Hurricane Creek Mine Disaster
The Hurricane Creek mine disaster occurred on December 30, 1970, shortly after noon, and resulted in the deaths of 38 men. As was often pointed out in coverage of the disaster, it occurred a year to the day after the passage of the Coal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1969. Recovery was complicated by the fact that a foot of snow fell on the rural mountain roads at the time of the accident.
It was the most deadly mine disaster in the United States since the Farmington Mine disaster in 1968, and is the subject of Tom T. Hall's song, "Trip to Hyden". Another song about the disaster, "The Hyden Miners' Tragedy", by J.D. Jarvis, was issued as a 45 RPM on the independent Sunrise label (Hamilton, Ohio).
Read more about Hurricane Creek Mine Disaster: Mine Conditions, Disaster, Reaction, Disaster Aftermath
Famous quotes containing the words hurricane, creek and/or disaster:
“Thought and beauty, like a hurricane or waves, should not know conventional, delimited forms.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“The only law was that enforced by the Creek Lighthorsemen and the U.S. deputy marshals who paid rare and brief visits; or the “two volumes of common law” that every man carried strapped to his thighs.”
—State of Oklahoma, U.S. relief program (1935-1943)
“The opposition is indispensable. A good statesman, like any other sensible human being, always learns more from his opponents than from his fervent supporters. For his supporters will push him to disaster unless his opponents show him where the dangers are. So if he is wise he will often pray to be delivered from his friends, because they will ruin him. But though it hurts, he ought also to pray never to be left without opponents; for they keep him on the path of reason and good sense.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)