Mine CEO digs out

Mine company CEO Ben Hatfield gave a lengthy news conference today in which he undid at least a little of the damage he did earlier.

Their side of the story was that a transmission from the mining rescue team over a mile down in the mine, through wired microphones inside their breathing apaaratus, was garbled. They said that a transmission came from the rescue team to the above ground command center which the person listening interpreted as saying they'd found 12 "survivors".

They said they'd established code words for survivors or dead before hand, and when they said they'd found an "item", it meant they'd found a survivor. But after that, a message was apparently sent and interpreted as saying that the other 12 were alive.

Hatfield flatly denied telling family members at the church that their family members were alive, directly contradicting the testimony of several people who were there. One woman even said that in the confusion, she found herself next to the West Virginia governor. She touched his sleeve and asked him directly whether the miners were alive, and he replied, "Yes."

Despite the fact that those in the above ground command center knew within 20 minutes that the report that all were alive was in error, and the fact that they knew that at the church, the bells were ringing and family and members of the community were ecstatic and celebrating the survival of their loved ones and neighbors, they didn't inform these people for another 2 1/2 hours that all twelve were dead.

This is the critical mistake. They should have informed the family members IMMEDIATELY as soon as they found out the information they'd given out was at least not confirmed. Their excuse is that they didn't want to make any announcement until they could determine how many of the 12, if any, were alive and how many had perished.

Not a good excuse. To his credit, Hatfield said that in hindsight, he would have let the family know that the information had changed.

That's the least they should have done. Even if they were not certain of how many were alive or dead, they at the very least should have immediately let the families know that they did NOT know how many were alive or dead, that they were awaiting further word, and would inform them as soon as they could confirm things.
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Another item of great interest to me occurred while they were under the false impression that all the miners were alive. Anderson Cooper corraling a couple young Christian church leaders. He thought this was a great angle, and he interviewed one young man who was a youth pastor and another who was an associate.

They proudly told of how they felt that there might be young family members who needed some Christian support and so they showed up to provide it, which of course, is commendable.

But Cooper kept pressing them on the God angle which is so "hot" these days among the media. He asked them if they felt the power of prayers and the influence of God and faith was responsible for the survival of all the miners.

Oh yes, the minister said, he most definitely felt it was devine intervention which had spared these men, the power of prayer, etc.

Oooops. Nevermind.