SWISS, W.Va. — Governor Patrick Morrisey says there’s still hope of finding the coal miner that went missing on Saturday alive.
The miner, who has been described as a foreman, has been unaccounted for since Alpha Metallurgical’s Rolling Thunder Mine flooded on Saturday.
Morrisey visited the mine Tuesday evening and met with reporters.
“I don’t have any updates to report right now. Obviously, it’s been a few days, but I can tell you this. This is still a rescue mission, and it’s focused on trying to retrieve the miner,” Morrisey said.
A Tuesday morning update sent out by Morrisey said that the efforts to pump water out of the mine have picked up. He said crews are pumping about 6,000 gallons of water a minute out of the mine.
Morrisey said in a previous update that several million gallons of water had been pumped out of the mine since Saturday, but there was still work to be done.
“There’s still a lot of water down there, so that’s the biggest challenge right now,” Morrisey told reporters Tuesday “When you have that kind of volume of water, it makes it very difficult. There were a few dive teams and that information was very valuable, but it’s very difficult to bring together both the diving and the mine safety rescue efforts.”
“I think there is still a lot of water, but every conceivable effort is being put in to get rid of that water,” he continued.
Morrisey told reporters that there are a number of crew members that have been in the mine measuring how the water levels are going down.
“As the water goes down, that’s going to further enable additional mine safety efforts to try to identify the individual,” Morrisey said. “Right now, the big effort is trying to clear out the water. It’s a little preliminary to know at what level the water is going to be at so we can send more people down.”
He said the process has to be done in the most safe way possible.
Morrisey took a moment Tuesday to recognize the crews working around the clock to try to make a rescue.
“Everyone is working really hard. They’re working around the clock and they’re doing everything to help their colleague. This is a person they know very well. We’re still not revealing the name right now, but I can tell you that people still want to put in all the amount of time to give this guy a chance,” he said.
He says this situation has been a chance for the state to rally around its coal miners and appreciate the dangerous work they do.
“We’re seeing people in West Virginia come together to rally around the miner. I think that it’s important, whether you’re in Mingo County, whether you’re in Martinsburg, or whether you’re right here in Nicholas County, that everyone knows that these miners go to work every day and they’re doing really hard work. It’s not always the safest profession as we know,” Morrisey said.