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).

The disaster occurred in shafts 15 and 16 of a "truck mine", just outside the town of Hyden, Kentucky, owned by Charles and Stanley Finley, which had opened the previous March on leased land, although their company had been mining in the area for ten years. The small operation involved about 170 employees, who were not members of United Mine Workers. Thirty-four infractions had been reported in its first three months of operation, but they had been fixed, and the mine had been shut down for 3 days in June due to safety concerns.

The Bureau of Mines had declared the mine an "imminent danger" due to blasting safety hazards in November 1970 but allowed the mine to continue operation. The hazards, which included excess accumulation of coal dust and electrical spark hazards, were discovered on November 19 and ordered to be cleaned up by December 22, but the agency was short of inspectors and could not reinspect on that date, as was required by law. The understaffed agency needed about 750 inspectors, but only had 499 at the time of the disaster.

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