9-for-9, Nine Years Later

Scott Detrow

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Scott Detrow is a congressional correspondent for NPR. He also co-hosts the NPR Politics Podcast.

Detrow joined NPR in 2015 to cover the presidential election. He focused on the Republican side of the 2016 race, spending time on the campaign trail with Donald Trump, and also reported on the election's technology and data angles.

Detrow worked as a statehouse reporter for member stations WITF in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and KQED in San Francisco, California. He has also covered energy policy for NPR's StateImpact project, where his reports on Pennsylvania's hydraulic fracturing boom won a DuPont-Columbia and national Edward R. Murrow Award in 2013.

July 26, 2011 | 2:57 PM

It’s been 9 years since the famous “9 for 9” rescue at the Quecreek Mine in Somerset County.
All 9 men were pulled out of the flooded mine alive, after nearly 80 hours underground. It was a dramatic success story unparalleled, until last year’s rescue of 33 Chilean miners.
Memorial ceremonies began over the weekend, according to the Somerset County Daily American:

On Saturday, at the Quecreek Mine Rescue site at Dormel farm near Somerset, people took part in the anniversary celebration of their rescue and got a look at the new visitor’s center.
“Sometimes it seems like it was yesterday that the rescue was ongoing,” said Bill Arnold, president of the Quecreek Mine Rescue Foundation and owner of the farm.
“Sometimes it seems like it was a lifetime ago. It is always very special to know that we have come to another year, another celebration of nine men being rescued successfully and all 18 men who were in the mine returned safely back to their families.”

Meantime, the work continues on a permanent visitors center, with the goal of completing construction by next year’s 10-year anniversary of the rescue.
Want more context on the story? Check out the online book Post-Gazette reporters wrote about the accident and rescue.