CASTLE DALE, Emery County — The mother of one of the coal miners trapped in the Crandall Canyon Mine lost her brother in the Wilberg Mine disaster 23 years ago, friends confirmed Thursday.
Sheila Snow Phillips is the mother of Brandon Phillips, who just two weeks ago joined the crew caught in Monday's collapse in Huntington, Emery County.
Her brother was killed in 1984 when an explosion in the nearby Wilberg Mine caused a fire that took the lives of 26 men and one woman.
"Brandon's mother lost her brother, Ray Snow, in the Wilberg Mine disaster," said Dennis Jones, a neighbor of the Phillips family in Orangeville, Emery County. "So Brandon's mom has now lost a brother and her son is trapped. She's been through a lot. This brings back a lot of the memories about her brother and Wilberg."
Jones taught Brandon Phillips when he was a student at Orangeville's Cottonwood Elementary School, where Jones is now the principal.
Ray Snow was 27 when he died, not much older than Brandon Phillips, who is 24.
Brandon Phillips was living with his parents in Orangeville, said city treasurer Cindy Neilson. Phillips is unmarried but has a 3-year-old son and two younger sisters.
"That family is dealing with a lot," Nielson said.
Sheila Phillips' plight is on the minds of miners and their families throughout the central Utah coal-mining belt of Orangeville, Castle Dale, Huntington, Cleveland, Elmo and Ferron, where her brother is buried, and up to Helper in Carbon County, home of one of the buried miners, Don Erickson.
"The media just says things about Huntington," Nielson said, "but it's all of us when it comes to this."
Orangeville was the center of attention in 1984 because the Wilberg Mine is just north of the city. The Wilberg Mine is just southwest of Huntington's Crandall Canyon Mine where Phillips and the other five members of his crew have spent four days trapped 1,800 feet underground.
E-mail: twalch@desnews.com