NARM tornado trekked 3.8 miles through county; mine resumes operations

GILLETTE - The tornado that pummeled North Antelope Rochelle Mine last Friday traveled a nearly four-mile path from the Converse County line through the massive southern Campbell County open-pit coal mine where it ripped apart buildings, flipped empty train cars and injured eight people.

The long-track twister, officially graded as an EF-2 on the zero-to-five tornado scale, grew as wide as 700 yards during its 3.8-mile course northeast into Campbell County with a duration between 5:49 p.m. and 6:05 p.m., according to an event summary from the National Weather Service office in Rapid City, South Dakota.

Once reaching the mine site, the 120-130 mph gusts tore metal roofs and wall panels from workshops while flipping vehicles, buses and shipping containers, according to the report.

The tornado also knocked a dozen empty train cars off of the tracks, said Leslie Perkins, Campbell County public information officer, the night of the storm.

David King, emergency management coordinator, told the News Record this week that an estimated 400-600 workers were on site when the tornado struck during shift change between the day and night shifts.

Given the circumstances, he said responders were surprised to have just eight people hurt and no deaths.

"When you have a tornado come down on a site that has as many people as there were ... The absolute expectation when they take a direct hit - when you put a direct hit on that kind of industrial structure - all you can do is expect the worst," King said.

All workers were accounted for as of 10 p.m. and of the eight people hurt during the storm, six were taken to Campbell County Memorial Hospital for treatment, one was taken to Douglas and another declined treatment. All were released from the hospital as of Sunday morning.

The brunt of the damage affected the mine site but the tornado also snapped wooden power poles and tipped over a number of empty train cars at the county line where it originated, according to the event report.

The tornado did not leave a visible track on the ground marking the path it took through Campbell County.

Partial operations resumed Saturday night and the mine restored full power and began loading trains this week, according to a statement Thursday from Peabody Energy. All mine equipment is now operational and the mine continues to ramp up its operations as clean up continues.

After pausing operations in the aftermath of the storm, the mine gradually regained operations with a focus toward restoring the train loading dock and the mine's North facility, according to a weekend Peabody statement.

As of Sunday morning, the mine was still without power in some parts and rail cars blown over in the storm had yet to be recovered.

The emergency response began with a 6:07 p.m. report that the west side of the mine had been struck by a tornado. Arriving firefighters performed search and rescue operations and contained various leaking hazardous materials, according to a fire department press release.

Ambulances from Campbell and Converse counties responded to the site of the incident and an air ambulance waited on standby but was not needed to transport any patients from the mine site.

A number of agencies responded, including Campbell County Health EMS, the Douglas Fire Department, the Campbell County Sheriff's Office and mine rescue teams from NARM and Black Thunder.

By the time responders made the 60-plus-mile drive down wet roads and into stormy conditions, the NARM's mine rescue team had already established an incident command post and began search and rescue operations.

In Gillette, the hospital readied 300 workers, including 200 who were not on shift at the time, according to a CCH press release. A family reunification center was started on the hospital's fifth floor to reunite and provide information for families of mine workers.

"The consensus was it went well," King said of the emergency response following an after-action meeting among local agencies this week. "We had some things we'd like to do a little better next time in terms of the coordination and so forth."

The same series of storms last Friday caused tornadoes, severe weather and flooding throughout northeastern Wyoming and western South Dakota.

The long-track tornado system that struck NARM moved through southern Campbell and Weston counties. Storms that night caused flash flooding in Spearfish, South Dakota and dropped up to two-inch hail in some parts of the area, according to the event report.