My entire state is in mourning and in shock:
The death toll from the massive explosion at a sprawling coal mine in West Virginia rose to 25 early Tuesday, making it the deadliest U.S. mining disaster in 25 years.
Crews halted their efforts to reach four miners still unaccounted for at the Upper Big Branch Mine following the blast Monday afternoon.
Concentrations of methane and carbon monoxide inside the mine made it a safety risk for crews to proceed, said Kevin Stricklin of the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration at a 2 a.m. briefing to reporters.
Officials planned to drill bore holes from the surface 1,200 feet into the mines to help ventilate it and to collect samples. However, they will first have to use bulldozers to clear a path to reach the part of the mine where they can drill.
Stricklin said he did not know how long the process would take.
“I think it’s a dire situation but I do think that it is a rescue operation and it will be that way until we confirm that these four additional people are not living,” he said. “I mean, there are miracles that go on.”
“Basically all we have left,” Stricklin said, “is hope.”
The explosion at the Massey Energy Co. mine, about 30 miles south of Charleston, West Virginia, took place during a shift change Monday afternoon.
Seven bodies have been brought out and identified. Among them were three members of the same family: an uncle and two nephews, said West Virginia’s Gov. Joe Manchin.
Local press coverage can be found here. The NY Times write-up is here.
From what I can tell, it looks like everyone but 2 miners were killed, but four miners remain missing.
The Grand Panjandrum
Mining ain’t for sissies. Condolences to the friends and families.
brantl
It isn’t for shitty safety methods, either. I think Massey is famous for this, isn’t it?
donnah
I come from a West Virginian coal mining family. My grampa and my uncle died from black lung and my uncle lost a thumb in one of the big machines. They know the risks, but when management screws them over, they don’t have a chance.
Another of my uncles has worked his way up from the mines into supervisory work and travels the East and Midwest part of the country. He came out of Rock Lick mine near Beckley. He has said Massey is a bad company and has complained about them for years.
My condolences to the families. As a coal miners granddaughter, I know this is their worst nightmare.
Lisa K.
My deepest sympathies to all affected. This is a horrible tragedy.
There will be an outpouring of grief and sympathy and much hand wringing over how could this have happened, but really it should come as no shock nor should it come as a shock the next time it happens. Ronald Reagan began the war on the worker by busting unons and turning OSHA regulators into sock puppets-a trend taken to it’s natural end by utterly gutting mine safety programs under Bush. And yet, there will be no mention of this in the “liberal” media establishment this morning.
Grief is necessary to heal, but serious action is needed to ensure this is not a recurring nightmare for this industry-if it isn’t already.
Xboxershorts
Massey and Blankenship also have ties to Supreme Court decisions involving corporate election spending.
Blankenship is a complete fucktard with zero regard to human life outside of his own.
inkadu
From the NYT article:
Safety is expensive. Lives are cheap. Fines are cheaper. Coal pays the bills.
Keith G
I am quite saddened by the the loss to this community. Words are not enough. Such a mass casualty event in any other part of American life would bring the nation to a halt for days. Not so for mining, it seems.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
Wouldn’t the Randian fucktards say this kind of thing is impossible? That the market would correct itself and that workers would be FREEEEEEE to go work at mines that valued safety and avoid those that didn’t?
Oh yeah, this is the real world.
Yup, we’re seeing the fruits of a generation’s worth of gutting the social contract and letting such claptrap develop gubmint policy.
My condolences. My grandfather worked in a WV quarry, not nearly as dangerous but the same “life is cheap” mentality existed at the top.
bkny
and who was the labor secretary the past eight years.
elaine chao. wife of senator mitch mcconnell. and we all know how sympathetic they are to workers’ rights and labor safety and health issues.
stuckinred
My grandfather spent 30 years in the mines in Southern Illinois. His father was killed by a cable that snapped. My dad’s first teaching and coaching job was in Benton in 1950. He spent WWII on a fast attack destroyer in the Pacific and was in some 35 landing in that theater. He went down in the mines with gramps and said “never again”.
mistermix
The Times story says that some rescue breathing devices were taken from their storage areas, so maybe the 4 other men could still be alive.
Tommy
Tell me again how cheap coal is and how it doesn’t pay to use alternative fuels….
harlana peppper
How horrible, I am out of touch, did not know about this. Tragic.
The Truffle
This is so sad.
John, how long have you lived in WV?
gogol's wife
I’m very sorry.
Linda Featheringill
My sympathy to the community for their losses. Such a waste of the lives of their loved ones.
I understand that there is still some hope for 4 more miners. May they hang on long enough to be rescued.
harlana peppper
comrade scott’s agenda of rage: certain people are expendable when they are not considered “superior” beings (which is why they were working in a mine and not running it) – I believe this is an extension of their philosophy, so it’s okay with them, i imagine
Ryan
Can’t wait to hear the mine operators blame it on the mountain.
Facebones
My sympathies. I was living in Nova Scotia when we had a terrible coal mining disaster at the Westray Coal Mine. 26 died in what sound like very similar circumstances. (Coal dust built up and it led to a methane explosion.)
The subsequent investigation revealed a ton of safety issues that had been glossed over or ignored in order to open the mine in a Conservative cabinet minister’s district.
I hope the remaining miners can get out alive. And if this is a case of a negligent mine owner that ignored warning signs, nail them to a wall.
Skepticat
As Tommy says, coal’s cheap only once it’s producing electricity. It’s too much to hope that it might lead to some safety or enforcement improvements. I hold the families and the community in my heart.
Ash Can
Simply horrific. Condolences to all involved.
And for God’s sake, let’s see safety regs get tightened. Lisa K. is absolutely right; Ronald Reagan started a now-30-year war against the American worker. It’s about goddamned time this nation figured out who the real enemies were.
SiubhanDuinne
John, this is heartbreaking and infuriating. I was up most of the night, and every time I refreshed the NYT story, the death toll had crept up. I am sick at heart for the families and all West Virginians, but every one of us shares in this tragedy the way we did on 9/11 or Katrina.
Blankenship and Massey are criminally negligent, and those fines are a joke. I hope the Obama administration can start to reverse the anti-regulatory, anti-worker abuses of the past 30 years and at least put in penalties with some teeth in them.
John, my condolences to everyone in WV.
PeakVT
It’s too much to hope that it might lead to some safety or enforcement improvements.
Never say never.
MikeTheZ
@ Ash Can:
Gotta love how it’s CLASS WARFARE! when the rights and safety of the working man are involved, but good business when its giving lovely perks to the rich.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
Good luck tilting at that windmill.
I just finished reading the only biography, to date, of Frances Perkins, FDR’s Sec of Labor. The writer is an ex Postie and you can tell the exceedingly average writing quality. But I digress.
It’s sad reading it because you see how screwed the worker has been in this country since Day 1. The New Deal was a breath of fresh air which makes growing up in Reagan’s America that much more galling since one observers how the right has systematically gutted not only the statutes that might have prevented this accident from happening but making the philosophy behind it somehow, well, bad.
JenJen
It’s an absolutely horrible, and infuriating, situation. My heart just breaks for those families, and the people of West Virginia.
CynDee
Everyone, but especially those of us whose homes are powered by coal-fueled utilities are newly reminded that we can choose to be part of the problem or part of the solution.
For the West Virginia miners and their families, we are too late. Let’s not be too late again. Call out the perpetrators in any legal way you can, do it loudly, and keep doing it.
For decades our government and our corporations have little regard for the common good. We must use our brains and our resources to challenge them.
BR
I was thinking about this last night: we really need to shut down every coal plant and every coal mine in the country – really, in the world.
But what do we do for coal states and all the people employed in the industry?
I hope we as a society figure this one out soon, because the future of our biosphere depends on it.
madmommy
God, this is just awful. Three members of one family! I suppose that’s not an uncommon scenario given that in many parts of the state mining is the only paying gig in town. I shouldn’t be shocked to realize this, but when these tragedies happen it points out anew that these workers and their families are truly screwed. The jobs are in the mines, people need to feed their families, and the bosses know this. The bosses also know that they can cut corners then pay the fines when disaster strikes.
Sickening.
Pigs & Spiders
Every time something like this happens it makes me so incredibly grateful for the fact that I was not born into a life where the options were the mine or no money. Coal should be the most expensive fuel on Earth, and the reason it isn’t is because these men are treated like shovels and not human beings.
someguy
Massey Energy president Don Blankenship is a bigtime Repuke donor. So I’m shocked, shocked to find that his mine got away with tons of violations in the Bush years yet didn’t get shut down.
Gaze on the face of evil.
BLANKENSHIP, DON BELFRY,KY 41514 MASSEY ENERGY 9/26/04 $5,000 West Virginians for Life
BLANKENSHIP, DON BELFRY,KY 41514 MASSEY ENERGY/CHAIRMAN 4/15/08 $2,300 Gilmore, Jim (R)
BLANKENSHIP, DON BELFRY,KY 41514 MASSEY ENERGY/CHAIRMAN 4/15/08 $2,300 Gilmore, Jim (R)
BLANKENSHIP, DON BELFRY,KY 41514 MASSEY ENERGY / COAL/CHAIRMAN 11/9/09 $1,000 Rogers, Mike (R)
BLANKENSHIP, DON L BELFRY,KY 41514 MASSEY ENERGY CO./CORPORATE EXECUTI 6/6/08 $2,300 Inhofe, James M (R)
BLANKENSHIP, DON L BELFRY,KY 41514 MASSEY ENERGY CO./CORPORATE EXECUTI 6/6/08 $1,000 Inhofe, James M (R)
BLANKENSHIP, DON L BELFRY,KY 41514 MASSEY ENERGY CO./CORPORATE EXECUTI 6/6/08 $-1,000 Inhofe, James M (R)
BLANKENSHIP, DONALD L MR BELFRY,KY 41514 MASSEY ENERGY CO./CHAIRMAN & CEO 11/17/09 $30,400 National Republican Senatorial Cmte (R)
TomG
Look, I’m a libertarian, but seeing as how mining is already regulated, I don’t understand why it’s unreasonable to expect that after a 2nd violation, the company would be forced to CLOSE DOWN until it fixed all violations – with FULL PAY for the miners of course. This business about fines? sad, and absurd.
Go on, tell me this is politically impossible due to too much influence the companies have over politicians – but it would make more sense than the present system.
And also, I’d expect WV governors to try to find alternatives to mining to help their state break free of such dependence.
Yes, I’m an idealist, sue me.
MarkusB
This is terrible. My condolences. I hope we as a species can work out a better relationship with coal, and the earth in general.
TomG
– “alternatives to mining” by which I mean, other industries to come into the state (I haven’t researched this too much, admittedly) to reduce dependence on the mining as primary source of state incomes.
Violet
Very sad. Coal mining is such a dangerous business and companies like Massey make it much more so. There should definitely be severe consequences.
I saw some of the unsafe mining situations when I lived in WV and it’s tragic. The economy is such that often it’s the only game in town. How else are you going to feed your family?
Three members of one family. So awful. My heart breaks for them.
khead
It makes me grateful that I listened to my family and got the hell away from the mines. See donnah @ #3.
Punchy
Too bad it’s like Page 7C material on most websites (Yahoo leads with basketball instead)
Anya
I am saddened by this terrible tragedy. My heart goes out to all the victims, their families, friends and their community.
I am hoping AC360 will do as good a job as he did in Katrina and show why this happened. WV, and those who lost so much because of the greed and callousness of Massey Energy should be enraged that this company was allowed to run despite all the documented safety violations.
Linda Featheringill
To MikeTheZ:
It is only “class warfare” when we fight back.
geg6
Massey is well known in the region as a company that cares nothing at all about safety. In addition, this is a non-union mine. The UMW has sent their disaster crews in, despite the fact that none of their members are involved. Gawd, the lives of coal miners are really worth nothing at all as far as the Masters of the Universe are concerned.
My mother’s family were all coal miners, from the Johnstown area. My grandfather (and, by extension, my grandmother) was considered the great success of both sides of the family (the Schnells and the Foleys) because he got out of the mines, got trained in bricklaying, and got a job building furnaces in a steel mill. Says a lot about how horrible, dangerous, and downright soul destroying coal mining must be if they considered the dangerous, dirty work of building and maintaining open hearth furnaces was considered the pinnacle of success.
flukebucket
If only Blankenship could be convinced that the mines were a womb and the lives inside them were precious.
Maude
Condolences to all of the loved ones of the miners.
Massey has been fined. That didn’t work.
I think that unless there are criminal penalties for unsafe work places, this will continue.
There was a lack of ventilation in the mine.
I sometimes hear the mine report for some of the mines in WV. I hear it this a.m. at 5:58. The named mines were open for regular operation.
Part of the problem is the politicos and uper crusties believe that they are better than the rest of us.
If you are blue color, well, then you are less than the white collar types, like the bankers.
No matter what happens to Massey now, it doesn’t bring back those miners.
SiubhanDuinne
@someguy:
Blankenshit gave money to James Inhofe? Wow, there’s a shocker.
T.R. Donoghue
I wrote about it last night, thinking back to my few months working at MSHA. I’m still in shock. Horrible, tragic news. God Bless the families.
Xboxershorts
Blankenship bought himself a Supreme Court Judge in WV too, and was a major funder of Citizen’s United. Does that organization sound familiar to anyone here?
ksmiami
Arrest the CEOs / COOS responsible- they have given us no choice – and I am a capitalist
Citizen_X
You know what has a proven record of improving safety in coal mines? Fucking UNIONS.
As the old Wobbly saying goes, don’t mourn, organize.
Attaturk
Here is BLANKENSHIP in his FLAG-SHIRT, FLAG-HAT, TED NUGENT LOVING AND SCREAMING GLORY.
This guy needs to be the poster-child of all that is fucked up with greedy right-wing self-described libertarians.
He’s Glenn Reynolds wet-dream of a douchebag.
Chris Johnson
No, really, it’s not. It’s the most obvious thing in the world you could want. Possibly getting these things is more awkward, but don’t you dare scold me for WANTING all of the above, like I shouldn’t even think along those lines.
(yeah, I know, that was despair and not you telling me what to think, but seriously- when the most RIGHT ANSWER is off the table, it’s your head that’s wrong, not the world)
David in NY
Bone and blood is the price of coal,
Bone and blood is the price of coal.
The Springhill Mine Disaster
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wQYdmqK6Tk
Emma
I haven’t gotten to grief yet. This has made me so angry that I can’t stop thinking about it. I can’t help thinking that we now know the price of the lives of those men: a total of less than $200,000. If you want to be generous and add all the unpaid fines, then they were worth less than a million dollars in the aggregate. Jesus wept.
The stupidest thing that ever happened in this country was the extension of “personhood” to corporations. It simply means that people like that bastard can sidestep all the consequences of his actions. If we’re going to change something, IMO, it would be making the executives directly responsible and accountable when something like this happens.
someguy
Emma, I’m with you. Corporate officers and employees should be held personally liable for everything they fuck up. No doubt about it, people would be a little bit more careful.
ksmiami
Hopefully Obama could use this as a teachable moment??? Like – there is a reason for safety standards and promoting the general welfare and stuff (oh and it IS in the Constitution)
ksmiami
also, is there a fund for the miners for donations???
Svensker
Just wanted to repeat that because it is so right.
Poopyman
Hard times, again.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
The worst fears realized for those living in the coal fields of Appalachia. They live a hard life and make a dangerous living in areas with little else to offer but going down into the mines. Condolences to the families.
scav
might also make sense to look for a place to donate to those organizations fighting for better safety regulations. Or set up a donation for for such orgs. in the name of the lost miners.
Bill H
Time for recrimination will come later. Right now is the time to feel for the brotherhood of men and women who go daily into the bowels of the earth to supply the nation’s need for energy. Yes, that need may be excessive, it may be greedy, but it is real, and the men and women who labor to fill it are unsung heros. They have suffered a loss, and as their labor has served our need all these many years, we share that loss.
Walker
Blankenship needs to be sued into oblivion for this one. Hopefully the families get a competent lawyer.
Waynski
@Bill H — This.
scav
Bill H — Yes, but Multitask. Grief and compassion are shown in a lot of different ways. Some pat you on the arm, some bring hotdish and some go wrastle and yell at the paperwork until all the confusing and innane details are dealt with.
Paul L.
Remember when the nutroots blamed Republicans for the last mine disaster?
Conservative consequences at coal mines
Xenocrates
I believe Mr. Blankenship and his colleagues have furnished us with an “instructional moment” as to exactly why we need to have solid, tough safety regulations in this country. He is still laboring under the misconception that the lives and health of his workers is secondary to making a profit. Asshole. Please explain to the families of the dead how important it is to just ‘run coal.’ Hmmm, could he possibly be a Republican? Just wondering….
Alice Blue
@Emma: You said it better than I ever could.
Barbara
A coal miner’s granddaughter here — my grandfather was desperate for his children to do something else. Unlike in many places in West Virginia, that was a lot more possible just a few miles to the north, in southwestern Pennsylvania. My father mined only for summer jobs while in college. A vivid memory of my childhood is the Mannington disaster, where 78 miners died before Christmas, 1968. 19 bodies were never recovered. I think these employers who essentially cheat safety should be criminally tried. It is ridiculous that they are allowed to risk the lives of their employees day after day.
Another vivid memory was the brutal fight for control of the UMW, including the hiring of a hit man by one candidate for UMW president to kill the other, along with his wife and daughter.
pika
This is so devastating, John, and I am so sorry.
CaseyL
My deepest sympathy to everyone in WV, and particularly to the families and friends of the miners.
Mining isn’t safe, and can’t be made safe (short of replacing everyone with robots) but for the love of god it can be safer than it is.
The Obama Administration is already busier than a one-armed paperhanger, so the leadership on this would have to come from Congress. I don’t know the WV delegation at all, other than Byrd, so can someone who is tell us who is reachable on this issue?
PTirebiter
I remember watching a senate mine safety hearing a few years back where the mining execs got up and walked out. It was pathetic and infuriating to see them ignore Arlen Specter as he spit and sputtered in protest. Their arrogance was beyond belief. I don’t know if it’s still available, but Harlan County USA, is a gut wrenching documentary about striking coal miners.
Liz
My mom’s family were coal miners in PA. I remember being really scared to go there as a kid, because the land was literally mutilated-it disturbed me. My great uncles died from the health consequences of mining.
Such a horrible tragedy, for earth and human alike. It’s times like these that re-affirm my abidence in karma.
BruceK
Yeah, that pesky bit about promoting the general welfare. What would George Washington have thought about it? We’ll never know. It’s not like, oh, he endorsed the Constitution which had that written right into its preamble or something.
(And where in the Constitution does it say anything about the gubmint taking a dag-blamed census? Er, other than Article freaking One?)
Genine
My thoughts and condolences to the people of West Virginia.
Lisa K.
I don’t really agree with that, because later, as things get back to normal and mining people push out of their minds just how dangerous this work is so they can continue to do it every day, the urgency will not be there and nothing will come of it. The time to strike for better safety and more accountability is when the iron is hot, and it is never hotter than the day after something like this.
Police do not wait for the funeral to end before they start looking for the murderers.
tim
My sympathies to the families of these men.
Who knew that when you dig toxic, poisonous materials out of the ground on a massive scale, bad things might happen?
This will be a big story, then it will fade, the mining will continue, and in a while there will be another big explosion or cave in. And then everyone will act sorry and sad and upset again.
It blows my mind that anyone would spend their working days in pitch black holes beneath the ground. These workers are brainwashed into thinking their other options are hopeless out of reach, so down into the holes they go, generation after generation.
HRA
My condolences to the families of those lost in this disaster. As been said here by many something needs to be done in order to not have this happen again.
Xboxershorts
Ludlow:
Lattimer:
Morewood:
Columbine:
In all these instances, Miner’s are always striking for an improvement in conditions.
Don Blankenship ignores his own industry history by refusing to address safety issues and conditions in mines his company operates.
There’s a reason these unions exist Don and to ignore their sacrifice, as you have chosen to do, is negligent in every sense of the word.
I am hopeful Mr Blankenship will someday face criminal homicide charges for his willfull disregard for the value of his employees.
God Bless the good folks of Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Colorado and elsewhere who, everyday, put their lives on the line to “run the coal”.
Mike Jones
If corporations are now to be regarded as persons, why can’t they be charged with (at least) manslaughter in cases like this?
SiubhanDuinne
@CaseyL #68: Byrd’s too old and sick to take this on, but Jay Rockefeller could make me like him a lot more than I do at the moment if he were to approach mine safety issues with the laser-like intensity and fire-in-the-belly passion that Ted Kennedy brought to HCR. The leadership on this by rights *should* come from WV or another coal state, but I’d take it wherever I found it.
artem1s
it is an unfortunate that high oil prices will often lead to opening up the ‘less’ safe mines. The coal industry always ramps up production when other fuel costs go up and almost always there is a rash of mine disasters to go with it. I want more than anything to wean the US off of oil but it troubles me when Congresscritters start pushing ‘clean coal technology’. The mining communities get caught in a good news/bad news scenario. More $/more dead.
It’s something to keep in mind when we are having conversations about transitioning to new energy sources.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mike Jones 76:
Absofuckinlutely! How about it, SCOTUS? Hey?
DBrown
Terrible and I am so saddened and angry for the needless deaths – profits takes precedence over lives as any CEO knows and Regan believed so strongly in and silver spoon up his ass shrub encouraged; worse, today’s supreme court that is controlled by bushwhack’s moron ass lickers (and bush the first (and god only knows, should have been the last) uncle tom selection) can give more rights to a corporation than to people. Pigs.
Karen S.
Great-granddaughter of a coal miner here… My great granddad (on my mom’s side) died of black lung. He took my great uncle down in the mines in WV to work and I’m told my great uncle hated it. He never went back and was fortunate enough to find other work. Subsequent generations of men in my mom’s family never set foot in a coal mine if they could help it.
I feel some grief now for those miners today in WV and also loads of anger at the corporations that are allowed to get away with treating their workers like chattel.
Leelee for Obama
My step-Grandfather was a coal miner-he died in 1941 of pneumonia, caused no doubt, by black lung. His family was from Carbondale, PA. Somewhere in my Mom’s things is a heart made of anthracite, polished to look like onyx. It always made me sad to think something that beautiful could be so deadly. I am not one to rail against using what we have for energy until we establish newer, better renewable fuels, but there is no reason that coal mines should still be as dangerous as they are. The mining companies have gotten away with murder, literally, for centuries, and if we must still depend on coal for some time to come, they should be forced to make the process safer.
Tommy
If the “cost” of human lives and environmental damage were included in the “cost” of coal, it would no longer be a cheap commodity.
David in NY
Coal is cheap. Would it still be cheap if took steps to avoid killing a few miners every year to produce it? Anyone know?
Phoebe
That memo is f-d up. Stuff like this makes me hate people. Just last night my mom sent me this nyt article, “School Law Clinics Face a Backlash” – you know, because they are partially subsidized by the state, and yet they sometimes sue the state for failing to regulate industries that poison its citizens. This makes the clinics “counterproductive to states’ interests”.
This makes me dizzy.
El Cid
A lot of you folks are sounding like early 20th century soshullists and dissatisfied mineworker radicals. Better quit it.
The Moar You Know
Somewhat less cheap. And although one fatality is too many, I might point out that in China, where minimal attention, at best, is paid to miner safety, there were over 2500 people killed mining coal last year.
This is an improvement from the over 6000 that were killed in 2006.
Cain
@TomG
You’re a lousy libertarian, TomG. :) That would require government interference and not allowing market forces to do their magic. We all know that’s how a market driven forces work.
I have a friend who is so enamored of this philosophy that it just drives me nuts because it isn’t real life.
cain
Citizen_X
@David in NY:Sorry to post-whore, but here I wrote, about Blankenship’s memo:
An alternative way to control costs is to plan mine production, safety, and reclamation together from the very beginning. Then you can ask yourselves, “How can we do this as efficiently as possible?” The more efficient you are, the cheaper and more effective all you efforts become.
“Enlightened” companies might do this on their own. But to have it done reliably, by all companies, we need tighter regulations.
merrinc
I left WV in the mid 80s after growing up in a coal mining family. Lost one grandfather to black lung and an uncle to a coal tipple accident. When No. 9 exploded in Farmington in 1968, I was in the third grade. I ran home from school crying because I couldn’t remember which mine my dad worked in and I was terrified that it was No 9. Turned out Dad didn’t work there (he would drop dead of a cerebral hemorrhage in Consol #20 seven years later). One of my mom’s cousins wasn’t so lucky but at least his family recovered the body.
Every time a mine accident in WV happens, I remember what it was like to be a frightened kid, sick with the fear of learning the worst news ever. My heart aches for the families of all the miners.
Oh, and god damn Don Blankenship’s black heart.
Bob K
A 2005 Associated Press story stated that Blankenship has given millions to the community, [28] and included a quote from Matewan Depot Restaurant owner Donna May, “Don Blankenship is one of the best friends Matewan has ever had … Everybody talks about this mean ogre and ‘Oh, he’s so dirty,'” May said. “Well, excuse me, there’s a lot of things about Don that people just don’t see.” [29]
Blankenship has often been quoted saying, “it doesn’t matter whether you’re hated or not. All that matters is that you do the right thing.” (not without a sense of humor)
I guess the man is just a product of his environment.
Matewan is a town in Mingo County, West Virginia, USA at the confluence of the Tug Fork River and Mate Creek. The population was 498 at the 2000 census.
Google Matewan WV for more cheerful facts
shaun
West Virginians — at least those who don’t arrive at its universities, stay for a few years to play varsity sports and then move on without graduating — are caught between a rock and a hard place on this one.
Closing Massey’s mines would be devastatingly economically, and losing a father, brother or uncle every few years because of an accident in an under regulated industry with political ties out the wazoo is a price that West Virginians have had no other choice but to pay.
Elizabelle
Some great comments here.
You know that the Blankenship, Massey and coal’s defenders are going to say that “you” (aka “we”) demand the energy they produce. They’re just doing this for us. We’re complicit in our energy needs.
I wish we could do a “Power Down for Mine Safety” day or weekend or week or fortnight.
Conserve as much energy as possible, be off the grid as much as possible. (Yeah, even the intranets.)
Our country is an energy glutton, and most of us don’t pay the price with our lives, or our loved ones’ lives and health.
Soldiers in the Middle East, miners in Appalachia. They serve at peril so that we can feast on cheap energy.
West Virginia is so beautiful. I wish there were other and better jobs for her citizens. Is a puzzle.
Mnemosyne
So how long before Rush Limbaugh and his merry band of assholes start blaming the miners for “carelessness” and whining about the poor, poor CEO who was let down by his workers?
geg6
Barbara @66:
Hey! Another Western Pennsylvanian here at BJ? Where?
As for the murder of Jake Yablonski, his wife, and his daughter, I remember that well. A hit ordered by his rival, former UMW president Tony Boyle. Did you know he never actually was sent to prison until 1978?
The hit happened on New Year’s Eve in 1969, Boyle was convicted the first time in 1974, the conviction was overturned on appeal, and he finally got put in the slammer almost 10 years after the killings.
mike in dc
Rewrite the damn regs to criminalize repeated failures, and when something like this happens, hold the whole line of leadership responsible and put their butts in the federal pen.
Or at least rewrite the labor laws to make it easier for these guys to unionize and/or for their unions to be more effective in winning safety concessions.
geg6
In the world of coal mine operators, no one is clean. But Massey is the worst among the bad:
http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2010/04/ceo-of-massey-energy-in-2003-violations.html
asiangrrlMN
My heart goes out to the families of the miners and to the entire state of West Virginia. Anger, sadness, and despair all rolled up in one. More later.
Bill H
Yes, Lisa, let’s not wait for any actual facts before we start placing blame. The event was yesterday, in the depths of the earth and unseen by any of us. No one who was there has spoken of it yet, and we do not know what actually happened, but by all means now is the time to be placing blame, calling names, and throwing accusations around.
Mnemosyne
Bill, you were asking for some facts?
Yes, by all means, let’s not point fingers at a company that not only was cited and fined for repeated safety violations, but was specifically cited for “poor ventilation of dust and methane, failure to maintain proper escape ways, and the accumulation of combustible materials” just last month. After all, how were they supposed to know that their mine could explode just because they were repeatedly warned that it was currently in a condition that could lead to an explosion?