First Big Coal Broke the Union. Then It Broke This Town.
A West Virginia community gets wiped off the map.
Read more: Kevin Drum on how screwing unions screws the middle class, and 11 charts that explain everything that's wrong with America.
From a chair on the porch of her home in a hollow deep in the Appalachians, Lora can see the top of Montcoal Mountain being blasted off. The explosions a mile and a half away ruffle her curtains, rattle family photos in her living room, and may be why her walls are laced with cracks. A fine gray dust settles on the steps as fast as she can sweep it off. The noise and "fly rock" raining down have forced her daughter and dozens of neighbors to sell their houses