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Some dangers hide in plain sight — what looks like a peaceful lake or a simple hole in the ground can, in reality, be a dam. These man-made barriers hold back massive amounts of water, and when they fail, the results can be catastrophic."It’s hard for people or even elected officials to be advocates for dams. They're out of sight and out of mind." Eric Halpin spent 40 years with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and is a dam and levee consultant. But dams do affect us."They're some of the most impactful things that happen. If you step back, all the big legislation related to safety of infrastructure in the U.S. has come not from failures that caused economic losses, they were from failures that caused loss of life," Halpin said. More than 50 years after one of the worst dam failures in U.S. history, survivors are still carrying the trauma. That disaster was one of the main events that prompted Congress to pass new laws regulating dam construction, maintenance and safety inspections. The morning that changed everythingFor Kerry Albright, the sound of rushing water along Buffalo Creek is comforting—his special place, a return to peace. But for his lifelong friend, Gertie Moore, she remembers a different, more haunting sound from that creek."It’s been 53 years, and it’s just like it was yesterday," Moore said. "We heard this horrendous noise, and when we turned and looked, the water was about 25, 30 feet high."On Feb. 26, 1972, rain came down on Logan County, West Virginia, and filled the pools behind the three dams a coal company had built. When the first dam failed, water and coal slurry crashed into the next dam, and the next dam. In minutes, more than 130 million gallons of water roared down the hollow, ricocheting off the mountains and sweeping away 17 towns in its path. Reports say debris roads and bridges were broken to bits, homes were torn apart and the railroad tracks were yanked up and twisted as debris was left everywhere. The numbers were staggering: 125 people dead, thousands injured, and more than 4,000 left homeless overnight.Moore, a school bus driver at the time, said that she knew a majority of the victims. She remembers seeing a house floating on top of the floodwaters. Inside was a girl who rode her bus and had previously given her some flowers days before. "A blonde-headed, cute little 5-year-old girl. Her and her whole family were in that house, and it tore apart. We lost them all," she said as she wiped away tears.Albright, who was just 9 months old at the time of the Buffalo Creek dam disaster, is a well-known survivor.His mother and older brother saw the floodwaters and made a run for the mountainside. As the coal sludge suctioned around their legs, they knew they weren’t going to make it."They decided to count to three and just throw me as far as they could toward the mountainside," Albright said.Neighbors witnessing the desperate act saw as all three were swept away. Albright was miraculously found 30 minutes later, when rescuers spotted a small leg sticking out of the mud. Being underwater that whole time is what sparked his nickname as the "miracle baby."A mural of him and his mother sits on one of the few buildings that survived the floods."One of the things when I look at it, that really reminds me about this community and what it's really known for is how they can get through anything. They're such resilient people that live here, and I've always carried that with me," Albright said.He also remarks that while it reminds him of his mother, it also reminds him of all the mothers on Buffalo Creek who helped raise him. Carlene Mowery was pregnant and in the hospital at the time of the flood. She said she and her roommate sat up all night watching the helicopters come in with bodies of those who had passed. "People would go through the hospital all hours of the night, looking for their loved ones. They'd go from room to room to room. 'Have you seen this one? Have you seen that one?'" Mowery said. Moved by what she saw, Mowery interviewed survivors and turned their memories into a book almost 50 years later called "Buffalo Creek: Valley of Death."Impacts on legislation and policyThe tragedy of Buffalo Creek sparked change. Before, there were no national laws in place that focused on inspections and safety of dams. In the disaster’s wake, Congress held hearings and passed what's now known as the National Dam Inspection Act, requiring states to regularly inspect dams and report them to a public database known as the National Inventory of Dams (NID). Today, though, that database is full of holes. It is each state’s responsibility to send dam information to the NID.To get a complete picture of the state of America's dams, the Hearst Television National Investigative Unit and the Hearst Television Data Team requested information from every state on its dams, including each dam's condition and most recent inspection date.After state dam officials and engineers go out and inspect dams, they give them a condition rating based on what they think is wrong with the dam. Experts warn that dams classified as high hazard — meaning their failure would likely cause loss of life — pose the most urgent concern.From the records requests, Hearst Television identified more than 121,000 dams across the country. The NID tracks about 92,500 dams because it only tracks dams of a certain size. The most up-to-date records on dams gathered by Hearst Television indicate that more than 10,000 dams are listed in poor or unsatisfactory condition, signaling structural concerns that require repair. Of those, about a quarter are high-hazard and would result in loss of human life upon failure. Despite gathering the latest records from states, about 67% of the dams in our database had no condition listed by state dam officials. That means there could be an undercount on how many dams need repair. Of those dams that don't have a condition rating, 4,000 are high-hazard.Aging dams present growing risksThe story of Buffalo Creek is more relevant than ever.The average dam in the U.S. today is 64 years old, and many were never designed to withstand the stronger storms fueled by climate change. "Dams have the state-of-the-art at the time they were built embedded in them. So a big issue with conditions and what's wrong with them is bringing them up to standard," Dam and levee consultant Eric Halpin said. He expands on that in the video below. For survivors like Moore and Albright, the sound of water will always carry memories of loss. But their story is also a warning: without vigilance, aging and poorly monitored dams could set the stage for the next great disaster.Dams near youUsing the most up-to-date records from states, the Hearst Television Data Team has built a tool that allows you to see all of the dams in your area and learn whether any are in unsatisfactory or poor condition. Simply search your address or town name in the box below, and the map will populate with any dams near you, their latest condition rating and when they were last inspected.This story was shot and edited by Hearst National Investigative Photojournalist Reid Bolton.PHNjcmlwdCB0eXBlPSJ0ZXh0L2phdmFzY3JpcHQiPiFmdW5jdGlvbigpeyJ1c2Ugc3RyaWN0Ijt3aW5kb3cuYWRkRXZlbnRMaXN0ZW5lcigibWVzc2FnZSIsKGZ1bmN0aW9uKGUpe2lmKHZvaWQgMCE9PWUuZGF0YVsiZGF0YXdyYXBwZXItaGVpZ2h0Il0pe3ZhciB0PWRvY3VtZW50LnF1ZXJ5U2VsZWN0b3JBbGwoImlmcmFtZSIpO2Zvcih2YXIgYSBpbiBlLmRhdGFbImRhdGF3cmFwcGVyLWhlaWdodCJdKWZvcih2YXIgcj0wO3I8dC5sZW5ndGg7cisrKXtpZih0W3JdLmNvbnRlbnRXaW5kb3c9PT1lLnNvdXJjZSl0W3JdLnN0eWxlLmhlaWdodD1lLmRhdGFbImRhdGF3cmFwcGVyLWhlaWdodCJdW2FdKyJweCJ9fX0pKX0oKTs8L3NjcmlwdD4=