West Virginia University journalism professor’s research about the 1968 Farmington mine disaster was featured Nov. 19 on a National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered” segment.
P.I. Reed School of Journalism assistant professor Bonnie Stewart has been researching the disaster for more than a year. What she uncovered 40 years after the tragedy sheds new light on why 78 men died in the mine that fateful day.
Stewart found a memo that was written by a federal investigator several months after the explosion that points to one possible explanation as to why the men were not evacuated before the mine exploded: A safety alarm on a ventilation fan had been deliberately disabled.
That memo, which had been filed away, suggests that had the alarm been functioning, it would have signaled when a ventilation fan went down before the explosion, giving the 78 men time to evacuate.
After finding the memo, Stewart contacted Scott Finn, interim news director of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, and the two began producing the story for the NPR broadcast and Web site. Their collaboration can be accessed at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97115205.
“This is a very important story because it explains why 78 men died,” Stewart said. “For their families, it means a lot.”
Finn said the story is important to history and mine safety.
“It’s funny how history repeats itself,” he said. “The legacy of Farmington is a whole series of mining and safety laws that have made coal mining a lot safer than it was.
“You have to always be vigilant,” he added. “We in the media and mine safety community have to work together with the regulators to make sure they’re doing what they’re supposed to do.”
Stewart hopes the story will give family members who lost loved ones in the disaster some peace of mind. Finn said the story has at least answered some questions for the families.
Ninety-nine men were inside the mine when the early morning explosion occurred Nov. 20, 1968. Eight miners narrowly survived the blast by crawling to a first aid station where they located gas masks and breathing devices, enabling them to crawl to the bottom of an air shaft to eventually be rescued. In all, 21 miners escaped with their lives that day.