Get to the hospital, the caller advised. There's been another mishap at the Crandall Canyon mine.

Only upon arriving at Castleview Hospital on the night of Aug. 16 did Piccolo truly comprehend the severity of the situation; and, on later reflection, he understood how important coordination between government and industry would be in such calamities in the future.

"When I got there, they were still counting up the number of injuries," he said. "They really hadn't publicized, until after that point, that there was an additional collapse" of the mine's walls, killing three rescue workers and injuring six others. The victims had been trying to rescue six men entombed by an even larger breakdown of the Crandall Canyon mine's inner workings 10 days earlier.

Before long, hundreds of agitated residents gathered in the parking lot of the Price hospital, anxious to find out if their husbands, fathers, sons or friends were among the newest victims. Piccolo conferred quickly with hospital and law-enforcement officials. He determined they were on top of their jobs - treating the injured, maintaining crowd control.

But what could he, the mayor, do?

"Help with the families," he was told. And so all three Piccolos went into action, doing what they could to provide comfort to frightened people, from an elderly woman in a wheelchair to a young girl looking for her dad.

"That was a terribly traumatic experience for me. Personally, I had some feelings come back that were 50 years old," said Piccolo, now 57, recalling how he learned as a 6-year-old that his father and two other men had been killed by a roof fall in the Deer Creek mine, just a short way down Huntington Canyon from the Crandall Canyon mine.

"That's not easily forgotten. I forgot many of the details and the feelings, but this situation brought many of them starkly back alive," he added. "A lot of things have changed, but delivering that horrible news to a widow, who wasn't a widow when her husband went to work, is a pretty difficult challenge still."

The intensity of the night also resurrected memories for Barbara Ann. Her father, Lamar Bishop, was a federal Mine Safety and Health Administration official involved in the unsuccessful effort to rescue the 27 victims of the 1984 Wilberg mine fire.

"Until something happens like this, you don't [know] what to expect," she said. "When we got out there, we didn't talk about anything. We just did."

While the Piccolos believe they responded well that night, the mayor also came away with the nagging feeling that better planning ahead of time would have alleviated the need to rely so much on instinct.

"As a public official, it's quite clear that when something happens in your community, you have an obligation and responsibility to respond appropriately," he said. "And it's not just coal-mining accidents. A train wreck up Price Canyon that spilled hydrochloric acid into the river would create a whole bunch of problems for us and we might not be aware of the consequences."

So now that he is also a member of the Utah Mine Safety Commission, which Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. appointed after Crandall Canyon to evaluate what the state should do to make its mines safer, Piccolo has concluded that better disaster-planning interaction is needed between the private and public sectors.

"I'm not sure the mines, the railroad or major industries in our community understand what our [disaster response] inventories and abilities are. That's something that needs to be worked out with the private sector on a continued basis," he said. "We've studied tabletop exercises for some scenarios, but we haven't applied them as greatly as I think we should."

And while officials in Carbon and Emery counties were thrust into the forefront during August's coal-mining disaster, Piccolo said every elected official in the state could face some sort of incident during their terms. "It happens all over, in one way or another."

Piccolo, who has been Price mayor for six years and a city councilman for six years before that, said the people of coal country are a resilient bunch who have lived through tragedies before and will weather this one as well.

But there is a sense of fragility, too. The disaster has left many people traumatized. There is also a lingering fear the disaster will spawn new government regulations that will cause mines to shut down, severely affecting the economy of east-central Utah, noted Piccolo, owner of four automotive shops in and around Price.

"In the long run, this is not an event. It's a process we're dealing with," he said. "The emotional side will take a generation to erase. No matter what happens, there will be people who will remember Aug. 6 and Aug. 16, 2007, for the rest of their lives."

Piccolo said the community has rallied well around the families of the nine men who lost their lives in the two mine implosions. But the six injured rescuers "seem to be feeling a little left out. We need to work hard to include the injured miners' families in our activities, in our generosity, in our prayers," he added. "There are 15 chronically affected families here, the widowed and injured both, not just nine."

Economically, the mayor maintained, the disaster makes coal mining more vulnerable to attacks by environmentalists concerned about the atmospheric effects of burning fossil fuels.

"The carbon footprint is a big topic of conversation in Washington, D.C. and on the West Coast in California. I think those pose a greater threat to the economic viability of coal than the industry's standards for safety," Piccolo said. "By its nature, the industry is dangerous. But it's certainly not unsafe, in my opinion."

mikeg@sltrib.com

Utah mine committee to meet today

The Utah Mine Safety Commission will hear from the federal Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Forest Service and state School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration when it meets at 10 a.m. today at the Utah Department of Natural Resources, 1594 W. North Temple in Salt Lake City.