(EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the last part of a three-part serial that tells the story of what happened during America’s worst mining disaster in nearly two decades.)
BROOKWOOD, Ala. — Gas was slowly gathering in the mine’s Four Section. A half-hour after the first explosion, it was once again a powder keg, the Associated Press reported.
By now, three miners from a neighboring work area had made their way to Four Section and reached Gaston Adams Jr., the lone man who had been too badly injured to make it out.
Bit Boyd and four men who joined him along the way were in two manbuses, approaching the entrance to Four Section. Just behind them, about a quarter of a mile back, 11 more miners gathered to decide what to do.
Ricky Rose was there with seven others from his “belt crew.” Dave Blevins was there with two men he had found spraying tunnels with flame retardant. Many miners felt the company had been scrimping lately on fireproofing material, a charge the company denied.
Blevins, one of the No. 5 mine’s most respected foremen, took charge.
He sent Rose and three others off to find a telephone and alert the control room that three injured men were on their way out. And he asked for volunteers to go with him to fight the fire they believed was burning in Four Section.
Immediately, three men from the belt crew jumped on the bus.
Leaving three miners behind to await Rose’s return, Blevins and his three volunteers drove toward danger, Boyd’s group already on the move ahead of him. Now a dozen men were inside Four Section or approaching the entrance.
Rose had ridden about two minutes, searching for a telephone, when he bumped into a crew coming from the mine’s main production area. They needed to go help fight the fire, Rose told them. The longwall crew couldn’t believe what they were hearing. The control room, they said, had just ordered them to evacuate.
Rose didn’t know what to make of that. Seconds later, out of the corner of his eye, he saw dust swirling straight toward him down the tunnel.
Four Section had exploded again, 50 minutes after the first blast, this time much more powerfully. Flames at 2,500 degrees barreled through the section at 900 feet per second. At the spot of ignition, the blast tore out a crater 50 long and 30 feet deep.
Eight men – the three who had first reached Adams and Boyd’s group of five – were hurled through the air. A 1,500 pound rock landed on Adams.
A ball of fire rushed over the eight men so quickly that it barely burned them, but it consumed all the oxygen in the section.
Lying there in the darkness, in a fierce rain of debris and coal dust, all eight suffocated.
At the entrance to the section, a manbus carrying Blevins and two of his volunteers was blown off its tracks. When it slammed back down, Blevins was crushed. Then the fireball rushed past, sucking the oxygen from the air, killing the other two.
The fireball rolled on through the tunnels, setting equipment on fire and seeking an outlet. It found an air shaft, rocketed 2,100 feet up and lighted the evening sky. By diverting the fireball, the shaft saved Rose.
Around him, Rose heard men yelling to get out. He felt his way back to the manbus and flipped on the headlight switch. The soot was so thick that he couldn’t tell if it was working. As others piled on, he grabbed the gas lever and raced toward the mine entrance.
A few hundred yards closer to the blast, the three men who had been waiting for Rose to return scrambled to their feet. Holding onto one another, they felt their way along the tracks in pitch darkness for 15 minutes before finding clean air.
There they encountered a miner just arriving from another part of the mine. The control room operator had told him a ventilation wall had fallen and sent him to help, he said. The others ordered him to go back the way he came.
It took Rose and his group 20 minutes to reach the elevator shaft. It was 6:30 p.m., and the elevator cage was still up top.
Rose grabbed the telephone: “You got people on the bottom that’s scared to death and want to come out.” He called three times before the cage came.
Rescuers enter the mine
The mine’s rescue team interviewed the 19 miners who escaped to learn what they were dealing with. Of the 32 men who had been working the shift, 13 were still inside.
About 8 p.m., rescuers entered the mine. They found Raymond Ashworth, Blevins’ third volunteer, near the Four Section entrance. He was conscious but burned from the top of his head to the soles of his feet.
At 11:30 p.m, he was evacuated from the mine and flown to a hospital. The next day, he died.
At the entrance of Four Section, the searchers found the bodies of Blevins and his two other men. The methane concentration was high. So was carbon monoxide, indicating that the section was still burning.
About 6:30 a.m., with no hope of finding more survivors, the rescue team pulled out.
That morning, the mine was flooded to put out fires raging in the tunnels. On Nov. 2, more than five weeks after the explosion, searchers recovered three bodies at the entrance to Four Section. Six days later, the last nine bodies were found.
Questions abound
The mine reopened in mid-December.
Today, there are still more questions than answers: Should more have been done to fix the roof in Four Section before the accident? Had the company been dealing adequately with the mine’s gas problems? Why were so many men directed to a section of the mine that had already exploded once? The federal Mine Safety and Health Administration has investigated but has not completed its report.
But the agency has admonished the mine owner, Jim Walter Resources, for having “no responsible person who took control of the situation” during the accident. The agency also declared the mine’s firefighting plan inadequate.
The company declined to comment on firefighting procedures, citing the pending investigation. But the mine’s firefighting plan has been revised to improve coordination.
In recent months, the mine has been cited for numerous violations, including accumulations of coal dust, ventilation problems and inadequate roof support.
The Bush administration’s new budget calls for a 5 percent cut in funding for the MSHA’s coal mine enforcement. Experts say that could mean fewer inspectors.
In September, 1,000 miners, family members and company officials marked the first anniversary of the accident by erecting a memorial.
Ten of the 13 families that lost breadwinners have filed wrongful-death lawsuits against the company, alleging negligence.
Jim Walter Resources denies it was negligent and characterizes the accident as unforeseeable.
Rose, the miner who prayed as he headed toward Four Section after the first explosion, is among those who have gone back underground. It’s the only work he knows.
After the mine reopened, he went to the spot where his crewmates’ bodies were found, knelt in the coal dust and wept.