ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, December 31, 1995 TAG: 9601020078
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: APPALACHIA
SOURCE: DAVID REED ASSOCIATED PRESS
THE DECLINE OF THE COAL INDUSTRY has made a desperate situation worse for people already used to hard times.
Stuart Fisher, a casualty of the collapsing coal industry, is poor for the first time in his life, and he's not taking it well.
Fisher was making $60,000 a year before he and 750 others lost their jobs when Westmoreland Coal Co. closed in Wise County last summer.
``He's destroyed,'' said his wife, Barbara, who took a $150-a-week job as a cook just to keep food on the family table.
Poverty is never far away in the coalfields of Virginia, and generation after generation of mining families has known its pain.
But as coal reserves run out, the resiliency of the boom-and-bust coal industry is gone forever. Coal employment in Virginia has fallen from 14,339 jobs in 1980 to 7,860 this year. By 2005, the state expects to lose another 2,000 mining jobs.
In Wise County, the unemployment rate reached 17.7 percent in October, the most recent figures available. By contrast, the statewide jobless rate fell to 4.4 percent, down from 4.6 percent in September and the lowest October rate in six years.
Nationally, the long-term decline in coal employment continued in November as 3,000 coal industry jobs disappeared.
In Virginia's coal-producing counties, an average of 22 percent of the residents live below the poverty line. Even before Westmoreland closed, nearly half of the households in Wise County got by on less than $15,000 a year.
Wise County's social services director, Micah Kennedy, said the ties to the coal industry have led to a tremendous amount of working poor. Because the county has few economic opportunities, many people end up working minimum-wage jobs with no benefits, he said.
``The working poor, in my opinion, are increasing and are not able to survive without some food stamps and medical assistance,'' Kennedy said. ``It's just very difficult.''
Winter magnifies the bleakness in coal country. The snow turns a dirty gray from coal dust that blows off huge, heavy trucks. Tree limbs bared by the bitter chill no longer hide ugly brown gashes in the mountainsides, the scars of strip mining.
Fisher, 50, was a supervisor at Westmoreland, and now he is about to lose everything he's worked for in his 27 years with the company. His unemployment benefits have run out, and he's too depressed to talk about it, his wife said.
Fisher has no money to pay the doctor who prescribes the tranquilizers he takes during the day and the sleeping pills he takes at night, she said.
``He worked his whole life to build up something, and his credit was something he was so proud of,'' said Barbara Fisher, 40. ``Now he has to go on the good will of the doctor.''
They sold a truck to help make ends meet, and the bank is letting the Fishers pay only the interest on their mortgage for now. But they may end up losing the house. Diabetes recently disabled their 22-year-old son, who lives at home now. On top of all of that, Barbara Fisher's job ends this summer.
``I'm just scared every night,'' she said at the end of her work shift recently. ``You go to bed thinking about it, and you wake up thinking about it. The stress is unreal. You go to the store, and you see other people crying. There are no jobs here.''
Linda Mullins' husband has been out of work for more than a year. But she has had more time than Barbara Fisher, her friend and co-worker, to adjust to it. ``It's harder on her than it is on me, who is used to living on nothing.''
Most people in the southwestern corner of Virginia who depend on the coal industry are used to hard times. Mines close, and people are thrown out of work until new mines open and the industry rebounds.
They squirrel away money for the lean times. They hunt deer and freeze the venison. They plant gardens and can vegetables. And when they see a layoff coming, they refinance their loans and sometimes trade down on their cars.
Families generally are close-knit, and those with jobs help those without. Some commute long distances, and others work during the week out of state. There is a saying down here that everybody's a fifth cousin to everybody else.
``We have a closeness down here you don't get anywhere else,'' said Donna Mahan, a parks and recreation department worker in Wise County.
In the 1890s, after a railroad junction was built here, Appalachia became known as ``The Magic City of Wise County,'' a place where people came by passenger train from Kentucky, West Virginia and Tennessee to shop and do business.
Now, only about 30 stores remain open where once there were 400. Half of the 1,960 residents are on fixed incomes, and 75 percent of public school children qualify for free lunches.
Before the Westmoreland shutdown, 3,011 of Wise County's 17,364 workers, 17 percent, were directly employed by the coal mining industry. Many others worked in retail businesses that were dependent on the wages those miners earned - on average, $42,000 a year.
Ron Flanery, director of the planning district that includes Wise County, said he expects the mining jobs to be replaced with lower-paying jobs at two state prisons now under construction and a textile factory being expanded.
``There is some promise out there,'' Flanery said. ``There certainly is life after coal.''
LENGTH: Long : 106 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. 1. In Appalachia, only about 30 stores remain openby CNBwhere once there were 400. The town has tried to make the street
look less empty by painting boards on vacant storefronts to resemble
open shops. color. 2. The Westmoreland Coal Co. Bullitt Complex in
Appalachia closed this year, leaving hundreds of Wise County
residents jobless. The county's unemployment rate hit 17.7 percent
in October. Graphic. Map.