Whispering Down The Lane

Dear God, what a way to have to return to this.

Before I say another word, I wish to extend my deepest and most heartfelt sympathies to the families and friends of the victims of this disaster. They need our support at this time more than anything else.

That having been said, however, I should point out that I just saw West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin interviewed on MSNBC, and the reporter (I don’t think it was Kyra Phillips – I didn’t hang around long enough to find out) basically asked him why the families of the miners weren’t notified as to their status in as up-to-date a manner as possible, and Manchin gave this rambling answer which, as far as I’m concerned, communicated to me that there was so much confusion that he didn’t know. I think Manchin is a good, hard working man who, basically in this situation, was in completely over his head.

I think the main question is who knew what, and when, between the hours of 11:45 (when the East Coast papers had to go to print with the news that the miners were alive, which had been confirmed by Manchin) and 2:45, when the families were told that the miners were dead. Based on Manchin’s answer to MSNBC, I believe that he and his people weren’t controlling the flow of communication on this in any kind of professional manner.

(To digress briefly, let me point out that, though you KNOW how I feel about Bushco if you have any familiarity with this site at all, you probably also know that I have a grudging admiration for the way that they control the words and pictures of news events, seeing as how many of them have backgrounds in public and media relations. The problem is that they do this primarily for propaganda purposes. Manchin could have used some of them to manage the information related to this disaster.)

Also, anyone who has any familiarity with working in a hospital knows how important it is to have a disaster plan and a command and control center that truly manages everything. The friends and relatives in the church should NOT have found out the status of their loved ones from cell phone calls from inside the mine (and by the way, how dumb is it to be calling from a cell phone from two miles beneath the earth when an inadvertent electromagnetic charge of some kind could have sparked a wholly other disaster? How prudent is it to be using these communication devices in such tight quarters?). They should have found out EVERYTHING from the command and control center and no place else (actually, I don’t think those at the command and control center knew how to substantiate the information that they had and, apparently, just communicated everything – it’s hard to hold back when you have people pleading to know how their loved ones are doing, but that’s part of the job unfortunately). I think this had a lot to do with the miscommunication surrounding this tragedy.

We have quite a bit of experience in Pennsylvania with mining disasters, by the way. This link takes you to information on the Quecreek mine accident in 2002. One thing I remember the most about that is how excruciating it was to know that the men were trapped, but we really didn’t know anything for the duration of the three days (nothing could be confirmed, anyway). That was necessary, though. Now granted, there were very different circumstances involved here, the biggest of which being that, with Quecreek, the biggest threat was water seeping into the mine, as opposed to carbon monoxide with this latest tragedy. Also, some of the miners had been able to warn others to get out at Quecreek. I don’t know whether or not there was time for anyone to be warned in this tragedy – we may know if Randal McCloy is ever revived, depending on his condition.

Update 1 1/4: Bravo Arianna! I hadn't given much thought to the reckless reporting behind this awful event, though I certainly acknowledge that no one is trying to "make hay" over it either.

Update 2 1/4: CNN has more...

Update 1/5: Why am I not surprised?

Another thing I remember about Quecreek is what a good job Mark Schweiker did of making sure all information and announcements were either approved by him or issued by him directly. For a Republican, I have to admit that he really stood tall, and to be honest, I don’t know if Ed Rendell would have beaten him in the gubernatorial election later that year had he decided to run based on his Quecreek performance. Mike Fisher, the Republican candidate who was pretty much a token, still swept the middle of the state (not surprising, given the fact that it is heavily rural composed of a lot of people who would sooner shoot themselves than vote for a Democrat) in a closer outcome than anyone expected.

By the way, Itsez has a good take on this today, along with why we should all support "Hillary-care" as the Repugs so derisively called it years ago when she and Bill ran things (speaking of the New York senator, Atrios, quite rightly, finds it hilarious that the No. 1 boogeyman - boogeyperson? - as far as the jackbooted conservative knuckleheads in this country are concerned is pretty much skating right now because the Repugs can't find anyone to run against her).