No.9: The 1968 Farmington Mine Disaster

A Paralyzed Community

A Paralyzed Community Day 2: Thursday, November 21 No one went to school the day after the No.9 exploded. Marion County ’s 12 public schools closed. Many children joined their mothers and other relatives who gathered in the small red brick church nestled in a hollow not far from the company store. Their prayers drifted skyward all morning, moving beyond the steeple of the James Fork United Methodist Church, which would become the families’ refuge in the days to come. Two white candles flickered on the altar as the Rev. John Barnes told the people in the pews that God was with them. He asked them to sing “How Great Thou Art.” Some did. After a brief service, he invited people to kneel at the altar to pray. Many went forward. One young woman collapsed there. A miner picked her up. She cried into his chest, setting off more tears throughout the church. The hopelessness of the situation was becoming evident, even among the faithful. When the service ended, the weary crowd trudged back to the company store over the rugged dirt road and against the bitter winter wind. Some stopped to look toward the coal mine.1 At the store, the company issued emergency paychecks to the families, and the vigil continued. The Red Cross set up trailers and provided hot beverages. 11 A PARALYZED COMMUNITY 91 Throughout the day, reporters crowded into a storage room that had been cleared in the back of the company store. They came from the major television networks, the local stations, Charleston stations, and stations and newspapers from around the state and from neighboring states. Other news and news wire services—the Associated Press, United Press International, the British Broadcasting Corporation and Reuters—came, too. Two Associated Press photographers rented an airplane and shot the scene from the air. The local paper, ­­­­ The West Virginian, allowed the men to transmit their photographs to all parts of the United States, to London, Paris, Rome and numerous other cities. Within a day, the tragedy had become not only national but international news. The No.9 was the worst mine disaster since 1951, when a mine explosion killed 119 men in West Frankfort, Illinois. Writing for The New York Times, reporter Joseph A. Loftus told of the No.9’s long history of safety violations and the violations found in Red Cross volunteers were onsite after the explosion, serving hot beverages and snacks to those waiting outside the No.9 Mine. Photo by Bob Campione. 92 CHAPTER 11 most U.S. coal mines. The statistics were frightening. “Federal inspection records for 1967 show that 82 percent of the 5,400 underground coal mines were found in violation of the major provisions of the safety act,” he wrote.2 Loftus put the safety issue in context. Legislation that would have improved mine safety had failed to make it through Congress during the session that had concluded just before the No.9 disaster. The proposed law would have made the federal law effective, for the first time allowing the government to fine operators up to $1,000 per violation (equivalent to about $6,200 per violation in 2009).3 Ironically, Stewart L. Udall, U.S. Secretary of the Interior, who oversaw coal mine safety, followed the traditional political line. He said the proposed law would not have prevented the No.9 disaster. That may have been true: It would not have gone into effect soon enough to force Consol to make the No.9 safe. However, after an even tougher law was passed in 1969, as a direct result of the No.9 tragedy, mines were forced to become safer. Udall did take some of the blame: “I don’t think the industry people have done enough. I don’t think the labor unions have done enough. I don’t think my department has done enough.”4 No one, in fact, had made sure the No.9 was safe. And none of the groups—not Consol, not the West Virginia Department of Mines, not the U.S. Bureau of Mines and not the United Mine Workers of America—knew how to save the 78 men who were trapped inside the mountain. As televisions and newspapers carried the No.9 disaster into America’s living rooms, Congress recognized that the public no longer would tolerate the high human cost of producing coal. It also became clear...