ARTICLE Chasing the Answers to the Questions Sago Raised________________________ Anna Sale Many Americans had the day off—Monday, January 2, 2006. It was an extra day to celebrate the dawning of a new year. But not the miners at International Coal Group's Sago Mine in Upshur County, West Virginia. They headed underground at six in the morning. Just half an hour later, the mine exploded. Thick smoke filled the mine, poisoning the air. And thirteen men were missing underground. Over the next forty-one hours, mine rescue crews headed to Upshur County. The families waited at the Sago Baptist Church. The media descended . The top executives of International Coal Group updated the world about the effort to bring the men out alive. I followed the saga from afar, from a newsroom in Charleston. I searched the records of regulatory agencies and business filings in the hours between updates from the company. Then, I stayed up through the night at home, waiting for a resolution. Like so many others, I went to sleep comforted by the flashing TV graphics that twelve of the thirteen men were alive. But a few hours later, I awoke to a different version of events, leaving me first disoriented, then deeply upset. I wasn't alone. Unlike so many media spectacles, the headlines continued after the dramatic climax. America needed them. This was no Quecreek, the mine search that ended in the heroic rescue of nine Pennsylvania miners in 2002. There was no closure. Instead of a madefor -TV ending, there was the botched communication and the dead bodies of twelve men. Instead of resolution, there was only the question —how could this have happened? In the process of chasing the answers, the world remembered coal mining. They paused to consider the long process of extraction, combustion and transmission that preceded the flickering images on their television. And they remembered Appalachia. Before long, though, that spotlight dimmed. Updates on Randall McCloy, Junior, and the mourning of a community moved to later in the broadcast and further back in the newspaper. Then, less than three weeks after the Sago explosion, I was on the road, heading southfrom Charleston, to watch as another tortuous waitunfolded. 67 In Logan County, just like in Upshur County three weeks before, there was the church of anxious families holding vigil, the encampments of media satellite trucks, and the briefings that didn't come soon or often enough. And the deaths of two more men. It was nearly inconceivable that we'd all be in the same position again, but it served as an emphatic reminder that it was too soon to move on. Then again, as an added insult, two separate mine accidents on the first day of February, and two more West Virginia miners dead. At press time, many of the facts surrounding the deadly accidents are not known. Speculation is whirling, but for now, it's not known what caused the accidents, or how preventable they were. Nevertheless , investigative reporters within and outside the region have done a laudable job sketching the broader context surrounding the disasters. And it's clear that like any historical moment that suddenly demands the public's attention, the deaths of fourteen miners have unearthed economic, social, and political trends that have been decades in development. Front and center in the story is the current market for coal. After bust-and-bust cycles through much of the 1980s and 1990s, the current coal boom has made coal a good investment. Case in point, the Sago Mine. International Coal Group bought the mine last year, after Sago's previous owner had struggled to stay out of bankruptcy. It's a newly-formed public company, a hybrid of management that knew coal and outside money and that liked the odds of a market rebound. Its cash comes from billionaire New York investor Wilbur Ross. Its CEO is Ben Hatfield, a career coal executive who'd previously worked for Arch Coal and Massey Energy. He's a native of eastern Kentucky, and coal's a family affair. His twin brother headed Martin County Coal when one of its impoundments failed, spilling 350 million gallons of coal slurry...