First Responders from three counties acted quickly when a tornado formed directly over the largest open pit coal mine in the U.S. outside Gillette. Emergency management centers were already monitoring a storm that created a funnel cloud at least three times. After moving along the Campbell and Converse County lines, the storm took a turn that positioned it over the North Antelope Rochelle Mine.
“Our responders treated it from the initial call as if it was a mass casualty incident because when you are told there's a tornado just dead centered at the coal mine at shift change, you're assuming the absolute worst,” said David King, Campbell County Emergency Management Coordinator. “This happened at shift change at six o'clock at night. So they had double the crews on site. So there were somewhere in the neighborhood of 400, possibly 500, people on the mine site at the time.”
Power poles south of the mine were snapped and a number of empty rail cars blew over, but the majority of the damage was contained within the middle of the mine site. The roof of the changing room, where a majority of workers were located when the tornado dropped down, was ripped off. The tornado caused the gas and power to go down and responders worked in the dark to ensure everyone’s safety. By 10 p.m., King and responders were able to verify that all personnel were accounted for with eight injured miners. King calls it “miraculous” that more people were not hurt. The North Antelope Rochelle Mine is back up and running and all eight miners have since been released from the hospital.
King said that a mock mass casualty incident practiced a week prior by Campbell County responders helped to prepare them. On top of that, the Wyoming Office of Homeland Security had already dispatched extra personnel to the State Response Coordination Center for improved communication between emergency officials as the storm cell was moving through.
King said the coordination between local, state and private officials also contributed to a swift response. Events like this display the importance of emergency response centers to monitor severe weather events.
“We're getting better at detection. Used to be you’d have a storm in northern Campbell County and you wouldn't hear about it till the rancher came to town to pick up his supplies for the week or something. And now we see it on radar, and we can go check on it or we can call him on the phone. So we get the data a lot faster,” King said.
Local officials held an after-action meeting that same week in which all responding agencies shared information and discussed how they can improve their response times or if they need to make any major changes in operational procedure. Campbell County Fire, Campbell County Health in Gillette, the Sheriff’s Office and their volunteer search and rescue, ambulances from Douglas and Natrona County, as well as Peabody Energy mine rescue teams all mobilized to respond to the tornado.