More on Crandall Canyon's communications disaster

KUTV is running this Associated Press story about the collapse at the Crandall Canyon mine.

Let's take a look at the statements by Murray Energy Corp. CEO Robert Murray and the contradictory, sourced statements that AP was able to get:

• Murray, who claims the cave-in was caused by an earthquake, said seismic activity and other factors “have totally shut down our rescue efforts underground.”
• Rafael Abreu, a geologist at National Earthquake Information Center in Colorado, said aftershocks were recorded, even if scientists don’t believe a natural earthquake occurred Monday...the University of Utah Seismograph Stations and the U.S. Geological Survey in Denver said it appeared the trembling was caused by the cave-in. Mine collapses have a seismic signature distinct from earthquakes because they tend to occur at shallower depths and at different frequencies. The first motions of the Utah disturbance indicated a downward movement consistent with a collapse, scientists said. If it had been an earthquake, it would have produced up and down motions on the seismograms, they said.
  
• Murray lashed out at the news media for suggesting his men were conducting “retreat mining,” in which miners pull down the last standing pillars of coal and let the roof fall in. “This was caused by an earthquake, not something that Murray Energy ... did or our employees did or our management did,” he said, his voice often rising in anger. “It was a natural disaster. An earthquake. And I’m going to prove it to you.”
• Amy Louviere, a spokeswoman for the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration in Washington, said the men at the mine were, in fact, conducting retreat mining. But Louviere said that exactly what the miners were doing, and whether that led to the collapse, can be answered only after a full investigation. Retreat mining has been blamed for 13 deaths since 2000, and the government requires mining companies to submit a roof control plan before beginning such mining. Such a plan details how and when the pillars will be cut and in what order. The mine had submitted such a plan and received approval in 2006, Louviere said.
  
• At an evening briefing for reporters, he said the miners, if alive, could survive “for perhaps weeks” on air available 1,500 feet below ground.
• While Murray believes there’s enough air and water for them to survive, the government’s chief mine inspector in the West was not as confident. “We’re hoping there’s air down there. We have no way of knowing that,” said MSHA’s Al Davis.

It is an absolute travesty that a company that is engaged in activities such as coal mining (d'ya think there might be a cave-in at some point?) can't do a better job of communication than is being demonstrated here.

The 2006 Sago Mine tragedy and its utterly tortured denouement, in which families rejoiced, then grieved, based on an incorrect report that 12 miners were to be rescued, was one thing.

The 1992 Westray mine explosion in my home province of Nova Scotia showed just how deadly coal mining could be, and how badly-done communications could add to the antagonism, and the agony of the situation for mine officials, for journalists, and for families. Mount Saint Vincent University PR prof Trudie Richards published an exhaustive analysis of what happened in that case in the Canadian Journal of Communications.

There's no lack of crisis communications specialists. How can corporations be so ignorant, or so uncaring?

Bob.