An Analysis Of Kai T. Erikson's Everything In Its Path

Everything in its Path is an award winning novel written by Kai T. Erikson about the destruction of a community after the Buffalo Creek Flood in West Virginia in February 1972. In the early hours of February 26th the largest of a makeshift mining- company dam gave way, allowing one hundred and thirty- two million gallons of muddy waste water to rush through the town of Buffalo Creek. The water rushed through thirteen miles of the town for about three hours, destroying homes, bridges, and roads. This destruction caused one hundred and five deaths, one thousand one hundred and twenty one injuries, and left four thousand people homeless (Sewell 2012). The Buffalo Creek flood was a complete destruction of a community.
Erikson begins Everything

This part of the book deeply investigates the agriculture, culture, customs, and religion of the area. This helps the reader grasp the importance of culture and how it affects the reaction of a culture during a disastrous time. “ To speak of culture is to speak of elements that help shape human behavior- the inhibitions that govern it from inside, the rules that control it from the outside, the languages and philosophies that serve to edit a people’s experience of life, the customs and rituals that help define how one person should relate to another. To speak of culture is to speak of those forces that promote uniformity of thought and action” (Erikson, 1976, p81). Understanding the culture of the settlers of the area helps to bring about better understanding of the survivors reaction to the

He captures the effects of a natural disaster and how culture plays a role in those effects. He uses field research leading to “a study of the loss of community bonds in the aftermath of a flood in a West Virginia mining community"(Barkan, 2013). Erikson divides the book into three parts which helps expose the theme to the reader. One of the challenges that the author faces is that he was hired as a consultant for a law firm that was going to file suit on behalf of six hundred and fifty survivors. After a short visit to Buffalo Creek Erikson pursued the story with more energy than was required by the legal action itself and the study went beyond the commitment with which it began (p9). His investment in the story of the Buffalo Creek survivors detoured his initial objective and led him into researching the natural disaster. Erikson’s commitment to the Buffalo Creek flood story demonstrates his commitment to communicate and support the theme of the natural