Failure of Dam No. 3 on the Middle Fork of Buffalo Creek near Saunders, West Virginia on February 26, 1972

Shortly after the Buffalo Creek flood, the Committee on Natural Disasters of the National Academy of Engineering appointed an inspection team headed by Professor T. William Lambe, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and including Professor Roger K. Seals, West Virginia Univer­sity, and Mr. W. Allen Marr, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The team went to Buffalo Creek on March 4, 1972, to take photographs and record their personal observations. Initially, the team made an aerial observation of the dam sites, then a ground-level inspection of Buffalo Creek Valley and the dam sites along Middle Fork. This report summarizes the observations, findings, and recom­mendations of the inspection team. It attempts to describe the conditions prior to the failure, the failure itself, and the consequences of the failure. Recommendations are made for further studies. In writing this report, the team has drawn upon its personal observations and experiences, and upon the following publications, articles, and newspapers.