After the Deluge

Christopher Hopson, 7, worked hard in school last year and got all A's and B's, but this year he sometimes stares unseeingly into space, complains of feeling dizzy and gets D's. His mother Drema, 25, is often depressed, becomes alarmed whenever it rains heavily, and sometimes has nightmares in which her two little girls look at her intently as black mud begins to cover her body.

Chris and his mother barely escaped with their lives last February when a badly constructed coal-slag dam gave way and unleashed 130 million gallons of seething water on the mining communities of Buffalo Creek, W. Va., killing 125 and leaving 4,000 homeless (TIME, March 13). Chris was carried to high ground by his father, but his two sisters were swept from their mother's arms and drowned. Last week, seven months after the disaster, much of the physical havoc caused by the flood had been repaired, but the psychological damage to hundreds of families like the Hopsons was still very much in evidence. Though mental health authorities have instituted unusual measures to aid the troubled victims, many will bear the emotional scars of their ordeal for the rest of their lives.

Survival Guilt. Because the flood was preceded by three days of rain, thunder and lightning, the most common lingering symptom among the survivors is the uneasiness--in some cases the near panic--that is brought on by stormy weather. Many residents also suffer from insomnia, crying spells, moodiness, and what has been called "survival guilt": unwarranted but painful self-reproach for having lived when others died.

To make psychological help readily accessible to such sufferers, the West Virginia department of mental health has set up a field headquarters in Buffalo Creek Valley. Instead of waiting for clients to come to the office, mental AP health aides ring doorbells throughout the area, especially in the 13 Government trailer camps where 2,200 of the homeless are trying to pick up the thread of their lives. Wary of social workers and psychiatrists, many residents at first deny that they feel stunned or disoriented by their tragic losses. Then, often as the visitors are just about to leave, the survivors hesitantly mention that they have been having a lot of headaches lately, or that a relative has begun to drink too much.

For the most part, the aides do little but try to suggest that it is normal to be upset; listening sympathetically, they let the survivors "ventilate" their pent-up emotions and relive, verbally, their traumatic experiences. Cases of serious disturbance, however, are referred to psychologists and psychiatrists at the nearest regular office of the mental health department, 15 miles away. Typical of the seriously disturbed patients under treatment:

-- A man who lost his wife and children cannot sleep without a light burning; darkness is an unbearable reminder of the moment when the electric power failed just before water struck his house.

-- A survivor who lost two relatives gets cramps and vomits when he tries to eat--especially in the morning--and as a result has lost 30 lbs. When the flood hit, he was having breakfast.

-- A youth whose grandfather drowned has developed an ulcer.

-- A boy who lost a leg has become paranoid, suspicious of everyone around him.

-- A teen-age girl has begun behaving bizarrely and eating so much that she has gained almost 50 lbs. She is reacting to the fact that her family blames her for the death of her younger sister; floating downstream while clinging to the child, the teen-ager slammed into a railroad track, was injured and lost her grip on her sister.

Listening Therapy. Mental health professionals are not the only ones working to help valley residents with their emotional difficulties. To supplement these efforts, a three-man team of ministers trained in psychology goes from door to door, providing both religious solace and the same "listening therapy" dispensed by the mental health aides. Ordinary medical doctors have been pressed into service, too, serving as listeners while they treat patients for physical ailments complicated by flood-inflicted traumas. One of these, Pediatrician Mark Spurlock, has found that Buffalo Creek children have more nightmares now, and that "asthmatics are wheezing more." Among his patients is a child who comes in at intervals for allergy shots; his mother recounts the story of the flood on every visit. "She doesn't even know she's told me before," Spurlock notes. But he never puts an end to her recital. "Talking it out is the best thing in the world for her."

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