Three years ago this afternoon, an explosion tore through Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch Mine in Raleigh County, W.Va. Twenty-nine coal miners died and two others were seriously injured.
For many of us, it’s just another day. At best, it’s a time to revisit the disaster and ask questions about why more hasn’t been done to prevent another one — or to stop the needless one-by-one death of miners across the coalfields. All too soon, April 5 will be just another date marked on the long, disgraceful calendar of this nation’s record of preventable mine explosions, fires and other disasters. As Sen. Robert C. Byrd said after the previous disasters at Sago and Aracoma:
First, the disaster. Then the weeping. Then the outrage. And we are all too familiar with what comes next. After a few weeks, when the cameras are gone, when the ink on the editorials has dried, everything returns to business as usual. The health and the safety of America’s coal miners, the men and women upon whom the Nation depends so much, is once again forgotten until the next disaster.
But for those who lost loved ones, April 5 is now forever the day that they became a widow or an orphan, the day they lost their son or their best friend. Here’s the list of those men who died so needlessly three years ago today:
Carl Calvin Acord
Jason Atkins
Christopher Bell
Gregory Steven Brock
Kenneth Allan Chapman
Robert E. Clark
Cory Thomas Davis
Charles Timothy Davis
Michael Lee Elswick
William Ildon Griffith
Steven Harrah
Edward Dean Jones
Richard K. Lane
William Roosevelt Lynch
Joe Marcum
Ronald Lee Maynor
Nicholas Darrell McCroskey
James E. “Eddie” Mooney
Adam Keith Morgan
Rex L. Mullins
Joshua Napper
Howard D. Payne
Dillard Earl Persinger
Joel R. Price
Gary Wayne Quarles
Deward Allan Scott
Grover Dale Skeens
Benny Ray Willingham
Ricky Workman
And here’s a slideshow that the Gazette’s Doug Imbrogno previously put together with photos of all of the miners: