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HUNTINGTON - For nearly two weeks, the message from mining executives and regulators leading rescue efforts at the Crandall Canyon mine has been one of relentless hope and cautious optimism. But that gave way to something else on Sunday:
Reality.
A video camera lowered into the mine's fourth borehole again showed no signs of the six miners missing since the Aug. 6 mine collapse, and monitors revealed oxygen levels too low to support life. With that grim evidence, it was left to Rob Moore, vice president of mine owner Murray Energy Corp., to acknowledge what many had already feared.
"It's likely that these miners may not be found," Moore said.
With those words, Moore and other officials suggested for the first time that the search for Kerry Allred, Don Erickson, Luis Hernandez, Juan Carlos Payan, Brandon Phillips and Manuel Sanchez might end without their recovery.
That earned an angry response from the miners' families Sunday evening. Breaking their ordeal-long silence through a spokesman, Price attorney Sonny Olsen, the families accused the company and federal regulators of "giving up."
However, the continuing failure to find any sign of the Crandall Six, coupled with Thursday's devastating second collapse that killed rescue workers Dale Black, Brandon Kimber and Gary Jensen, and injured six others, has severely narrowed the options.
Asked Sunday if the drilling that started earlier in the day for a fifth exploratory hole would be the last, Moore replied: "We'll need to discuss that further but it may very well be."
Over the past two weeks, four holes have been drilled into the mine from the mountain above. Results of the fourth hole spurred the doubt. Richard Stickler, assistant secretary of the U.S. Labor Department and head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), said a video recording showed no signs of the miners and extensive damage to that area of the mine. Oxygen levels measured at 7 or 8 percent are not enough to support life.
The fifth hole is being directed to an area about 1,200 feet from hole No. 4 and closer to the mine entrance. Miners who survived the initial collapse on Aug. 6 - powerful enough to trigger a 3.9 seismic event - said that's where the trapped men might have fled, Moore said.
The newest hole will be about 2,000 feet deep and could be finished late Tuesday or early Wednesday. Moore said he expects the oxygen levels and environment to again be incapable of supporting life.
The six miners have been missing since just before 3 a.m. on Aug. 6, when they were working in a section deep inside the mine. Coal and rock blew off the tunnel's walls and the floor rose up and crumbled, choking the tunnel with as much as 2,500 feet of rubble between the six and their fellow miners.
The slow, painstaking effort to carve through that rock and coal ended Thursday, when another section collapsed on miners trying to dig out the six men, killing Black and Jensen, both 48, and Kimber, 29.
Work to remove the rubble has not resumed since that collapse. If the six survived the initial collapse, mine and federal officials said they could have enough water and oxygen to still be alive.
MSHA consultants from West Virginia and elsewhere on Sunday were evaluating the state of the mine to determine whether work can resume.
"The mountain continues to be active, continues to move," Stickler said.
If the mine is structurally sound enough to allow excavating to resume, workers might reach the trapped men in six days, officials have said.
Besides working inside the mine, rescuers have been drilling holes, ranging from 2 1/2 inches wide to 8 inches, from the top of the mountain. Microphones and cameras have been lowered, but have recorded no sign of the men. Last week, two seismic detectors called geophones picked up a faint sound at one point, but nothing that could be identified as coming from the trapped men.
The mine owners and federal regulators also have discussed boring a 36-inch-wide hole from the top of the mountain so workers could be lowered and raised in a basket - something the families said Sunday they have been lobbying for from the start. That hole would be about 1,500 feet deep and could take two to three weeks to complete.
Moore was pressed Sunday on whether the attempts to reach the miners was still considered a rescue. He said only, "We're attempting to locate these miners."
"We are not going to take any unacceptable risks," he added. "Thursday night, we had an awful tragedy here."
Moore said he discussed the situation earlier in the day with the families of the six trapped men. He said the meeting was "very emotional," though he described the families as more frustrated than angry.
Other residents of Emery and Carbon counties, the heart of the state's coal region, have followed the search closely. Signs saying "Pray For Our Miners" have been hanging on schools, businesses and homes here since the initial collapse. Motorists have painted similar sentiments on their car windows. There have been vigils and fundraisers, some built into previously planned community events and some organized on a few days' notice.
If the bodies of the six men are left behind in the Crandall Canyon mine, it could leave a mournful footnote in the history of Utah mine disasters. It was not immediately clear Sunday night whether the state's coal-mining industry had ever before left behind so many dead or presumed dead.