On April 5, 2010, the day after Easter, a series of explosions rocked the Upper Big Branch mine near Montcoal in Raleigh County.
Twenty-nine men died, making it West Virginia’s worst mining disaster since 78 miners were killed at Farmington in 1968.
After the Upper Big Branch explosion, an independent investigation determined that sparks from a longwall miner had ignited a pocket of methane, setting off a chain of explosions that surged more than two miles through the mine.
The panel concluded that the explosions could have been prevented and that systems designed to protect the miners had failed. The report found that the mine’s owner, Massey Energy, had operated its mines in a “profoundly reckless manner.” The U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration reached similar conclusions, blaming the deaths on an “intentional and aggressive” effort by Massey to ignore safety rules.
The criticism of Massey eventually led to the resignation of company president, Don Blankenship. In 2016, Blankenship was sentenced to one year in prison for conspiring to willfully violate mine safety standards, largely in connection with the Upper Big Branch Disaster.
A federal appeals court has thrown out a lawsuit filed by the families of 78 men who were killed in a 1968 mine explosion in West Virginia.
The ruling Wednesday by the 4th U.S. Circuit Appeals affirms a 2017 ruling by a federal judge.
The men died after an explosion ripped through the Farmington No. 9 mine.
In a 2014 lawsuit, the families accused Consolidation Coal of fraudulently concealing key information that would have allowed them to file a wrongful-death lawsuit years earlier.
The 4th Circuit cited a West Virginia Supreme Court finding that the wrongful-death claim was barred by a two-year statute of limitations.
Attorney Timothy Bailey said the families are disappointed. He said “it’s a sad day” for the families and for “truth and justice.”
On December 30, 1969, President Richard Nixon signed into law the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act. Since the Monongah mine disaster in Marion County more than 60 years earlier, Congress had been passing laws to address coal mine safety. However, most were filled with loopholes or lacked funding for enforcement.
The tide turned after another Marion County disaster. The 1968 Farmington explosion killed 78 miners. Americans watched in horror as the drama unfolded on national TV.
After the disaster, Congressman Ken Hechler paid to bring hundreds of miners and the widows of the Farmington miners to protest at the nation’s capitol. Black lung doctors rallied miners in the coalfields and testified before Congress about unsafe mining conditions. And in the spring of 1969, 40,000 miners defied their union and went on strike to support the legislation.
The resulting law increased mine inspections; allowed the government to shut down unsafe mines; placed stricter limits on coal dust; improved ventilation, roof supports, and methane detection; and provided compensation to miners suffering from black lung. The landmark legislation ultimately led to a significant decrease in deaths from coal mining.
In 1969, the world’s attention turned upward to the Moon, as Neil Armstrong took humankind’s first momentous step off Earth onto another world.
But that year also saw momentous federal legislation spurred by a disaster that riveted the nation’s attention downward, hundreds of feet below the Earth and the hills of West Virginia.
The simply named Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act was enacted into law the day before New Year’s Eve in 1969. It ratcheted up federal mine inspections, toughened mine standards nationwide and gave miners safety and health benefits they’d never had before.
But the impetus was far from simple.
The year before, on Nov. 20, 1968, 78 miners died in the Farmington Mine disaster, when a series of explosions ripped through the Consolidation Coal Company’s No. 9 mine, north of Farmington and Mannington in Marion County.
While it may seem like ancient history, as the 50th anniversary of the No. 9 disaster is marked this month, its devastation and impact have never quite ended.
Ongoing legal action claims that evidence years after the explosions shows clear culpability on the part of the coal operator in a horrific disaster which continues to haunt families and the community.
‘They’re gonna blow the mine up.’
Smoke pours from Consolidation Coal Co.’s No. 9 Mine in Farmington, West Virginia, in November 1968. Seventy-eight miners died in the disaster, and 19 remain entombed underground. | Charleston Gazette Photo by LAWRENCE PIERCE
Joe Megna attended a yearly memorial Sunday in Farmington, situated around a tall black memorial built to remember the lost miners. The coal company erected the memorial atop the old mine as part of an agreement with the dead miners’ widows, who have lobbied, testified, sued and battled for years for redress from their families’ losses on that day.
Among the dead was Megna’s father, Emilio, a section boss. Emilio came to America with his family at age 3 from Italy. Like more than a few European immigrants, he ended up clawing coal out of seams deep below the surface of West Virginia, starting at 14 years old.
Megna said in the days before the mine blew, his father told him, his mother and his close friend Danny how alarmed he was by how the company operated No. 9.
“He told me and Danny and my mom, too, that they’re gonna blow the mine up. He said they’re not taking care of it,” Megna said.
There were high levels of the explosive gas methane, his father said, and the company was not routinely rock dusting — applying pulverized limestone to mix with coal dust to prevent explosions.
“He said, ‘I’ve never been scared in my life of the mines. But I’m really concerned,’” Megna recounted.
No death is more tragic than another from that day, but as Emilio descended into the mine that November night, it was surely with great anticipation.
It was to be the 48-year-old immigrant’s final eight-hour shift below ground. Emilio and his family, with help from Danny, were preparing for the grand opening of their new gas station in Worthington that Saturday and a job in the sunshine and fresh air.
At midnight, Emilio and 98 other men headed underground on a cold Autumn night for the midnight “cat-eye” shift. At about 5:30 a.m., a series of explosions tore through the underground mine complex.
The explosions blasted a plume of smoke more than 150 feet high from No. 9’s mouth, captured in an iconic photo by then-Charleston Gazette photographer Lawrence Pierce. The explosions were so powerful a motel clerk reportedly felt them 12 miles away in Fairmont.
A total of 21 miners got out, with several rescued via a crane dropping a hoist bucket into a shaft. But 78 remained trapped.
Media poured into the area as the fires burned for a week. CBS anchor Walter Cronkite and others reported nightly to the nation on the unfolding events while miners’ families crowded into the nearby company store for updates.
Yet nine days later, with the fires still burning, rescuers pulled back. Air samples from drill holes showed no breathable air below ground. In what must have been a terrifying sight to families, the mine was sealed with concrete on Nov. 30, 1968, to deprive the fire of oxygen.
Emilio Megna never made it to his grand opening. Yet more tragically, his body and those of 18 other miners remain entombed deep within No. 9 to this day.
It was not until September 1969 that the mine was unsealed to attempt to recover the dead, mining coal in the process. Cave-ins hampered the effort and the recovery dragged on for a decade. By April 1978, 59 families at least had the small comfort of burying their father, son, uncle, grandfather or friend.
But not Joe Megna and his family. The company finally abandoned efforts to retrieve the body of his father and the 18 other miners, thought to be below, or near, the site where the memorial stands today.
The ripples of that day fanned out in odd and disturbing ways, such as when Joe tried later to find work in the mines. He eventually did land a miner’s job, but Emilio’s death was seen as a red flag to coal operators.
“My dad was killed and they thought I’d be a radical troublemaker,” he said. “I just wanted a job to take care of my family.”
‘Never a closed case.’
Credit Jesse Wright / WVPB
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WVPB
The names of the miners who died during the disaster are etched into a monument in Mannington.
Bonnie Stewart, an investigative reporter and former West Virginia University journalism professor, spent three years researching her book, “No. 9: The 1968 Farmington Mine Disaster,” released in 2011.
Stewart, who now teaches in California, attended Sunday’s memorial out of respect for the families and to share an ongoing grief that has yet to be resolved.
“For these families, it was never a closed case,” Stewart said. “It still isn’t.”
Her book details in excruciating, often harrowing detail how and where each of the recovered miner’s bodies or remains were found and identified.
There is Albert Deberry, for instance. He was killed by poisonous gas and identified by his miner’s ID, wristwatch and wedding ring.
And roof bolter John F. Gouzd, 21, whose nephew, Joe Manchin, would later become governor of West Virginia and is a current U.S. Senator.
Gouzd was not the youngest man who died in the mine, though. Trackmen Randall Parsons was 19 years old. He had worked underground for just eight days.
Stewart’s book details the drama and heartbreak aboveground. How, for instance, Joe Megna dashed through snowy woods after grabbing some of his clothes from a sleepover at Danny’s house after word came that the mine had blown up.
Stewart’s book lays out in detail a pattern of dangerous conditions in No. 9, revealing a mine operation with a long and notorious history for lax standards and a credo of breakneck production over safety.
The book delves into records and testimony that show Consolidation Coal’s operation of the mine featured routine poor ventilation, high levels of coal dust and methane gas, and a failure to adequately test for methane.
The book traces evidence that an alarm on a key ventilation fan used to pull methane gas from the mine had been disabled before the explosion. The alarm would have would have shut off power to No. 9 and triggered an evacuation of all 99 miners that day.
That action, and the mine’s routinely poor conditions, yielded a catastrophe, Stewart said. “I think all of those things played out in No. 9. Then, you actually had someone dismantle a safety alarm.”
“That was totally preventable, and totally premeditated that somebody made the decision to do that,” Stewart said. “They’d wired around it so it wouldn’t go off.”
No one has ever been held legally to account for the No. 9 mine disaster, said Stewart.
“The federal government did not write a formal report until 20 years later. The West Virginia Department of Mine [Health and Safety] didn’t write any final report. It’s like they didn’t want to have to deal with it.”
‘Fraudulent concealment’
Credit Jesse Wright / WVPB
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WVPB
Union members attended the event and placed wreaths with black ribbons for deceased miners.
West Virginia attorney Timothy Bailey represents the miners’ families in an ongoing legal case that seeks to bring some closure and more compensation to the families, who received $10,000 settlements from the coal company (about $60,000 in today’s dollars).
Earlier this year, the families asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit to reinstate a wrongful death lawsuit filed in 2014.
In 2017, a federal judge threw out the case, saying the suit “brought 46 years after the explosion, is late by more than 44 years,” based on the fact wrongful death cases in West Virginia need to be filed within two years.
But Bailey has argued that it wasn’t until 2014 that the families learned the mine’s chief electrician had disabled the fan and a then, a few years later, his identity. Except for the company’s “fraudulent concealment” of the causes of the explosion and its hiding the electrician’s identity, the families could have filed the wrongful death case in time, he says.
The two-year limitation should be extended based on when the family learned of those concealed facts, said Bailey in a phone interview.
The Fourth Circuit sent the case back to the West Virginia Supreme Court to answer some questions on the application of West Virginia law, Bailey said. “We’re beginning the process of briefing those issues.”
“Once those questions are answered, you’ll pretty much know whether the appeal is going to be successful or not based on the answers to those questions,” he said.
Should the families prevail, a huge settlement would result, said Bailey, with damages accruing along with interest since the 1968 disaster. “It’s a very, very substantial figure.”
But who will be held responsible?
‘A red herring’
Credit Jesse Wright / WVPB
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WVPB
In 2013, the mining company — which through sale and mergers had become Consol Energy — sold some of its mines to Murray Energy, which took on legal liabilities from the old Consolidation operations, including the No. 9 mine.
Murray Energy has declined to comment on the claims made in the families’ attempt to revive the 2014 lawsuit, except to release a statement that said:
“Murray Energy did not even exist in 1968, when the accident occurred. There is no higher priority at Murray Energy than the health and safety of our coal miners.”
Bailey dismissed the statement as “a red herring.”
“When you take it all, you take it all,” he said. “That means you take the good with the bad.”
Murray Energy wants to assert “we didn’t do it,” said Bailey. “We’re not suing you because you did it. We’re suing you as the successors to the folks who did it.”
It is a half-century later, and the reverberations of the explosions at No. 9 continue to echo, Bailey said.
“Think of the ripple effect on brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, high school classmates, members of churches,” he said. “If you were to put a circle around the area that was impacted by this many deaths — it’s shocking how many people were impacted.
It’s “a horrible tragedy” when a community loses just one coal miner, said Bailey. “Here we have a community that lost dozens of coal miners.”
“And so, they’re hurting. The thing most human beings want is answers. You want closure.”
‘Never quite the same’
No. 9: The 1968 Farmington Mine Disaster by Bonnie E. Stewart
Stewart hopes her book and the ongoing efforts to aid the families offers some small consolation.
“I just hope a more thorough telling of what happened is helpful to them in some way,” she said.
The Coal Mine Health and Safety Act, with its nationwide spotlight on mining safety and the health of miners, is also a legacy of the loses from that day, she said.
“To me, it’s a community that will never be quite the same. But I do hope they find comfort in the fact the federal laws are stronger and that they actually know what happened. Even if they’ve been yet to date to really hold the company responsible.
“It’s a positive legacy for those who died. As sad as it is — and as so often happens— that you have to have something horrible happen before people are moved to make positive change.”
Douglas Imbrogno is a freelance writer and video feeature producer based in West Virginia. Contact him though his sit thestoryisthething.com and thewebtheater.com
Nearly half a century after an explosion tore through the Farmington No. 9 mine in West Virginia, the families of the 78 men who died there are still looking for justice.
Many of the children of the lost miners are now grandparents and older than their fathers ever were. Some have given up hope of ever holding anyone accountable for the disaster. But others are looking to a federal appeals court for some measure of closure.
On Wednesday, the families will ask the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reinstate a lawsuit they filed in 2014. A judge ruled the lawsuit was filed too late, but the families argue that the case should be allowed to move forward because they claim the mining company concealed the cause of the explosion for decades.
James Matish, then 14, remembers saying goodbye to his father, Frank, the same way he always did before his Dad left to work the “cateye shift” — midnight to 8 a.m. — on Nov. 20, 1968: “So long, Dad, don’t work too hard and be careful.”
Matish remembers his father’s reply — “See you tomorrow” — and then, the next day at school, being called out of class and seeing his mother standing in the hallway crying.
Five decades later, Matish is a 64-year-old Circuit Court judge whose voice still catches in his throat when he talks about his father.
“It’s something that’s never ended,” he said. “There’s always a question — at least in my mind — how long were they able to survive, whether they were killed outright — those are questions that will never be answered.”
The families say they tried for years to find out what caused the explosion and whether the mining company, Consolidation Coal, was responsible. They accuse the company of fraudulently concealing key information that would have allowed them to file a wrongful death lawsuit years earlier.
Last year, a federal judge threw out their 2014 lawsuit, saying the “suit, brought forty-six years after the explosion, is late by more than forty-four years.”
According to the lawsuit, it was not until 2008 when the families learned about a 1970 memo by an investigator who wrote that an alarm on a ventilation fan used to flush explosive methane gas from the mine was disabled the night of the explosion. The alarm was supposed to shut off power to the mine if the fan stopped, which would alert the miners to evacuate.
The suit says it wasn’t until 2014 when the families learned that the mine’s chief electrician had disabled the fan. It alleges that the company had concealed the electrician’s identity.
“Our position is that but for the fraudulent concealment of the facts, these folks could have filed and had a successful wrongful-death case,” said Timothy Bailey, a West Virginia lawyer who represents the families.
Bailey argues that the two-year limitation period on wrongful-death cases should be extended based on the families’ claims.
In court documents, lawyers for the mining company say problems with the mine’s ventilation fans became public knowledge a month after the explosion when multiple witnesses testified during public hearings that despite the alarm system, power to some areas of the mine sometimes did not automatically shut down as it was designed to do.
In 2013, the mining company sold five of its mines and its transportation division to Murray Energy Corp., which assumed certain liabilities from the former Consolidation operations, including the No. 9 mine.
A spokesman for Murray Energy declined to comment on the specific claims made in the lawsuit but released a statement.
“Murray Energy had absolutely nothing to do with the Farmington Mine disaster,” the statement said.
“Indeed, Murray Energy did not even exist in 1968, when the accident occurred. There is no higher priority at Murray Energy than the health and safety of our coal miners.”
As a result of the disaster, Congress passed the Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969, which increased federal mine inspections and toughened safety standards.
Mike Michael was 13, the oldest of five children, when his father, Jay, was killed in the explosion on his 44th birthday.
He remembers pleading to go into the mine to search for his dad, but his uncle stopped him. His father is one of 19 miners whose bodies were never recovered and are still trapped in the mine.
After his father died, his mother went back to school to become an X-ray technician so she could support her children. The family could not maintain the small sheep and cattle farm his father owned. Mike and his two brothers went into different branches of the service, a calling their father had urged them to follow.
“There was a huge hole,” the 62-year-old said. “Dad was everything to us.”
A federal judge in West Virginia has tossed out a lawsuit filed by relatives of 78 miners killed in a 1968 mine explosion.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports U.S. District Judge Irene Keeley in Clarksburg ruled Friday that laws at the time stipulated there was a two-year window to file a lawsuit after the disaster.
Former WVU professor Bonnie Stewart unearthed the memo and wrote a book called No. 9.: The 1968 Farmington Mine Disaster. NPR also aired her story about the mine disaster.
The latest lawsuit filed in 2014 was based on a federal mine inspector’s memo written two years after the explosion at Consolidation Coal Co.’s No. 9 mine in Farmington indicating an alarm had been disabled. The families, who earlier had received $10,000 from the company, said they did not find out about the memo until 2008.
The disaster led to passage of the federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act.
