Underground
Mine Rescue Team, 1968 Farmington recovery operation
The Charleston Gazette, Nov. 21, 1968:
By James A. Haught
“MANNINGTON–Rescue prospects dimmed late Wednesday for the 78 men now known to be trapped deep in a smoke-filled coal mine rocked by explosions earlier in the day.
The miners are believed to have died about dawn Wednesday when an underground explosion shook the earth for 20 miles and erupted into the sky like a volcano.
Twenty-one other miners, working in distant tunnels, managed to escape to the surface before fire spread inside the mine. But 78 still were missing in the flaming catacombs Wednesday night.
‘There’s not a chance in the world to get those men out,’ West Virginia Department of Mines inspector Leslie Ryan said in midafternoon as he viewed the mile-high column of smoke rolling from the burning mine.”
The Charleston Gazette, April 6, 2010
By Ken Ward Jr., Andrew Clevenger, Gary A. Harki
“MONTCOAL, W.Va. — Rescuers continued on Tuesday evening with what they admitted is a long-shot effort to save four Massey Energy miners still unaccounted for after a huge explosion that killed 25 workers, injured two others, and brought more calls for safety reforms in the nation’s mining industry.
State and federal regulators and elected officials promised thorough investigations, even as they struggled to maintain a small slice of optimism following the worst U.S. coal-mining disaster in a quarter century.
‘We’ve all thrown everything at this rescue effort,’ said Joe Main, assistant labor secretary for the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration. ‘We’re going to throw the same effort at getting to the bottom of what happened.’
The stories are always the same. Just the bylines and datelines change.
The story is the same, even when the ending is supposed to be different– after Farmington and Sago and the Mine Safety Act. The coal is the story.
That’s not a value judgment, so much as a statement of fact. You can’t throw a rock in southern West Virginia without hitting a “Friends of Coal” bumper sticker or a “Coal Keeps the Lights On” billboard.
I’ve spent the last two days glued to the tweets, blog posts and dispatches from Raleigh County, composed mostly by former colleagues and friends at the Gazette, the Daily Mail and the rest of the Charleston, W.Va. media scrum.
It feels just like four years ago during the Sago disaster. The waiting and nerves, home from college on winter break, watching CNN in the early morning hours. I went to bed after they reported all the men were found alive that night, but the story had changed by the time I woke up.
This time I just stayed up. I was at work on Monday night, watching the news trickle in from West Virginia and helping compile some blog-posts with my friend and fellow Gazette alum, Dave. He was on the ground during the Aracoma mine fire, three weeks after Sago.
Turns out you can take the journalists out of West Virginia, but… you know.
Now we wait–and hope– for the four missing miners at Upper Big Branch. This morning, a mutual friend passed on a Facebook note written by a guy I met a couple of times when I was still going to caving club at WVU. These days, he’s mining engineer in West Virginia.
I disagree a little bit about the lay of the blame. Sure it takes the work of everyone underground everyday to make sure safety standards are met. But I think it’s fair to question whether Massey CEO Don Blankenship is protecting his miners to the same degree he protects his massive business interests. I’m sure there are are safety “violations at every coal mine in America,” as Blankenship said yesterday. But none of those mines caused the worst disaster in a quarter-century. None of those mines killed 25 people this week.
The end of the engineer’s essay is beautifully written and I hope it’s right on the money:
“I can tell you this much–on days like these when I think of my coal career and what I can do to keep myself and my friends safe, I think about all the times I have let myself become complacent. All the times I’ve daydreamed when the safety guy has shown the the escapeways on the map; the lazy job I’ve done plastering stoppings; the times I’ve slept on the mantrip; the times I’ve walked through a curtain, torn it down, and then not bothered to nail it back up.
I don’t let these things slide because I’m thinking of production over safety. I let these things slide because I, all too often, forget about the consequences. Today, I remember. It shouldn’t take these tragedies to make me remember. I wish it didn’t take things like this to make me remember, but this is the wisdom I hope to glean from this tragedy: Tomorrow when I get up and go to work, I will remember those miners and do my best to keep all of us and myself safe–may we all learn from this.”
Doubtless, this won’t be the last mine disaster we watch unfolding on the front porches and church fellowship halls and makeshift command centers above-ground. Accidents happen, even with outrage and regulation and lawsuits and calls for shelters and ventilation.
It’s good to know the people who go underground today will be carrying thoughts of the Upper Big Branch miners with them below. And I’m glad people like the Gazette’s Ken Ward are already digging into how and why this happened. If you’re looking to follow this story, his Coal Tattoo blog is about the best place you could turn.
My thoughts are with the families in Montcoal, the rescue teams and, as always, with the state of West Virginia.
“Lot of these men not coming home,
Tonight when the work whistle blows…I can hear the moans and groans,
More than a hundred good men.
Just work and fight and try to see,
That this never happens again.”-”The Dying Miner” by Woody Guthrie
Such a solid post, thank you for writing it. At ASNE today, Huffington was giving the news media — on the whole — crap for not covering the mine issues well enough. She needs to read the West Virginia papers more.
Thanks, Patrick. There are some great reporters down there who cover the hell out of the mining industry every day, not just when the whole world is watching…