"We have found the two miners we were looking for," said Doug Conaway, director of the state Office of Miners' Health Training and Safety. "Unfortunately, we don't have a positive outcome."
Don I. Bragg, age 33, leaves a wife and two children. Ellery "Elvis" Hatfield, age 47, leaves a wife and four children.
13 comments:
It's WAY PAST TIME! It's such a pathetic shame that so much tragedy has to take place before anything gets done. If you go to the MSHA website & look at all the violations they've issued, you'll see that EVERY MINE IN WV is a ticking time bomb.
A few governors ago, violations were swept under the rug, kick-backs were the norm, pockets bulged with "tokens of appreciation" for tweaking reports.
I think our present governor means what he says. You could see the controlled fury on his face, along with his heartfelt sorrow. I just hope he takes a kick a*s attitude to Washington & refuses to take anything less than all our miners deserve.
It doesn't matter how strict the laws are, though, unless they're enforced. With the tenacity of a pit bull with PMS.
It sux that he's got a hurricane Katrina link, but don't say nothing about the miners on his website. SHAME ON YOU, GOVERNOR!
I think that the Gov. has been busy running from North to South in this state consoliing families of hopeful and then bereaved families of the deceased miners. Give him a break. He's been a little bit too occupied to worry about linking anything.
These are tragic events but we need to realize that as many miners as enter mines 3 shifts a day 7 days a week 365 days a year God does watch over them or we could easily loose a lot more. I do agree it is a shame we can communicate with someone on the moon and we cannot communicate with someone a couple of thousand feet underground but we really are a lucky state do not have more accidents.
Hi, Rose. Not much more to say. So sad about these miners, but anonymous is right about it could be worse. I think that's because the miners know what they're doing and are very safety oriented, not because the coal company big-wigs are doing much of anything to make the mines safer. Anyway, have good day.
Good morning!
brulz, you're absolutely right. We've said it before; we'll say it again. Miners know what they're doing & they do it well. To our knowledge (so far), none of the recent tragedies have been caused by blatant "operator error" & the miners have done exactly what they've been trained to do.
To put things in perspective, I looked up the mine where my husband works. A page & a 1/2 of violations, which is what the media sees when they look up the same info. The key, though, is in the content of the violation itself. We're not talking about huge piles of coal stacked up, waiting to ignite; more like "horn fails to perform" kind of stuff.
Have you ever walked into the garage at Sears? All those tools lying around are "safety violations." A few months ago, OSHA came into the office where I work & informed us our filing cabinets weren't allowing an adequate "fire path." If we'd have been a coal mine, that would've been a violation & the media would be on it like ... you know.
What I completely fail to understand, though, is why there are 6th graders right here in Clay County who have GPS on their cell phones, yet hours upon hours were spent trying to locate these miners. If "air holes" can be drilled after the fact, why aren't they drilled as part of opening the mine? ONE HOUR of oxygen?? I can't begin to imagine the logic behind that one.
I think Senator Rahall said it best when he said, "The status quo is no longer acceptable." Mining technology has come a long way since my pawpaw was a miner, but it's always been assumed & accepted that miners would die doing their jobs. That's where the "ticking time bomb" comes into play - any one of them could have a similiar incident at any given time. We can't stop the forces of nature, but we can damn sure change the outcome.
My husband swears cell phones won't work underground, but there's no way on this planet I believe we can talk to a man on the moon & we can talk to a man 2 miles under the ocean but we can't talk to a man underground in a coal mine?? I guarantee you, somewhere, there's a 15 year old kid that everybody calls "geek" who could accomplish this in less than 10 minutes.
HOW MUCH IS A LIFE WORTH is the big question. If they just took 1/2 the $$ they currently give as "bonuses," & use it toward actually making the mines safer, it'd be a good start in the right direction.
Ah, sirhenry & the rest of you guys, I think we should get ourselves organized & added to the legislative agenda with the simple message, "KEEP IT SIMPLE, STUPID!"
Mine to surface ladders can't possibly be that daunting, either.
The "government" is our tax money. The coal company owners are the ones who should help the families. The government should really crack down on the coal company owners to make the mines safer. After all, the company owners are the ones who profit the most from the mine operation.
Morning, Rose. Take a gander at George's blog about the swinging bridge. grrrrr. Have a good day, if you can after checking this out.
I swear, give us enough time & we'll have all the world's problems solved. How come we're so smart & the ones we elect to office are so dense??
Incidentally, I was actually thinking of ladders to get people IN to rescue ... with their mine to surface walkie-talkies.
They interviewed 3 guys from the Logan Co mine who suggested THEY get to have some input on what changes. DUH! One of their suggestions was to have a rescue crew right there, on-site. Again, DUH! The rescue teams that come in from all over are excellently trained & extremely appreciated ... but nobody knows a mine like the men who work it every day. DUH. DUH. DUH!
A friend of mine posted this and I thought that everyone here should read it as well. It's long, but WELL worth taking the time to read. It brought chills and tears as I read his words. This was a eulogy given at the Sago Miners Memorial by Homer Hickam, a wonderful author from WV.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sago Miners Memorial Remarks
by
Homer Hickam
January 15, 2006
Families of the Sago miners, Governor Manchin, Mrs. Manchin, Senator Byrd, Senator Rockefeller, West Virginians, friends, neighbors, all who have come here today to remember those brave men who have gone on before us, who ventured into the darkness but instead showed us the light, a light that shines on all West Virginians and the nation today:
It is a great honor to be here. I am accompanied by three men I grew up with, the rocket boys of Coalwood: Roy Lee Cooke, Jimmie O'Dell Carroll, and Billy Rose. My wife Linda, an Alabama girl, is here with me as well.
As this tragedy unfolded, the national media kept asking me: Who are these men? And why are they coal miners? And what kind of men would still mine the deep coal?
One answer came early after the miners were recovered. It was revealed that, as his life dwindled, Martin Toler had written this: It wasn't bad. I just went to sleep. Tell all I'll see them on the other side. I love you.
In all the books I have written, I have never captured in so few words a message so powerful or eloquent: It wasn't bad. I just went to sleep. Tell all I'll see them on the other side. I love you.
I believe Mr. Toler was writing for all of the men who were with him that day. These were obviously not ordinary men.
But what made these men so extraordinary? And how did they become the men they were? Men of honor. Men you could trust. Men who practiced a dangerous profession. Men who dug coal from beneath a jealous mountain.
Part of the answer is where they lived. Look around you. This is a place where many lessons are learned, of true things that shape people as surely as rivers carve valleys, or rain melts mountains, or currents push apart the sea. Here, miners still walk with a trudging grace to and from vast, deep mines. And in the schools, the children still learn and the teachers teach, and, in snowy white churches built on hillside cuts, the preachers still preach, and God, who we have no doubt is also a West Virginian, still does his work, too. The people endure here as they always have for they understand that God has determined that there is no joy greater than hard work, and that there is no water holier than the sweat off a man's brow.
In such a place as this, a dozen men may die, but death can never destroy how they lived their lives, or why.
As I watched the events of this tragedy unfold, I kept being reminded of Coalwood, the mining town where I grew up. Back then, I thought life in that little town was pretty ordinary, even though nearly all the men who lived there worked in the mine and, all too often, some of them died or were hurt. My grandfather lost both his legs in the Coalwood mine and lived in pain until the day he died. My father lost the sight in an eye while trying to rescue trapped miners. After that he worked in the mine for fifteen more years. He died of black lung.
When I began to write my books about growing up in West Virginia, I was surprised to discover, upon reflection, that maybe it wasn't such an ordinary place at all. I realized that in a place where maybe everybody should be afraid-after all, every day the men went off to work in a deep, dark, and dangerous coal mine- instead they had adopted a philosophy of life that consisted of these basic attitudes:
We are proud of who we are. We stand up for what we believe. We keep our families together. We trust in God but rely on ourselves.
By adhering to these simple approaches to life, they became a people who were not afraid to do what had to be done, to mine the deep coal, and to do it with integrity and honor.
The first time my dad ever took me in the mine was when I was in high school. He wanted to show me where he worked, what he did for a living. I have to confess I was pretty impressed. But what I recall most of all was what he said to me while we were down there. He put his spot of light in my face and explained to me what mining meant to him. He said, "Every day, I ride the mantrip down the main line, get out and walk back into the gob and feel the air pressure on my face. I know the mine like I know a man, can sense things about it that aren't right even when everything on paper says it is. Every day there's something that needs to be done, because men will be hurt if it isn't done, or the coal the company's promised to load won't get loaded. Coal is the life blood of this country. If we fail, the country fails."
And then he said, "There's no men in the world like miners, Sonny. They're good men, strong men. The best there is. I think no matter what you do with your life, no matter where you go or who you know, you will never know such good and strong men."
Over time, though I would meet many famous people from astronauts to actors to Presidents, I came to realize my father was right. There are no better men than coal miners. And he was right about something else, too:
If coal fails, our country fails.
The American economy rests on the back of the coal miner. We could not prosper without him. God in His wisdom provided this country with an abundance of coal, and he also gave us the American coal miner who glories in his work. A television interviewer asked me to describe work in a coal mine and I called it "beautiful." He was astonished that I would say such a thing so I went on to explain that, yes, it's hard work but, when it all comes together, it's like watching and listening to a great symphony: the continuous mining machines, the shuttle cars, the roof bolters, the ventilation brattices, the conveyor belts, all in concert, all accomplishing their great task. Yes, it is a beautiful thing to see.
There is a beauty in anything well done, and that goes for a life well lived.
How and why these men died will be studied now and in the future. Many lessons will be learned. And many other miners will live because of what is learned. This is right and proper.
But how and why these men lived, that is perhaps the more important thing to be studied. We know this much for certain: They were men who loved their families. They were men who worked hard. They were men of integrity, and honor. And they were also men who laughed and knew how to tell a good story. Of course they could. They were West Virginians!
And so we come together on this day to recall these men, and to glory in their presence among us, if only for a little while. We also come in hope that this service will help the families with their great loss and to know the honor we wish to accord them.
No matter what else might be said or done concerning these events, let us forever be reminded of who these men really were and what they believed, and who their families are, and who West Virginians are, and what we believe, too.
There are those now in the world who would turn our nation into a land of fear and the frightened. It's laughable, really. How little they understand who we are, that we are still the home of the brave. They need look no further than right here in this state for proof.
For in this place, this old place, this ancient place, this glorious and beautiful and sometimes fearsome place of mountains and mines, there still lives a people like the miners of Sago and their families, people who yet believe in the old ways, the old virtues, the old truths; who still lift their heads from the darkness to the light, and say for the nation and all the world to hear:
We are proud of who we are.
We stand up for what we believe.
We keep our families together.
We trust in God.
We do what needs to be done.
We are not afraid.
From Cleveland, Ohio Newspaper - Jan 8, 2006
Column by Dick Feagler
Bless the guys with the guts to dig the coal
We often make fun of West Virginia. I was raised to do so. From our fancy, sophisticated perch on the top of Ohio, we saw West Virginians as hillbillies and hicks.
When we walked into a diner and saw a woman behind the counter, working her tail off, hair in a beehive, extra polite, spanking-white uniform, speaking with a drawl, we thought, "West Virginia." And we looked down on that good woman. And thought, "hillbilly."
Was the makeup wrong? Was the body too thin? Maybe the map on the face told too many hardscrabble stories. People in our part of the state - Italians and Pollocks and Irish and whatever -- have always looked askance at the folks from West Virginia, the same way they once looked askance at each other.
But this week, if you walked across the floor to turn your thermostat up, you were risking a coal miner's life. Half of America's energy comes from coal -- much of it from West Virginia mines.
A coal miner buries himself alive each day. He kisses his family good-bye and rides a bucket two miles into the earth. There he toils until they pull him up and he goes home for a hug and supper.
I guess we don't think too much about what keeps the lights on. Why should we? We are, after all, so smart. We take so many things for granted. But the power behind that electricity is those guys in the mines.
Almost 40 years ago, I traveled with photographer Ted Schneider Jr. to one of the worst coal mine disasters in history. Farmington, W.Va.
Ninety-nine miners were entombed by an explosion. Seventyeight died.
Schneider and I talked to the widows. We talked to the local undertaker, a guy named Blaine Toothman, about how he was out of body bags and was ordering more from other towns in the state.
We covered all the announcements from the coal company union representative. Bulletins came every four hours. Families went home and slept and then dragged themselves back to a barren room with a microphone at the front of it. The news from the mike was always the
same: No news. Still trapped.
There weren't as many media then. Now the media outnumber reality -- reality meaning the real people with heartbreak at stake. Media are the people who surround them looking to pick up a soundd bite and carry it home to feed a hungry 24-hour format.
We have, since those days, smothered reality. We've bent it and shaped it into something useful. If somebody doesn't cry enough, move the camera to somebody who does. If an overweight mother cries too much, look for her telegenic daughter. In the age of television, we audition catastrophe.
Back then in Farmington, we found the principal of a local high school who was furious.
"We try to teach them," he said. "We do our best to educate them -- to give them a way out. But they all go back down in the same damned mines."
Schneider took a photo from a cemetery on a hill. It showed the gravestones of the miners who had gone to that high school and died in that town. And then we left. But I took a piece of West Virginia with me, and I carry it to this day. They are tough down there in West Virginia. They are nothing to make fun of.
They have pride. They shift for themselves. And they ask for nothing.
They are the best of America. After last week's disaster at the Sago Mine, the miners said they wanted to go back underground to work. That high school principal, if he hasn't retired, is probably still frustrated.
But I saw some miners interviewed. One of them explained that the mines were in his blood. And that his fellow miners were his brothers. And that you don't just quit.
God bless the hillbilly hicks. They are the pilot light of America.
Contact Dick Feagler at: dfeagler@plaind.com, 216-999-5757
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