BECKLEY, W.Va. — West Virginians are, by nature it seems, a resilient people.
Tragedy has struck this state many times over its 152 years of statehood. But in each and every instance, no matter the damage or the loss of life, the state’s people have picked themselves up again and moved forward, remembering the past and honoring the lost. Changes are made to repair the scarred landscape, to rebuild what was lost and to make sure that safety regulations change to prevent future catastrophes and loss of life.
The book, written exclusively by the journalists of the West Virginia newspapers, examines 26 tragedies that have happened within the state dating back to the 1884 Pocahontas East Mine explosion, which killed 114 miners, and the most recent, the February 2015 Mount Carbon train derailment, which fortunately had no loss of life.
For each of the tragedies, the stories are retold from historic documents, newspaper accounts and sometimes the people who remembered the time when it happened…