The front page of the Evening Herald, Pottsville, March 5, 1977, reporting on the mining disaster at the Porter Tunnel, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, which occurred on March 1, 1977. Articles from that edition of the newspaper follow here:
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HOPE TO RELEASE MINER BY SUNDAY
TOWER CITY, Pennsylvania (UPI) — For the past four days the blasting chatter of jackhammers and rhythmic clanking of picks into rock-hard anthracite coal has been the music of life for Ronald Adley.
The 37-year-old miner, trapped under Brookside Mountain since Tuesday when tons of water broke through a coal face deep in a Kocher Coal Company mine has been waiting for rescuers to break through to him.
At a news briefing this morning, John Shutack, a federal mine inspector, said Adley may not be reached until midnight. He said rescuers still had to chip through 16 feet of coal.
“The coal is very hard, and we’re only making four feet per 8 hour shift,” he said. He said bone like pyrite and quartz were hampering the drilling.
“He said to one of my men that he hoped to be out by Sunday,” said Shutack.
The rescue teams used jackhammers to cut through holes in the coal, then chopped away the excess with picks.
“The sounds of those drills and picks are music to him,” said a federal mine safety official.
Adley did not know that seven of his comrades were lost in the bowels of the shattered mine, or that a desperate wait on the surface for the miners’ SOS, a tap-tap-tap sound that would prove that they are alive — has been fruitless.
Adley has been subsisting on candy bars, coffee and vegetable soup passed through a thin pipe. His two pleasures were the knowledge he will be rescued — and a plug of chewing tobacco. His request for “some booze” was turned down.
Last Friday, the rescuers will had 21 feet of anthracite coal to chop through.
Federal officials said it would take well into the afternoon to free him from the small pocket he was trapped in.
“The attitude of the workmen trying to dig the tunnel is unparalleled,” said John Shutack, of the federal Mine Safety Enforcement Administration. “He knows the rate is slow. He’s a miner. He knows what is going on.”
Elsewhere on the mountain other rescue teams drilled holes down into Chute 18, where they planned to lower a television camera, microphone and loud speaker as a bid to locate the seven other miners.
John Morgan, 33, of Tower City, one of the miners who escaped the flood with a gash on the forehead requiring sutures at the Pottsville Hospital, said he and his cousin, Ernest Morgan, 50, of Valley View also hospitalized with cuts, were loading coal when they felt the sudden rush of air.
“At first I thought it was the concussion from a dynamite blast breaking a loose rush of coal,” said Morgan. “But Ernie hollered, ‘No, it’s water coming’ and we ran to a chute and crawled up 60 feet until we couldn’t go any higher.”
“As fast as we crawled the water came after us,” he continued. “I never thought it would come that high. I took one breath and I was upside down.”
Morgan said he clung to an air line along the passageway and got out of the water. His helmet was gone but his battery lamp was fastened to his belt and was working.
“I hollered for Ernie and heard him moan,” Morgan continued/ “I lost my equilibrium for a moment and didn’t know where I was or what happened.”
When the water subsided the two men were reached quickly by three miners who had been working at a higher level. Morgan joined on of the men in crawling down to the gangway and they made their way to the surface via an airway, while the other two men helped Ernest, who had swallowed a lot of water.
As for the seven missing men, Morgan said he has no way of knowing whether they were able to get into higher workings before the water overtook them.
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KLINGERS BURY THEIR ONLY SON
MABEL, Pennsylvania (UPI) — Earl Klinger and Betty Klinger buried their only son Friday, bidding him farewell in the tiny church of Christ in Christian Unity.
His name was Gary Lee Klinger, and he would have been 20 on March 16 [1977]. He was the first man to die when disaster struck Tuesday in the belly of a mountain 20 miles away.
Klinger was at the coal face loading anthracite when a wall of water swept through the main shaft of Kocher Coal Company’s Porter Tunnel near Tower City. He was the first body pulled from the mine.
The small wooden church standing dingy white against the grey of the winter day, was packed by family, coal miners, and friends who knew Klinger.
Many cried as Rev. Carl Swonger talked about the dead teenager.
“It was a snowy and blowy day a long time ago when I walked up on this ridge to open this church. I was going to turn around and walk away, but as I came around the corner, there was Earl and Betty and this boy,” he said.
“They were the first converts to this church.
Rev. John Clough talked about Gary Klinger too.
Klinger’s father, a tall rugged coal miner in a black suit, and his mother stood silently in the church. Young Klinger rarely missed services, Clough said.
“He was a regular attendant at our Sunday school from the time he was a little lad up to the time of his departure,” Clough said.
“Just last February he got an 11-year pin for faithful attendance. He was a young man who didn’t have a lazy bone in his body. He will be remembered not only by his loved ones, but by his friends.
The Clough shifted attention to the other miners trapped 5,000 feet into the Brookside Mountain. One is known to be alive, but seven are missing.
“We are merely creatures of time and each of us is heading for eternity,” he said. “Please remember the families of the others who are involved in this tragedy, and the families who wait in suspense for their comrades still in the mine. Help them to have strength.”
Pennsylvania Southeast Conference of United Church of Christ Minister Dr. John Shetler has designated Sunday as a “Day of Prayer” for the trapped miners.
The 218 congregations in the seven-county area will join in prayer for the miners, their families, and rescue workers. Individuals are also urged to continue personal prayer beyond Sunday.
In a letter to United Church of Christ churches in the Tower City area, Dr. Shetler wrote: “We share your concern and pain suffered in the mine disaster, and know the sense of pain and loss is overwhelming. We also know God shares with you in the heaviness of the great loss.”
The Southeast Conference presented a $2,000 gift to the Tower City area today. Local churches and individuals are encouraged to provide additional contributions which will be directed to the miners families. All money can be sent to Pennsylvania Southeast Conference, UCC, 620 Main Street, Box G, Collegeville 19426.
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From Newspapers.com.
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