4,000 were homeless. In 2000, a reservoir in Martin County, Kentucky failed and about 300 million gallons of sludge leaked into the tributary of the Greater Sandy River. About 30 times the disaster of the Exxon Valdez spill incident, nearly 70 miles of all aquatic life died nearly. At that time, the US Environmental Protection Agency called it the most serious environmental hazard in the east of the Mississippi River.