Utah community rallies around miners’ families

Some want to dig their own rescue hole.

HUNTINGTON, Utah (AP) — Relatives of six men trapped in the depths of a mountain coal mine were once content to let their blustering mine boss speak for them.

But after Bob Murray offended them at several meetings, and now that he has said the rescue efforts will soon halt, the families have grown more comfortable going public with their outrage.

Now their community is coming to their aid, putting aside differences and putting up signs in front windows and on sandwich boards outside restaurants, begging the mine owner not to give up. One group has even floated the long-shot idea of digging a rescue hole of its own.

The federal government, which would have to give approval, has said it isn’t going to happen. But it captures the frustration of a community holding out hope that they can save the miners — or at least recover their bodies — despite appearances that those in power may have given up.

As for an independently dug rescue hole, “I don’t think we could entertain that sort of thing,” said Allyn Davis, who oversees Western operations for the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration. “It’s a safety issue, and I just don’t see that as a possibility.”

Mountain crumbling

The six men have been missing since the Aug. 6 cave-in that Murray, the Crandall Canyon Mine co-owner, insists was caused by an earthquake. Seismologists say the mountain is crumbling upon itself, bursting support pillars as it shifts in a phenomenon known as a mountain bump — something that killed three rescuers last week. No one has been allowed into the mine underground since then.

Officials have continued drilling narrow holes into the mountain to lower cameras to look for the men and test for breathable air. The sixth and final hole should be finished today. If there’s no sign of life, the search will likely be called off — the men sealed in the coal mine more than 1,500 feet beneath the surface.

But families and friends of the men have raised their voices, accusing Murray of abandoning a promise to find the men, dead or alive.

Some critics are calling for a hole dug to accommodate a person-size capsule that has been used in other mine rescues to pull people to the surface. But officials say the men are too far down, the mountain too unstable.

So messages of hope blanket store windows. And hardly a night passes without a fund-raising event for the families. Late this week, fliers appeared under car windshield wipers, stuffed in mail slots and hung in windows: “Leave No Man Behind,” they declared.